The Plan For Our Property

Today I’m sharing all about the plan for our property and I’m breaking down each area of what we’ll be adding over time!

While we’re still in the waiting phase of building our home (we’re getting closer to breaking ground every day) I thought it would be fun to share the plan for our property. While we’re very excited for our home, the acres surrounding it also bring us so much excitement!

Of course, not all of this will happen at once, and we’ll need to budget and plan for these big projects, but it’s fun to write down our plans so we can look back later to see how it all came together.

This is a special place to us and we have many, many years ahead of us, and a lot of hard work, to get all of this done, but we love seeing progress. It’s definitely a good motivator for me to be able to see how much our hard work has paid off.

The Plan For Our Property

The Wild Plums

If you read the blog post on what we named our property, you know one of the things we love most, is the patch of wild plum bushes that grow along the north edge of our land. Generations of my family have picked plums off these same exact bushes and Todd and I have plans to help them expand and grow even stronger.

In past years, they haven’t received the water or attention they’ve needed and certain areas of the bushes aren’t doing as well as they could be. We have plans to clear a few of the dead plants and get more water to them… which is something Todd is very passionate about.

Last year we also noticed several new bushes growing and that makes me so happy! I can’t wait to see this part of our property flourish as we spend more time helping it grow. I’m already excited (and ready) to make jam in my copper jam pan!

The Orchard

One of the other areas I’ve been so excited to start on, is our orchard. We’ve set aside extra land around our house to create our own private orchard with several different fruit trees.

I’ve been busy researching trees, different varieties and we’ve been working on the layout of the orchard. While we don’t need a large orchard just for ourselves and family members, we’d still like to have several different fruit trees. We’ll be planting two or three trees of each type: apple, peach, pear, cherry, and apricot.

I also still have my eye on a pecan tree, but we’re right on the edge of where it gets a little too cold and I worry we won’t have very good luck with it. The thought of having fresh pecans is pretty enticing though!

We had hoped we’d be able to get the orchard in this spring, but a few of the irrigation projects took most of our time. Instead, we’ll be adding the orchard next spring and we have a local tree nursery on board to supply our trees. We’ve reserved this lovely spot for it to grow:

It doesn’t look like much right now, but I can already see the growth these trees will have and how it will look once we have a mature orchard filled with fruit trees. One day, we’ll be able to look through our orchard and see our house sitting off in the distance.

What a lovely sight it will be!

We’ll probably have more fruit than we know what to do with, but canning is a passion of mine and we have large families that feel the same way.

Since we’re new to having an orchard, if you have any recommendations or suggestions, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments below.

The Garden

I know this area won’t fully come to life until we have the house built, but right next to our orchard, we’ll be planning and planting a large garden. Ideally, we’d like to create a garden area with raised beds and another area where we can grow larger plants and pumpkins that take up more space than raised beds allow.

It’s the best of both worlds and I can’t wait for this area to come to life. I love my garden and there’s nothing better than having a supply of fresh produce and veggies right out your door.

And looking even further into the future, we hope to have our own little greenhouse in this area too, which would really extend our growing season.

The Lavender Section

From the very beginning of buying this property, I told Todd I wanted to grow a very large section of lavender. It’s one of my favorite plants and I love all of the different uses we can do with it. It’s also beautiful to look at and it grows beautifully in our area.

I plan on incorporating lavender sections around our property, but we’ll have a large area next to the orchard and garden where we’ll be planting the bulk of our lavender plants and I honestly can’t wait to see this entire area of our property come to life!

The Ponds

Right now, our property has one small pond and we love it, but we have plans to dig a much larger pond in the pasture below where our house will eventually be.

The back patio of our house will overlook it and we’re excited to landscape around this area. It will make such a great view and I like that we’ll have a large distance between the house and pond. I’m already thinking about the mosquitoes and what we can do to mitigate the issue, but I also know it will be such a wonderful addition to our property and a great way to collect all the water run off we have in this area.

Improving The Irrigation System

I don’t talk about it a lot, but this is Todd’s passion! He and his brother own an irrigation/ pipe company that supplies our local agriculture (farmers, ranchers and many others) with the tools and pipe they need to move water across their properties.

Another reason we bought our property was because of the great water rights and because of the updated irrigation system. With that said, there was still room for improvement and Todd loves designing systems that will allow us to water our property in the most efficient way possible. We’re installing drip irrigation throughout the farm ground of our property and this will also include our orchard, garden and lavender plants as well!

Todd has been working hard this year to convert a few of the fields over to drip system and my dad and brother are using it to grow onions, corn and alfalfa…

A Barn For Our Milk Cow & Chickens

We’re also planning on building a new barn/shop on the property that will allow us to raise livestock!

I’ve always wanted a milk cow. It’s been a dream of mine for a long time and while the timing was never right in the past to get one, we’re now going to be in the perfect place to have a milk cow.

I know she’ll be a commitment, but the thought of having fresh milk, cream, butter, cheese (and whatever else we’d like to make) is too strong and I honestly couldn’t be more excited about this.

I’m an old soul and the idea of being able to have fresh milk and cream and being able to make my own butter basically sounds like heaven to me. Luckily, my great-grandma had several milk cows and my dad grew up milking them. I’m so glad he’ll be able to guide me along the way.

I also grew up raising cattle, so there won’t be as steep of a learning curve.

And of course, we’ll have a chicken coop! Farm fresh eggs are the best and I have so many uses for them in the kitchen.

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So, as of right now, that’s the plan for our property! I’m sure things will evolve and change once our home is built and we’re officially living there, but this feels like a really good starting point and we’re setting up all of our utilities and the driveway with all of this in mind. Fun times ahead!