Tag: plans

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The Excitement Begins

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.

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January 1, 2026

What a joke it is that I thought I’d have time to keep up posting during our inaugural year on the farm. It has been insanely busy and very over-whelming. Long about September, I decided I may actually survive. From about March through August we were pillar to post every single day, hanging on for dear life. All in all, I must call it a success even when most of it is a blur. We had more produce than we could process (much of it is still in the freezer awaiting me); we put herbs, vegetables, flowers, and fruit in the ground with absolutely no idea if it would live; the weeds and bugs were next level; I used muscles I didn’t know existed; we process two batches of meat chickens (deserves an entire write-up all on it’s own…geez!); and…I am so very excited to start again in mere weeks! It’s bizarre.

Over the course of the past year, I kept a garden notebook. There I kept notes from podcasts, YouTube channels, and interesting tidbits from social media. While I’m very glad I did, there’s no way to organize or tag the information. My thought is to use our website to chronicle all the things and tag accordingly.

So today, January 1, 2026 has been a beautiful 60 degree day. We’ve had crazy weather swings over the last couple of weeks where just two days ago, our lows were in the 20’s. I see so many other homesteaders enduring much colder temps, but in Alabama, we don’t typically see sub 30’s for very long. The next ten days keeps us in the 60’s and even a couple of 70+ degree days. I plan to use as much time as I can find to work in the garden prepping for spring.

One of the things we learned last year in the garden is that weeds rule the world. My initial plan was to keep the ground as undisturbed as possible, a very newbie, naive plan! The weeds were everywhere and knee-high in places. I have no doubt the weed pressure contributed to some less than stellar results for some beds. Between now and when we plant out in the garden, I hope to have each bed covered in cardboard and will mulch each bed as I plant. This won’t be full-proof but it’s a step in a better direction.

It’s been a lovely, relaxing day outside. We bought a new chipper/shredder and have spent most of the afternoon chipping up limbs and small downed saplings. These chips will be used as pathways in the garden.

I picked collards and kale for our New Years day dinner and pulled peas from the freezer. The greens have been cooking all day and will be more than enough to eat on and then I’ll can the rest. Happy to have both greens and peas from our very own garden. It’s still bizarre to me that we’re doing this.

Project List (ever-changing and growing):

  • Cardboard on garden beds
  • Garden lay out
  • Remove old cages and chicken coop wood from behind shop
  • Plant sweet peas
  • Plant bulbs
  • Prune blueberries
  • Continue chipping wood for pathways
  • Decide on trellising for beds
  • Sawmill completion
  • Process vegetables in the freezer
  • More chicken broth
  • House projects (create separate list)
  • Digitize 2025 Garden journal based on topic
  • Seed inventory & order
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Maybe just a few more hours?

The short of it is, we are indeed apparently doing this thing! My heavens what a ride it’s been since September. There’s zero chance I can recap in one post all that we’ve been doing and learning since those initial two posts. It’s actually a little comical at the volume of information and experiences coming at us every single day. Granted, we have initiated and welcomed most while also being absolutely exhausted at the end of each day. I find myself needing to borrow a few extra hours each day to even remotely accomplish all on my list.

We made it through winter with a few crops planted, chicken eggs incubated, turkeys found new homes, and boxes were mostly unpacked. It snowed and yet all the chores still needed to be tended to…that was a new level of cold! Spring is a blur. Make-shift seed growing stations found their way into the kitchen. Grow lights glowed 16 hours a day, and tiny baby seedlings affirmed we had done something right…much to our surprise. April meant more seeds planted, new fencing around both garden areas, pruning based on Google expertise, and so much more. I’m glad I have pictures to remind me of the many “firsts” on our little farm this year. We’re barrelling into the summer with all the veggies in the ground and succession planting in the plans. Most are doing well and we’ve started harvesting some initial goodies!