If you want an update on semi homesteading life for April 2025 here in the Midwest, then this article is for you! I’ll show you what is going on with the garden, in the kitchen, with the chickens, and with life in general.
April is all about keeping the seedlings I started indoors alive and thriving until we can get them planted in the garden in mid-May. This month was also full of new blooms, fun recipes, and planting a few things on the homestead.
With these updates, I hope to do more of a “journal” type of post at least once a month to keep you updated on life here. Hopefully, it will allow you to get to know the person behind these articles (me!) and how we run our semi homestead a bit more.
This will allow me to share the loads of photos I take on my phone instead of having them collect dust in my camera gallery. (You can also look for updates on Instagram if you want to follow along with me there, too.) I’ll also try to link to posts that might be relevant to what happened during that timeframe.
Hopefully, you enjoy getting to know a bit more about our life here in Illinois and how the homestead is going – Both the good and the bad!
Our April 2025 Update For The Semi Homesteading Life
Indoor Started Seedlings
Probably the biggest update with the semi homestead has to do with the seeds I started indoors in March. For the most part, these have been the best-looking seedlings I’ve grown to date. They are healthy, a nice color, and seem to be growing well even in their cramped quarters.
I had one tomato variety that never made it past its first set of true leaves. They germinated and then just stopped. I don’t think it was dampening off since it only affected the one variety, but who knows? Other than that, they’ve been doing well.
I’ve already started the hardening off process. Our last frost date is around the end of April, but I usually wait to plant until it’s the second or so week of May. Our temperatures just fluctuate too much before then. That time will be here before I know it!
Preparing The Garden – April 2025 Homesteading Update
Because planting time will be here soon, it means it’s time to get the garden prepped. We use growing rows and walking rows for our garden set up, but the springtime prep is about the same as a traditional garden.
Our cover crop has really started to take off so we mowed that down short in early April. Then we ended up using our little mantis tiller to till the growing rows. There were still a few straggler rye plants left behind that I had to pull here and there, but for the most part, it is now ready for planting. (A newer version of our tiller – Product Link: Mantis 7920 2-Cycle Plus Tiller)
In the garden, we have our rhubarb and fall-planted garlic growing well. We can start harvesting the rhubarb any time, but the garlic will need a bit longer until it’s ready for harvesting. I can’t wait for the first rhubarb crisp of the season!
What We Planted
There were only four crops that we planted during the month of April. The first up was the seed potatoes. Normally, I like to get those in the ground around Good Friday. However, with Easter being so late in April, I had to get the potatoes in the grow bags a bit sooner.
Onions were the next to go in. I bought onion seeds earlier with every intention of starting the seeds inside. Well, life happened, and the seeds never got planted. So I ended up having to purchase onion sets. I got those in one of my raised beds, so hopefully the soil will be loose enough to allow them to grow nice and big this year! (Onions and I don’t always get along for some reason!)
At the same time I planted the onions, I also got some sugar snap pea seeds planted. I loaded up on seeds this year, in hopes that we have a bit better harvest. They have started to come up nicely.
Lastly, I planted something I’ve wanted to include in the homestead for years, and that’s peonies. I wound up finding them in a local feed store and decided to give it a go. I have three different varieties and ended up planting five tubers. So far, they are pushing up a bit of growth, so fingers crossed that in a few years we have stunning blooms!
Flowers Growing – April 2025 Homesteading Update
I’m so excited to be able to bring back my “Flowers Growing” section of these updates. I love having flower blooms growing on the semi homestead. Not only do they help to bring in and feed loads of pollinators, but they just make me happy to see!
We have loads of wild violets growing. They tend to stick to the edge of our timber areas and around our mini orchard.
In April, one of the more prolific blooming flowers is dandelions. Yes, some people consider them to be weeds. However, I don’t; I love having them around – and I think the bees do, too! The combination of the yellow dandelions with the purple violets is something I love to see. (I also harvested a few of both for some fun recipes, as you will see below!)
Lastly, I had a few tulips that bloomed this spring. I had several more planted, but unfortunately the strong winds of March took several out. (In fact, it was stated that it was the windiest month on record for our area for March. And I believe it!)
Some Recipes I’ve Made
With the weather getting nicer, I haven’t been baking as much as I usually do. My poor sourdough starter has already spent more days in the refrigerator compared to on my counter. However, I am still baking a few fun things here and there.
One of the recipes I made for our Easter celebration was M&M cookies. It’s so fun to change out the colors of the M&Ms to match whatever holiday is going on for that month.
Another recipe I made for Easter is one of my favorites – homemade Hawaiian rolls. They are so soft and pillowy and just a great combination of flavors. Sure, they might not be exactly like the store-bought ones, but I think they are better!
I also worked on two fun new spring recipes for my website using wild violets and dandelions. I’ve made dandelion jelly plenty of times, but switched things up and made Dandelion Shortbread Cookies this year. The other is Wild Violet Pink Lemonade and it is a must try for families with kids, thanks to its color-changing surprise! (It tastes delicious, too!)
Miscellaneous Pictures – April 2025 Homesteading Update
As usual, I’ll leave you with some miscellaneous homesteading pictures. I take so many different pictures throughout the month that it’s hard to get them all on just one post, so I like to do a photo dump at the end of my updates.
We’ve had a lot of new growth and blooms start to show up during the month of April, and it’s always a welcoming sight. The black raspberry bushes are one. The cherry tree is starting to push loads of blooms, but for some reason, the apple and peach trees don’t seem to have many. It might be a bad fruit year, unfortunately, but we shall see.
The chickens are doing well and laying like champs. Even our older girls are still holding their own. We are probably getting between 5 to 8 each day from our 12 girls, so that is more than welcome!
I was able to do a bit of mushrooming toward the end of the month. I found one just a few minutes into the hunt, so I was geared up to find tons more! We didn’t end up with many, though, so that was a bummer. At least we got to enjoy the few we did find!
And lastly, we continued the tradition of hiding Easter eggs for the kids. Even though they are teenagers now, they still enjoy the hunt and getting a few extra treats. You can only be young once!
Until next time, thanks for stopping by!
– Chelsea
*This post may contain affiliate links. These are products I have used personally and highly recommend. As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases if you purchase items through my links. These links and the ads on this page help to support my family and our semi homestead, so Thank You!
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