What are your garden plans for 2023?

I love reading everyone's goals. Nice to come upon this on 1/1/23.

My first goal is actually more of a mental goal - my girlfriend has been studying horticulture and therefore wants to get more into the garden, which has been almost entirely my domain for years. I've been struggling a bit with sharing 'my baby' especially as she is much more interested in ornamentals, whereas I'm more of a maximize space for production kinda gal. We have a TINY garden so we've been butting heads. But really it's not my garden, it's ours, so we did the garden plan together this year and I'm putting more effort into playing nice.

Like a few others said, more potatoes! And more home-grown calories in general (sunroot and squash, maybe groundnut?). I was lucky enough to connect with a passionate potato guy (growing from TPS) who let me wander his patch and collect as many berries as I want. So I'll grow old faithful sieglinde and also experiment with his varieties. Btw I experimented with a sunroot latke this year (50/50 potato and sunroot) and it was amazing. Would convert the most staunch fartichoke hater. If you ferment them first and are a regular eater of sunroot there's very little to fart about.

We had a pantry moth infestation last fall that got pretty gross and was a painful lesson in proper food storage. We had some large bags of spelt and black beans that needed to be thrown away.. It hurt my head so I figured, can't I use these for cover cropping? Spelt's not so far off from rye and beans are legumes. So this will be the first year I try cover cropping. I also sourced a new liquid nitrogen fertilizer made of soy from a local company, as we don't use animal products this was very exciting! For anyone interested it's at Organic Gardeners pantry.

I want to up my preservation game, as well. Up until now I've done some small scale fermenting and dehydration, but I got a steam canner for Christmas and found a second hand steam juicer for dirt cheap. I made a batch of apple and seaberry juice that is really perky. We also finally made the leap and bought a chest freezer and it's been a game changer.

Lastly I want to switch over to almost entirely perennial greens. I'll probably always grow mustard greens, but I'm okay with not eating annual kale or lettuce. I've got a seed order on the way with hablitzia, good king henry, and perennial homesteaders grex kale. I've identified the closest Linden trees for spring salads. And I've already got salad burnett, sorrel, turkish rocket, and 9 star broccoli.

Hope you all have an abundant 2023!

I am starting from scratch in a patch of high desert. We have one garden bed, one compost bin built and some roughly dug swales.

Here are the 2023 goals:
- Get water infrastructure - rain barrels, irrigation (pre-water softener) installed, dig more swales
- Build some wind breaks
- Bring in compost to improve the soil
- Start planting some trees for a future food forest and hope they survive
- Fill and plant our one raised garden bed

It feels overwhelming right now...

Collect my own seeds. Grow medicinal herbs and veggies and by eating them there is no need to take supplements (vitamins ,…), and one good serving a day will give me the energy for the whole day.

My plans for 2023 is
- new permaculture project on my parents field!
- Trying so many varieties of techniques as its possible on my small garden;
- Growing so many varieties of tomatoes as its possible to find out the tastier one for me;
Lets see if it will work!

I'm nervous to admit this and put it out there in permies. Fear of failure, maybe? My aim is to grow one million calories this year.

I also plan to create areas in the garden for my toddler to play and explore. Between my health needs for fresh fruits and veggies, budget constraints, and my daughter's excitement last season in harvesting and eating from the garden, I'm going big!

garden goals for 2023.
get some raised beds going, grow food i want to eat.  
grow some grain like millet or amaranth (pig weed grows really well)  i had a lot of sorghum volunteers this last season was surprised by the excellent growth and production.  
2022 i embraced the volunteer garden due to past failures, plant it and it dont grow but will try to love the ones i didn't plant that did grow?  self seeded cherry tomatoes don't care for them but seems i will learn as they grow on their own and produce abundantly.   big plus was an abundance of watermelon but they did not ripen as sweetly as i desired so maybe try a short season melon, and be a meaner to the little watermelon babies that do come.
so looks like i will try a bit of organization with the plants that will grow,  and try try try again for salad greens.
push towards  getting a cold season garden going as summer winds down.

2023 is the year of the rabbit chicken! At least over here. My prey driven dog seems to be oddly disinterested in chickens. My neighbor sells us chicken eggs for a great price, so I thought I'd start with ducks, but the dog came first & I could really use a hand in removing grass and building fertile soil both in and out of the garden - so chickens it is! I've been mulling over the idea all last year, but for Christmas my father-in-law sent cash and said, "Buy a chicken." Who am I to argue? There is a local breeder I already know I will support. I'm thinking of starting with 2 pairs of 3 varieties, in a little chicken tractor (with a coop/run home base) that we can equip with a video camera to start bringing interest to/monetizing our little shpadoinkle we're creating. I'm looking forward to a pair of Skånsk Blommehöna aka Swedish Flower Hens.

Another big change I'm hoping for us a deer exclusion fence around the garden that is coupled with a chicken moat. I think with those two improvements I could have my first decent garden here! Fingers crossed.

I wish everyone success in whatever endeavors they wish to achieve as well as health.

I'm going to get rid of a poplar tree.
While I love plants I despise that one.
Last year all of my (4 years old)  raised bed produced .....almost nothing! I thought because of wet/cold season and so on.
Then, last Fall, while trying to pull out spent tomato, potatoes etc. plants, I was surprised that I ...couldn't!? I couldn't even drive a shovel into the soil which I so carefully prepared, nurtured with "smoothies"  and "love".
Why? I found out that all my raised beds were so full of  tight, semi-soft, tangled, far reaching root mass from that one tree.
I've never seen or experienced anything like that ever before.

I found information, that apparently this is normal, and soil in  raised beds have to be dug/turned over every 3 years. Hmm... We have other type of trees near by, and not one has such far reaching roots as that one!

Other than that, probably trying to grow some weird edible veggie or two, I like to try every year

Welp, I unexpectedly spent months out of state, soo-oo I am playing catch up with getting fall “clean up”done. I have negative feeling about that term because so many beneficial insects over-winter in the “debri”, but since it’s an apartment complex I have to dance that line. I came back just in time to catch the newly hired landscaping crew starting to scrape off “my” area, to replace with commercial mulch. I will be starting over, rebuilding that soil and replanting bee plants. And working to beat the crew to the on-site resources such as pine needles that I use for nontoxic mulching. *sigh* They haul it away when they get there first. Fortunately the major portion of “my” areas are now off limits to them and the neighbors are glad I’m back. Guinea Pig’s gonna have step up because I need more compost!

Last summer I increased my garden area by a third. Again. Now I have growing areas that add up to 100 by 150 feet. Not counting paths. Ahem.

Having started a full time job mid November, it looks like half will have to be cover crops! And maybe half of the remaining area dedicated to sprawling winter squashes!

I will have several perrenial nursery beds to get more no work food from in the comming years. Assuming I get stuff wingter sown very soon.

Well, first, for Carla--I just want to ask whether you could build a small attached greenhouse outside that south-facing window.  I have one and it is SOOOO handy. I only got salad from the bed on ground level the first year; the next couple of winters, some little bugs (aphids?) destroyed the crops and I haven't tried since--decided to do hoops of some sort in the garden instead. But those bugs never bother what's on the shelves, so I start plants for my own garden and a couple of others there. Later the greenhouse is a good place to dry things like beans and peanuts, and I also alternate between two towels, putting a damp used one where the sun will dry and freshen it before the next use. We've also used the greenhouse for sick or injured chickens, for orphaned chicks, and once for a winter week so cold the coop didn't suffice. I don't heat this greenhouse, but it sometimes helps heat the house. On cool days in fall, winter and spring, I open the sliding door to the house and the warm air may be enough that we don't need a fire. There is a window and a roof vent. And a trick of my husband's I want to pass on: we have big hickories over the house on the west (so we don't need AC). Therefore we have to have a tin roof on the greenhouse (falling hickory nuts would crack a glass roof). But he built another roof under that, and on the south side a couple of glass panels fit in, passing much extra sun into the greenhouse when the sun is low in the sky in winter, but in early summer the sunshine barely enters the greenhouse.
So, my plans for this year--My situation is pretty settled and my crops mostly successful, but I like to try at least some new varieties every year. Last year it was brussels sprouts, which was a bust; covering them with tulle worked great to keep the egg-laying butterflies off them, until the plants grew too tall for the covering. After that the worms moved in, and I think also some animal chewed a couple. I might try again this year if I can figure out a support system for the tulle that allows a taller cage. I'm trying onions from seed for the second time. Usually they're so damn slow growing that you can't get usable onions by what seems to be harvest time here, the beginning of July. So I use sets instead. But what if someday I can't get sets? Maybe I'll try harvesting my sweet potatoes a little earlier, as black rot (?) moved in at the end of the season last year.
I'm also just beginning to toy with the idea of creating some kind of food forest in my orchard. We've always mowed between the trees there, but last year the predators got so bad I finally gave up on free range chickens and we fenced a run, which includes the orchard. Reading a permaculture book it occurred to me that instead of stringing cord between the tops of the fruit trees and the fence to keep hawks out, maybe I could plant bushes and other plants between the trees, so the chickens aren't exposed anywhere? If the bushes and plants could also provide forage for the chickens, that would be even better. I might add more goumis even though the chickens didn't show much interest--because they fix nitrogen and are close to zero care. Blueberries won't work as they demand special, super-acid soil. Mulberries are too big. There is already a wineberry patch in there, which they do pick a few from. I'm thinking maybe chicory, Maximilian sunflowers--I'd need to cage smaller plants until established, or the chickens would likely scratch them up.  Ideas welcome.

Mary Cook said, "Well, first, for Carla--I just want to ask whether you could build a small attached greenhouse outside that south-facing window.  I have one and it is SOOOO handy."

Exactly the plan . I very briefly mentioned it, but only briefly, because I've not yet decided how I will do the build - from items I already have on hand(preferred), items on hand supplemented with a few purchased items (more likely), or all new (least favorite idea). I do have some windows, glass shelves, and some foundation possibilities, but I'm doubtful that I've enough to do it 'right', so this may be something that goes through an evolution of sorts.

We're surrounded by oak, walnut, and hickory, so I feel your noisy pain, and our home being log, and in the woods, the metal roof is the only one I can think would make sense here, too. That window has enough overhang that if I don't stretch the little greenhouse out too far, it will be protected from the nut-drop, without further blocking the sun.

But then maybe your greenhouse won't be big enough! Ours is 7 X 12 feet. We used tempered glass which we got used at $10 apiece, 6 feet by about 20". It has some stains which nothing has been able to remove, but although that impedes the view through it some, it doesn't block sunlight. I should mention that the upper, metal roof slants slightly down to the south, while the under roof slants more sharply, so there is a big gap on the south side for the winter sun to shine in.

I’ll be nurturing some young plants that I don’t expect to produce yet.

Last year I manage to get three American Hazelnuts started from seed I picked up at the Michiana seed swap. I planted those out in a bed and hope to nurse them through the next couple years to get nuts maybe in 2025.  

This year, 3 years after I put in a request, the city finally came by and planted a new tree in my parkway. It’s a chinkapin oak, which may give us useful acorns in IDK, 2030? After losing the maple tree back in 2018 or 2019 I had planted the parkway with native savanna plants. It will be interesting to see how the oak sapling affects that little biome.

In 2022 I put in two columnar apple trees, so I’ll be watching over these and hope for first fruit maybe 2024.

As far as annuals and veg, I saved a good amount of my own seed from crops that did well this year. Legumes were the real performers; very pleased by the “Madison farmers market peanut” I got from Great Lakes Staple Seeds. I had never had fresh fro the ground peanuts before, and am now a convert. Also the “Potawatomi rabbit cowpea” I got from Blake Lenoir grew gangbusters, enough that I could even harvest dry beans from my tiny back yard!  The rattlesnake beans I’ve been growing a few years now put out and interesting sport this year, black beans with brown speckles rather than brown with black. I’ll be planting those and maybe get a little landrace going.

I also have my tomato project that I posted about here New tomato project

Mary Cook wrote:But then maybe your greenhouse won't be big enough! Ours is 7 X 12 feet.

It's as big as we have space for - in that location. But, there will also still be 2 additional greenhouses (this will allow me to keep plants separate, that don't play nicely, or that I want to keep from cross-pollinating. And... is there ever truly 'enough' space, for us seed hoarding, garden maniacs?