The story
One family, one acre, a lot of trial and error.
We are not experts. We are a household that decided to grow more of its own food and write down everything we learned — the good seasons and the humbling ones.
Est. 2019 · Plate II
the Homestead Journal began with more enthusiasm than skill: a tired patch of land, a leaning shed, and a stack of borrowed books. We thought we would have it figured out in a season. We did not.
What we did have was a habit of writing things down — when we sowed, what failed, which recipe actually used up the glut of courgettes. Over a few years those scribbled notes turned into this journal.
“We kept the failures in the record on purpose. They are the part that taught us anything.”
These days the plot feeds us through most of the year, the hens mostly behave, and we still learn something every single week. This site is where we keep it honest — so if a hard-won lesson here saves you a wasted season, it has done its job.
The plot, in figures
How we work
Three things we hold to
Grow honestly
We record what went wrong as carefully as what went right. The record is only useful if it is true.
Waste little
Compost the scraps, mend the tools, save the seed. The cheapest harvest is the one you did not throw away.
Share freely
Nobody taught themselves this from scratch. If something here helped us, it might help you too.
How we got here
A few seasons, briefly
The leaning shed
Took on a tired half-acre with high hopes and no real plan.
First real harvest
Learned exactly what slugs can do to a row of lettuce overnight.
The hens arrive
Added three hens, lost a few lessons to a fox, started keeping this journal in earnest.
Doubling down
Doubled the beds and put in a small polytunnel to stretch the seasons.
Still at it
Still learning, still muddy, still writing it all down.
Come along
Read the journal, or say hello
Wander through seven years of entries, or write to us with a question — we read every note.