I encourage everyone to set goals to change or expand your backyard farm this year. Perhaps you can add a couple of more pots to your container farm. Expand your garden another 100 square feet. Put up some trellises. Plant some new vegetables or fruits. Add some layers or broilers.
Look over the seed and poultry catalogs. Place your orders. Establish your timelines. Dream and do.
Here are my goals for expanding my garden this year.
- 5 Triple Crown blackberry bushes
- 5 Caroline raspberry bushes
- 5 Josephine raspberry bushes
- 25 Jewel strawberry plants
- 3 McDonald Rhubarb plants
- 4 new garden trellises
- 50 Freedom Ranger broilers
- 50 Cornish Cross broilers
- Build new portable layer house for pasturing my layers.
I love staring out my den window at my dead backyard farm in January and making my big plans.
What are your garden goals for this year?
10 comments:
This year we are planning to grow strawberries as are little girl loves them and what better than fresh home grown strawberries. Also thinking about getting a rooster but need to chat with the neighbors first
My goal?
To be reasonable in my expectations of what I am able to produce on my windowsill.
Trying to grow Cherokee Purple tomatoes is just crazy (but impressive when you have guests over who marvel at your seven-foot-tall gigantomato plant). Tom Thumb, maybe.
But I don't really even like tomatoes--it's just a "You won't defeat me, you plant!" type of challenge. :P
In addition to expanding my garden this year, I have lots of new seeds I'm trying out. I received seeds for radish, calendula, Black Moor and Market Miracle tomatoes from fellow garden bloggers. I ordered some heirloom and rare seeds from Baker Creek Farms. I have seeds for dwarf pomegranate trees, wild strawberries, Fish peppers, Red Creole onions, etc. I'm chitting a russet potato I got from the store. Last year I tried to grow potatoes and it was unsuccessful so I'm trying again!
To can like crazy. Which means I am on the verge of buying a pressure canner. I can't wait.
I'd like to squeeze in more tomato plants because fresh salsa never gets old. New this year though, more herbs and my little ones have asked for carrots instead of radishes. Hmmm, maybe I'll do both.
I want to try growing some new plants that we didn't grow last year. Specifically, garlic, radishes, and maybe a watermelon.
I plan to make at least one more raised bed, maybe even 2 depending on what we eventually decide we want to plant. I know we want to expand our repertoire to at least include carrots, peas and beans--but I haven't figured out which specific ones--still pouring through my seed catalog!
My plans are to be more organized when I plant my garden. I want to keep track of varieties, planting dates, etc. I won't plant a huge row of swiss chard, because we just don't eat that much of it. I want to pick varieties of plants that I want, instead of just going to the store and getting whatever they have.
We'd also like to at least triple our broiler production, and I'd like to increase our layer flock so we can sell more eggs. And we're thinking about raising some meat rabbits too.
Great plans for this coming year! Thank you all for sharing your goals!
Dale
I ordered red, purple, white and yellow carrot seeds. We planted purple and orange the last 2 years. Yellow tomatoes are another thing I want. We canned tomatoes last year and it's great to just grab a jar of our own this winter :)
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