The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner - by Ann Larkin Hansen (Spiral Bound)

About the Book

This practical workbook offers a detailed calendar of what to do when on a small farm or homestead -- from pruning apple trees to brooding chicks -- and shows how to organize each season's tasks efficiently and effectively.

Book Synopsis

This hardworking addition to the best-selling Backyard Homestead series offers expert advice on what tasks to do around your farm and when to do them--no matter where on the planet you call home.

Author Ann Larkin Hansen sets the priorities for each area of the farm, including the barn, garden, orchard, field, pasture, and woodlot. For every critical turn of the year (12 in all), Hansen provides an at-a-glance to-do list along with tips and a more in-depth discussion of key topics for the season. Easy-reference charts, checklists, and record-keeping sections help you keep track of it all.

Also available in this series: The Backyard Homestead, The Backyard Homestead Book of Building Projects, The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals, and The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How.

From the Back Cover

Your Success Depends on Your Timing

Whether it's pruning your apple trees or tuning up your tractor, knowing when to do each chore is key to a well-run farm. Ann Larkin Hansen divides each season into early, mid, and late sections and details what needs to be done during each to keep your garden, field, pasture, orchard, beeyard, barn, coop, equipment shed, woodlot, and wildlife habitate in good order. After setting seasonal priorities, every chapter examines a specific topic - such as cover crops, honey bees, and making hay - that's especially relevant for that sub-season. This practical, informative volume also provides plenty of room for your own record-keeping.

About the Author

Ann Larkin Hansen is a homesteader and a small-scale organic farmer. The author of The Organic Farming Manual, Finding Good Farmland, and Electric Fencing, Anne has lived on a small farm in northern Wisconsin since 1992, where she manages a small orchard, a moderate garden, 40 acres of tillable acreage, another 20 acres of rough pasture, about 120 acres of woods. She has sold hay, eggs, pork, and chickens in the past, but her main cash crop was always beef cattle until three years ago, when she switched to custom-grazing dairy heifers for a nearby organic dairy farm. She has been a journalist for nearly 30 years, primarily for magazines publications such as The Country Today, a state-wide agricultural newspaper in Wisconsin, and Mother Earth News.