January Homestead To Do List| Practical Self Reliance
The land rests, and so do we, sort of...
January in Vermont is the heart of winter with deep snow, long nights, and crisp, cold days when the thermometer hovers around zero degrees F even at noon. The pace slows, but the homestead never really stops. Wood still needs hauling, animals still need care, and the pantry becomes the center of daily life.
It’s a month for reflection and planning, for tending to the small details that get overlooked in the rush of harvest season. While the land rests, we do too, at least a little.
I often get asked what homesteading looks like in the dead of winter. January might seem quiet, but it’s still full of small, steady tasks that keep everything running. The garden may sleep, but the animals, the pantry, and the people don’t stop.
Of course, every homestead is different, and ours here in Vermont is shaped by deep snow, frozen ground, and short days, but the rhythm of January is universal.
Here’s what a normal January looks like on our Vermont homestead, as we ease into a new year and prepare for the seasons ahead.
In the Garden
The garden may be buried under snow, but that doesn’t mean it’s forgotten. January is the month for planning next year’s garden, and the seed catalogs are spread out like a second quilt on the bed.
If you grow microgreens or keep a small indoor herb garden, there’s still a touch of green life to tend on the windowsill. Some years, I’ll even start very early seedlings like onions under indoor grow lights just to get a jump on the growing season, but most things won’t be started until April to be set out after the last frosts in Early June.
(Yes, our last frost date is usually right around the first week of June…nearly half a year away.)
In the Orchard
January is the quietest month in the orchard, but it’s still part of the cycle. The trees rest beneath their snow blankets, and our job is simply to make sure they stay protected. I’ll check tree guards and rodent barriers after every thaw to keep voles and mice from gnawing bark.
But many years, the snow’s so deep I just have to hope that the preparations we did during the growing season will be enough.
On mild days, it’s sometimes possible to do a bit of winter pruning, especially on hardy apples and pears. But most of the orchard work now is done indoors, planning grafting projects, ordering rootstock and scion wood, and reviewing notes on which varieties thrived last year.
If you’re growing perennials from hardwood cuttings, now’s the time to collect and prepare those. Elderberries and grapes are some of the easiest to grow from cuttings, and they root very easily. But there are so many different fruiting plants you can grow from cuttings, all you need is a small piece.
In the Kitchen
If December is about feasting, January is about comfort food. The pantry is full of canned soups, bone broth, stews, and meat-in-a-jar recipes, which make winter meals easy and satisfying.
This is the time of year when I lean heavily into putting up meats and soups, and plenty of dry bean canning recipes too.
This is also a good time for restocking essentials, rendering lard and tallow, baking sourdough bread, and starting new ferments like sauerkraut or water kefir that help balance the heavy winter diet.
It is also citrus season, and while we’re not exactly harvesting oranges by the bushel here in Vermont, it is the time of year when they’re shipped up in bulk from down south. It’s a tradition that’s been going on for centuries, and they even talk about it in the little house on the prairie books.
Preserving citrus is just a part of the rhythm of the season, and every year I try out new citrus canning recipes. And, of course we’re also dehydrating and fermenting those as well.
And of course, the kitchen wood stove stays busy, warming the house, but also baking bread, as we now have a modern wood cookstove (and we’re absolutely loving it).
In the Woods and Fields
Winter seems like a “dead” time in nature, but in reality, everything’s still out there, just dormant and waiting to spring back to life. Foraging in winter isn’t all that different than any other season, if you know where to look.
There are dozens of different winter edible roots you can dig, if you know how to see their signs above ground, and plenty of cold hardy winter mushrooms.
There are also half a dozen different fruits that hang on branches and vines waiting for the birds to return in the spring, and it’s the perfect time for harvesting wild grapes, nannyberries, highbush cranberry and even regular lowbush cranberries.
This time of year I’ll collect usnea lichen or birch bark for herbal projects, and I’m currently saving up birch bark for rendering into tar for salves. and it’s the perfect time for foraging chaga mushrooms while the trees are dormant.
It’s also prime time for tracking wildlife. The fresh snow tells a story of deer, fox, and rabbit activity that we don’t see any other time of year. We’re not hunting or trapping them, but it is a wonderful way to get outside with the littles this time of year.
In the Barn
Winter chores are steady but simple: feed, water, and bedding. With our off grid electrical system, we don’t have heated troughs to keep water from freezing solid, so we’re often hauling water by buckets to the animals.
We make sure the geese, chickens, and any overwintering livestock stay comfortable through cold snaps that can dip to -20°F with deep bedding and draft free structures.
If we’re brooding chicks or goslings later in the spring, January is when we order new hatchery stock or check our own breeding flocks to plan for hatching season. It feels far away, but it’ll be here before long, and many breeds sell out long before spring.
In the Community
January is a slower, quieter month socially, but it’s when neighbors tend to check in on one another most. The local seed swaps are active, and Vermont has a really spectacular winter farmer’s market scene that almost always involves live music and a community meal.
It’s also the time for learning, reading new homesteading books, and studying up before the growing season starts all over again. And it’s when my kids and I take classes to learn new skills. On this year’s docket is fiber arts, and we’ll be learning new spinning and weaving techniques this winter.
What’s happening in January where you live?
What are you cooking, planning, or working on around your homestead this week? I’d love to hear in the comments!
Until Next Time,
Ashley at Practical Self Reliance
I always find it interesting to read about what others are doing on their homesteads at different times of year! I'm in Portugal so no snow here but some tasks are similar, chopping up wood from the olive harvesting, shredding branches into mulch, and planning what seeds to sow. We have also been eating and preserving the oranges from our trees. I'd planned to plant some more bare root fruit trees at this time but the ground is too saturated just now.
We also had a big storm last night so today's tasks involved surveying the damage and retrieving my daughter's trampoline from the bottom of our hill...!
Getting ready to try starting some oregano seed indoors. This will be the first time we've tried this herb, so wish us luck!