In 2022 we decided to expand our operation to include a larger amount and variety of fall items. Due to our property layout in Allegan the land was not cohesive to the size of pumpkin patch we dreamed of. talking with my father about our idea he opened up his road front property as an area where we could attempt to grow some more pumpkins, gourds, sunflowers and corn. We made up a plan and tilled up a section of land stretching about 1/3 acre. Following the land prep our newest member of the family decided to make her entrance so I was out of commission in terms helping with planing and maintaining the new patch. However, our family did not miss a beat, they planted 3-4 varieties of pumpkins, 2 varieties of sunflowers, and 3 varieties of corn. 

We had a fantastic growing season with amazing weather which produced a very fruitful crop. We spent the month of September prepping and beginning our harvest. Over the course of the next month and a half over 100 pumpkins would pass through the farm stand and several bushels of corn. We did learn that the section of land where we planted the sunflowers was not the best growing conditions for them, therefore, next year they will be relocated in a better position. However, our corn was beautiful, tall, and grew without problem along side of our pumpkins that thrived even with the increase of squash bugs we were constantly battling. 

Next season in 2023 we look forward to offering even more varieties squash ranging in color and creating a variety of corn wreaths and swag to offer at the stand. So be on the lookout this coming fall for many exciting new items on the farm stand!

In summer of 2019 we began our first season of homesteading. We had little experience starting out but both my husband and myself were outdoorsy type people and we figured we could just figure things out along the way. After moving a retired bonded pair of equine (one miniature horse and one miniature donkey) onto the property, we became aware of a serious tick infestation. We spent night after night ridding the donkey, pony, and our old English sheepdog of the nasty blood sucking pests. We eventually hit our limit and knew that we needed a proactive solution to the problem.

Our passion as homeowners has always been to be as sustainable as possible, so we sought out environmentally friendly options to rid our property of the tick population. After some quick research we chose the best option for us, insect eating birds! We spent the winter planning and prepping for our feathered friends to make a home on our property. We bought an assembled chicken coop from a local farm auction (paid a whopping $3 for it) and took it home to be spruced up. After a few coats of paint, some new hinges and latches, it was ready to go. In the spring we set the coop on a small concrete pad we have outside of our barn and ran some 5 foot tall chicken wire around a couple of fence posts to make them a run. The space was not very large as we planned on having them free range as much as possible.

The time finally came to go pick up our baby poultry. We decided on 4 guinea hens (well known for eating ticks) and 4 standard egg laying chicks. We felt determined, ready, and we were confident that we had found a solution to the thick population of ticks on our property. Well, I can say that we lost over 10 birds in our first year… yeah, that stung. Luckily our financial investment with the birds was low, but our time investment is what really cut us deep. Hours spent tending to the baby chicks, then training the teenagers to return to their coop, creating a comfortable place for them to live, and constantly monitoring their health all ripped away in just a couple of minutes. Needless to say, we learned a lot our first year, and we were sure to do better the next. We quickly discovered the flaws in our chicken/guinea hen tendering. Our population was mostly wiped out by raccoons the first year, and a few guinea were lost to being overweight as they were unable to stand on their own legs anymore. The next couple of years we worked on making improvements.

We gained the knowledge that although guinea hens were ideal predators to ticks, they required too much care for what we wanted to invest. The hens are not very domestic and would often not return to the coop, leading to exposure to predators. We switched over to strictly egg laying chickens and trained them to return to their coop by dusk. We patched up the coop in the places where predators were prone to attack and we designed a better system for watering as well as feeding the birds as to not spend too much valuable time tending to them. That all being said, we are still learning! We improve a little every year with our chickens, creating better systems and practices that maximize both their egg production (which is an added homesteading bonus!) as well as their pest control abilities. Now if only we could come up with an automatic coop cleaner, it would be near perfect! A girl can dream….

Anyway, it took us three years to really figure chicken farming out. We read all the articles, felt prepared going into it, and had the confidence to match, but it still took 3 years. Now we are loving it, we enjoy watching the chickens feast away at the pests on the property while we collect delicious fresh eggs daily. And most of all, we love sharing our farm fresh free range eggs with the community. There is something special about about seeing a product you spent time, sweat, and pouring love over being enjoyed by the people around you. So anytime you stop by and purchase the fresh eggs from our farmstand, you are helping a small family chase their dreams of sustainable homestead living.

With spring, comes honeybees! This week we are anxiously awaiting our nucleus of honeybees to arrive to their new home on our farm. The Hulst Homestead has been a welcoming home to honeybee hives the last three years and we have adored learning as well as caring about them. Honeybees are so intelligent and miraculously designed. Although they really don't need us, as science has proved that time and time again, we love to help them thrive each year. With the excitement of this new-to-us livestock also has come challenges. Our hives have yet to make it through the winter unfortunately, but we have learned a lot about pest control maintenance each year and what steps we need to take to help the hive along. This year, we are growing our collection by one new hive! This new honeybee home will be hosted at our farmstand location, which will also have a large pumpkin patch this year! We are excited for for this new adventure at our growing location in Holland. 

But that is not all... our family is growing as well this Spring! My husband Ryan and I are thrilled to be welcoming our first child at the end of April. We are looking forward to this new chapter in our farm life and we cannot wait for her to put her own little touch on the Hulst Homestead as she grows!

​It's that time of year again to prep and order seeds for this coming gardening season! I have taken it upon myself to meticulously plan out the garden this year to provide the best possible outcome for the plants. I have a designated floral garden and a cucurbits garden (watermelons, pumpkins, and squash). Next, in the large garden, there are to be dedicated areas for each growing type; a root vegetable section (onions, garlic, etc), a legumes section (peas, and beans), and lastly, a miscellaneous section for a variety of peppers and tomatoes. Below is a rough outline of what this year will look like on the farm.

The floral section will consist of a variety of new floral varieties including:
• Monstrosum Tall Mix Straw Flower
• Champagne Bubbles Pink (F1) Iceland Poppy Seed
• Rubenza Cosmos Seed
• Coral Fountain Amaranthus Seed
• Lady Coral Lavender China Aster Seed
• Pincushion Formula Mix Scabiosa Seed (One of my favorites)
• Iron Apricot Stock Seed
• Champagne Pelleted (F1) Lisianthus

There will also be a section specifically dedicated to mastering dahlias this year, as that has been a constant dream of mine. I am still on the hunt for the right variety of dahlia tubular to add to the garden, but I will update you soon when I find the perfect match.

Lastly, we will be planting a full line of carnation flowers as well as sunflowers (Starburst lemon, Red/lemon bicolor, white nite, and strawberry blonde) out towards the drive of our house, which will not only entice the backyard bees but will beautify the property. The seed starting will begin in about two weeks to allow for optimal time of growth for our long summer items. Follow along to see the process and watch the farm grow!​

In the chilly month of March, we began our gardening journey of 2020. We purchased a variety of seeds to try again, as last year we seemed to only be successful with pumpkins, eggplants, and squash. This year we germinated 20 varieties of seeds indoors! Our kitchen turned into a greenhouse overnight with watering systems and grow lights everywhere!
When the third week of May rolled around myself and my sister took two days time and meticulously planted the garden. This year I had access to a tractor attachment that laid out the weed tarp for me! This would have taken me 4 hours to do, but with the tractor it too maybe 20minutes!
After the field was tilled and the tarp was laid my sister went through and torch holes into the tarp approximately 18 inches apart. This allowed for speedy planting of our now seventy little sprouts. Two days later and with lots of sore muscles we remained victorious in planting every single one of our seedlings. 
Unfortunately, the weather was not as kind to the sprouts as we would have liked. We lost the majority of our peppers and eggplant due to the heat and most of our tomato sprouts due to pests. Luckily, I had both friends and family who are gardeners as well, so I was able to secure not only tomato plants to add into the garden, but some peppers, eggplants, brussel sprouts, and cut flowers too!
Now, being the beginning of July, the garden is looking great! The green onions and lettuce we have been harvesting for weeks now. And most everything has blooms and/or fruit perched on the branches. To keep the pests away from the greens we have been using Neem oil twice a week and we will continue to do so until harvest. In the next few weeks we will be able to bring in our first big vegetable hall from the garden and we are sure ready for ratatouille!

Gardening has been sowed into my blood for as long as I can remember. I can recall at a young age tromping through my grandmother's garden just in awe at the round, plump, bright red tomatoes hanging on by a thread off of their branches. Then glancing down at the tilled ground and discovering the yellow squash curled up safely under the leaves of its plant. Every time we went to grandma's in the summer I had to go check out the garden, and I still do to this day. There is something that just lights a fire in me when I discover the perfect green bean dangling by my ankles or when I get the chance to pluck the biggest tomato in the field. 
This undying love for fresh produce, of course, is seasonal in Michigan, our gardening days are a short 3-4 months before the frost comes in again. That being said, we do our best to savor these bright flavors in the summer by cooking farm to fork meals every chance we get. This year my husband and I knocked an item off our bucket list by making fresh homemade pasta from scratch and using items from our little 2-acre piece of land to bring together the perfect meal. We started with a simple toned down recipe using just flour, egg, and salt to make the pasta dough. We pressed, push, wheeled, and sliced the dough into ​a Bucatini pasta and then we splashed it into the pot to cook. As we cooked the fresh pasta over the stove we also simmered tomatoes, garlic, basil, and rosemary into a nice thick red sauce. Lastly, I made fresh meatballs with leftover homemade bread, eggs, fresh venison from last fall's hunting season and Italian seasoning.
This process was a lengthy one at that but we had the best time running around the kitchen together creating this masterpiece of a meal that we grew, gathered, and hunted ourselves. And it tasted pretty darn good too, which always helps!

If you have followed along for a little bit now you are aware of our growing farm and our gentle giant, Magnum. Magnum is a 2.5-year-old 70 Pound purebred Old English Sheepdog and he has brought us so much joy. And he came into our family completely out of the blue...
While cruising the facebook world I came across the adorable fluffy pet on a pet re-homing site. His owner was going through a divorce and had to move herself and her 4 kids into an Apartment so she could no longer take care of him. I sent the picture to my husband and we chatted about the possibility of having a dog for a day or so, then we decided to message his owner. She unfortunately already found him a home, we were a little disappointed but we moved on knowing it wasn't the right time or dog for us. Fast forward 3 months later to October and I notice that I have an unread message on my facebook page. I open it to find Magnum's owner messaging me about him again, asking if we were still interested as his current home wasn't working out. Ryan and I asked if we could meet him before deciding as we had worries of our own about him fitting in. We set a time and place and when Magnum jumped out of the car he looked ridiculous and nothing like a sheepdog, he had been shaved due to the excessive amount of Breyers in his fur. We spent around 45 minutes with him in a parking lot playing, sniffing, and getting to know each other. When our time ended and he loaded into the car and drove away we knew that he was the dog for us. We talked it over and decided to take him into our tiny condo for the next few weeks as we were still working on fixing up our farmhouse. Unfortunately, as remodeling projects go, a few weeks turned into a few months but he didn't seem to mind. He fit right into our crazy active lifestyle, he adored car rides and going on adventures as much as we did. We could not have picked a more mellow minded easy-going dog if we tried, it was meant to be. 
Now today he is a beautiful, energetic, chicken loving, pizza snatching pup who has filled our hearts with love and our home with tons of tennis balls (since those are his favorite). He has made great friends with the kittens and enjoys every single second spent outside doing zoomies in the lawn. I could not imagine our lives without Magnum, our fluffy, unexpected, rescue pup. 

If you live in Michigan, or anywhere in the midwest for that matter, you know we have had tons and tons of rain this season. Most crops have struggled and the fields around our house have crops no bigger than shin high, which is very small for this time of year. We have been working to try and combat the rain to the best of our ability. Luckily we have sand in our soil so the water does not stay on our piece of property very long.

Our garden was beaming with life at the beginning of summer and now that we are hopefully through the major rains I can tell you what has survived. We are honestly doing really well compared to the rest of West Michigan. Our Zucchini squash, mini watermelons, mini pumpkins and spearmint/peppermint plants are doing fantastic! The watermelon is taking over over half of a row and just beginning to bloom, yay! My eggplants are struggling a bit but they can be a little sensitive... now that they have been covered in neem oil to deter the bugs and now that the land is less saturated they can do their thing! My tomatoes have been super slow this year but they are still trying their hardest to produce blooms. Lord willing, we will have a few tomatoes by the end of the month to report back. Unfortunately, the things that didn't survive are the peppers, rosemary, and basil. I had to go out this week and but new rosemary and basil plants to put into the garden because of the lack of seeds that made it through the storms. We did have a few surprise success thought that were new to us this year. We really assumed the puny plants were not going to make it but they came back with full force, so we will be having some cauliflower! I have never grown this so I had no idea what was supposed to happen but it is loving being in the garden and it has been so happy with all the rain.

We are looking forward to reporting back in a few weeks with what we gather from the garden, it will be a plentiful year!

When we bought our little property a huge selling point was the unique vintage milk parlor that was on the property. This milk parlor, we were told, was one of the first in the state and it still holds all of its original cattle gates and troughs. I immediate fell in love with this space reimagining it to be my flower studio one day. The hope is to take the front room and add in storage space for my vases, a sink for water supply, and lots of counter space. My hope is to paint the exterior with a huge floral mural along the left side of the little shed.

That leaves us with the space above the studio untouched, however. It a spacious room once used for food storage when the cows were being mailed for the day. It has beautiful windows that face the wheat field and fill with gorgeous light at sunset. With this space, we hope to create a little farmhouse Airbnb experience a few years down the road. The idea is to add in an outdoor shower space and a gate between the drive so the shed is accessible from a separate entrance. It would be an opportunity to get the farm-country experience without all of the commitment. Guests would have the option of helping with chores in the morning and they would be provided a nice home cooked breakfast. This is our dream and like I said it is a few years down the road but we would love to open this space up to share our little homestead. ​