Today I’m taking you on a homestead tour.
We live on 5 acres in the Chehalis River valley of southwest Washington State. We spent almost 8 years searching for the property where we would make our forever home.
It was raw land when we bought it. In 4-1/2 years we’ve planted trees, built a garden, raised chickens, built a HOUSE and so much more.
Homestead Tour Highlights
We start at the front of the property, at our bamboo screen. Well, it isn’t so much a screen yet. The bamboo has been in the ground for almost 4 years and it has barely spread at all.
The bamboo will provide a privacy screen, help filter road dust, and hopefully, we will be able to harvest mature culms for plant stakes.
Next, we move on to the beginnings of our blueberry patch followed by the vegetable garden. The low tunnel in the garden is working great! I even made a video about how I built it.
Between the garden and the bamboo, we have a mixed row of hawthorns which are medicinal and will also act as a secondary screen for road dust, alternating with escallonia.
On the other side of the driveway is our filbert orchard along with more bamboo. We’ve been struggling with blight on a couple of them and they will have to be removed.
Next is the food forest. If you’d like to see a detailed tour of our food forest, you can find that here.
One of our asparagus beds sits under our small solar array. The solar powers the 12-volt system in the travel trailer that we lived in before the house was done.
Our little greenhouse can barely fit two of us at once but it has worked great for growing starts in the spring, growing fodder in the winter, and overwintering some of my more tender perennials.
Around and Back Again
Behind the house is our chicken run.
Past the food forest is what I hope to turn in to a “fedge” or food hedge. It is a layered hedge row that is all edible plants.
Between the garden and the house is one of the first beds we put in. We have 3 tea plants, 2 blueberries, and a few herbs that are being crowded out by the Uva Ursi.
Finally, we get to my “shade” garden on the north side of our shipping container. It is an ornamental garden primarily in purple and yellow.
I hope you enjoyed your tour of our homestead. Did you learn something new? Be srue to tell us in the comments!