Heath Homestead
🌱 2027 PLAN 📚 FREE GUIDES 🔥 WINTER PROJECTS Heath HOMESTEAD CLOSED for the season see you in 2027

The stand is tucked in for winter.

The shelves are swept, the hens are in, and the last loaf found a good home. Thank you for every Saturday morning, every "just one more," and every neighbor who pulled in on the way past. You made the 2026 season one worth remembering.

Come the spring of 2027 we'll be back on the pallet with fresh bread, farm eggs, freeze-dried treats and whatever the garden sends up first. Until then the ovens stay warm, the hens keep laying, and we'll be sketching out next year's rows, with the odd update posted along the way.

See you in the spring of 2027,
the Heath family

The winter shelf

A free shelf of reading and small projects for the long months between seasons. Nothing to buy. Open a shelf, pick something, and come spring you'll be a step ahead of us.

Getting ready for 2027month by month, for our corner of Michigan
  1. November Put the beds to bed: pull spent plants, spread a blanket of leaves, and write down what grew well and what sulked. Clean and oil the tools before they rust in the shed.
  2. December Seed catalogs land. Draw next year's garden on graph paper, one square to a foot, and move each family of plants to a new bed. Deep-clean the coop and pile the bedding high.
  3. January Order seeds early; the good varieties sell out by February. Count your jars and lids. Keep the hens' water from freezing and give them something to scratch at on the dull days.
  4. February Late in the month, start onions, leeks and celery under lights. When days climb above freezing and nights drop below, the maples start to run.
  5. March Start tomatoes, peppers and eggplant indoors around the middle of the month, six to eight weeks before the last frost. Prune fruit trees before the buds swell. Order chicks.
  6. April Peas, spinach, lettuce and radishes go in as soon as the soil can be worked. Set seedlings outside on mild afternoons to toughen up. Chicks arrive and the brooder lamp goes on.
  7. May Watch the forecast; the last frost here usually comes in the middle of the month. Once it has passed, tomatoes and peppers go out, and the stand opens.
The reference shelffree guides we lean on, from people who know
  • Frost-free dates for Michigan MSU Extension A table of spring frost odds for every weather station in the state. Pontiac is our nearest: even odds of frost through May 6, and a frost as late as May 25 on record.
  • Starting seeds indoors MSU Extension, Michigan Fresh series A short, free bulletin on containers, light, timing and hardening off. Read it before the seed order arrives.
  • Planting calendar for Davisburg The Old Farmer's Almanac Crop-by-crop dates for starting indoors, transplanting and sowing straight in the ground, worked out from the local frost dates.
  • USDA plant hardiness zone map U.S. Department of Agriculture Type in your zip code to find your zone, which tells you which fruit trees, berries and perennials will live through our winters.
  • Home soil test Michigan State University A mail-in kit that comes back with your soil's pH and nutrients and a plain fertilizer plan. The one thing worth spending a little on before spring.
  • Michigan's Cottage Food Law Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development What you can bake or make in a home kitchen and sell without a license, and how to label it. The same rules our stand runs under. MSU Extension also runs a free online course on it.
  • Cold weather preparation for small flocks MSU Extension Keeping hens dry, ventilated, fed and watered through a Michigan winter, and what frostbite on a comb looks like.
  • National Center for Home Food Preservation University of Georgia and USDA The tested recipes and times for canning, freezing, drying and pickling. If a method isn't in here, be careful with it.
  • Composting at home MSU Extension, Smart Gardening series How to turn leaves, scraps and coop bedding into next year's garden soil, and how to keep the pile working in the cold.
  • Making maple syrup Michigan Department of Natural Resources Which trees to tap, when the sap runs, and how to boil it down at home. Late February to March is the window around here.
  • Seed saving basics Seed Savers Exchange How to harvest, dry and store seed from this year's best plants so next year's garden costs nothing.
  • Michigan Seed Library Network Volunteer-run, statewide Find a seed library near you, borrow seeds for free in spring, and bring some back in the fall.
Things to do by the stovesmall winter projects, mostly free
  • Map the garden. Graph paper, a pencil, and last year's notes. Decide where the tomatoes go before the seedlings are begging for a spot.
  • Wake up a sourdough starter. Flour, water, a warm corner and a week of patience. By March you'll have bread that costs pennies.
  • Grow greens in a jar. Sprouts and microgreens on the windowsill give you something fresh and green in January.
  • Build a nesting box. Scrap boards and an afternoon. Ours is on the stand in the picture above, if you need a pattern.
  • Tap two trees. A couple of backyard maples, a few buckets and a big pot make enough syrup for a winter of pancakes.
  • Hold a seed swap. Invite the neighbors over in February with their leftover packets. Everyone goes home with something new.
  • Keep a season journal. First seed started, first egg of the year, first frost. In a few years it becomes the best gardening book you own.