Only a few days in to 2026 and the garden planning excitement/freakout begins! The dreary days of January will quickly disappear and the sunshine will find us again very soon. In the meantime, I’m deep into seed catalogs and websites. With all the experience one year of farming brings, I’m armed with just enough information to be dangerous. 🙂
Quick notes on what I learned last year (on-going list):
- Weed control – need to find a method where the no-till method meets control of the weed pressure. Weeds were next level and at some point, I gave up trying to keep them at bay. I think because of the over-growth of weeds, the pest pressure was exponential. Living in the Deep South, I’ve read many articles and posts that assure me some level of this is to be expected. While I have no intention of using chemical controls, I will be using ground covers to create my garden areas. I don’t love this idea and hope to eventually be able to mitigate without the total coverage of the ground.
- Seed starting – based on my calendar and notes from last year, it’s time to put a few things in the ground (crazy!) and will be pulling out seed trays and grow lights this month. Decision to be made on where the grow lights will live this year. Last year, I had a grow light station in my kitchen so I could closely pay attention to the baby plants and learn. Not sure I want that back in my kitchen this spring. Other possible locations that would offer more space for more shelves and lights: closed in (with clear plastic) screed porch – would need to add a heat source, or the shed which would require more daily effort and heat. Daily effort in that I’d have to make myself walk over to the shed each day to monitor the baby plants.
- Egg incubation – according to my notes from 2025, we started our first batch of egg incubation in January. While we want to add more ladies to the coop, we may wait just a bit so that we don’t have little baby chicks in the coldest part of winter. Both batches of babies we’ve hatched have done well but that first batch lived in the shop for weeks…and I don’t want to do that if we don’t have to. We now have a brooder outside (with heat) and that’s where they need to live pretty quickly after hatching.
- Mulch options – compost is growing although not quickly enough to supplement the entire garden. Will need to purchase a truckload to add to soil. Fairly certain we need to add garden lime. Hearing conflicting thoughts on the value of soil testing. While the test is valid for the spot you pull the soil from, it could be very quickly different by the time the test results are returned. Nitrogen in the soil is mobile and changes with moisture. So, looking and paying attention to what’s growing naturally (weeds) and how planned growing went, I think we need to add lime. Soil science makes my head spin and I find it incredibly interesting and boring at the same time – is that possible? Honestly, I just want to plant some stuff and it grow.
- Irrigation – haven’t tackled how to make that easier. We have ideas but haven’t moved toward actual plans yet.
- Garden acreage – increasing the garden space significantly this year. We left the front garden area fallow last year as the previous owner had been heavily planting. We currently have a winter grown cover of clover and some other mix I can’t remember. The front garden will be a typical row garden while my back garden is more of a sanctuary, learning space. I’ve created pathways and multiple beds (in-grown). The thought is to eventually be able to find this space as a place of beauty and peace. To be clear, it was simply not that last year. Geez, it was total chaos gardening…and that’s a whole method accepted by some. I learned I’m not a chaos gardener. I need order, at least to some degree.
- Fencing/trellis options
- Pathway mulching
Enough for now. Some seeds have been ordered (flowers & veggies) and I want to make a list of what’s been ordered so I can plan ahead for where each will be grown as well as to make notes of what may need a trellis.