What are your garden plans for 2023?

Somehow, 2022 is almost over. It was a crazy year for me, filled with caring for my husband who was debilitated by an auto-immune flare-up. Needless to say, not much of my goals for 2022 actually happened!

My husband is doing better, and I'm crossing my fingers that he'll stay that way!

I thought it would be fun to set some goals for the New Year. They might not happen because life sometimes doesn't allow that. But they're something to dream and work towards.

What new projects are you working on to make 2023 better?

What new plants are you trying out to enjoy this year?

Any new techniques you'll be trying?

Or maybe you're just sticking to the tried & true for a nice feeling of consistency in a crazy world!

Here's my garden goals/dreams/hopes/whatevers for 2023!

(1) More potatoes! They were the one thing that grew easily and reliably in a crazy weather/life year. I plan on growing more! Some will likely sprout up in old potatoes beds, and I might make another two or three by just mulching a new area with potatoes, or just trying to smother weeds under a tree with potatoes.

(2) Make one new garden bed. I'm going to continue my mult-year project of rehabilitating a bindweed/blackberry/salmonberry patch by hacking back the unwanted, smothering with layers of paper feed sacks, and covering with food scraps and pouiltry bedding. This will be the third bed in this series.

(3) Figure out how to revive old garden beds that aren't producing without tilling the soil or using chemical fertilizers--anyone have any ideas?

(4) Try to do a burn pile of the invasives. I don't like burning stuff for all sorts of reasons, but with so much fire danger in the recent years, I don't really want debris piles near my house, and I don't want the invasives to spread into the protected wetlands around my house.

(5) Mulch my blueberries with poultry bedding so they hopefully produce a bit more this year!

(6) Grow the food my kids pick out!

(7) Grow the food that grows well and we eat: peas, carrots, radishes, squashes.

(8) Try to grow the food we love that doesn't grow well: Tomatoes, corn, beans

(9) Remake my keyhole garden, putting the rotten edge logs under the soil and giving it fresh boarders and maybe a keyhole compost area!

(10) Dig out and level the path next to my garden so the lawnmower and wheelbarrow don't get stuck in it, and so I don't twist my ankle in it, either!

I have a few plans for the garden. I decided the old garden area will become all berries. 2 rows of blackberries are already in place. Plan to add raspberries, strawberries, and grapes. I also have asparagus over there and plan to extend that row. Will need trellises for the new berries.

I got 4 new raised beds on the other side of the yard now for the annuals.

Im piping faucets to each area so hoses are not strung all over the place.

Shop being built so for the first time I want to catch rain water in on of those water totes that have metal pallet on the bottom so I can move it around as needed.

Compost area being moved to new garden area where there’s no Bermuda trying to take it over before I can even use it. (This probably happening today though)

Once the water faucets in the new area it’s ready for cardboard and mulch for the walk areas.

Then set up drip system for new garden / add to existing system in the old area.

That’s all I’ve thought up so far :)

Those are some great goals, Nicole!! I hope everyone is in MUCH better health, this year, and you can achieve them ALL!!

My goals for this coming year start with getting bees ordered(I'm giving up on trying to catch a swarm, for now), and getting the tractor fixed. We have a lot of construction (an outdoor kitchen, chicken run expansion, and a new project for a mini greenhouse I'll expand on, in a few minutes) & home repairs planned (metal roof needs to be inspected, and repaired for water damage, & gutters replaced), and much of it hinges on that tractor.

We will see if any of my fall plantings survive - a new batch of fiddleheads, to replace the ones the wildlife wiped out. Maybe some of my saffron survived the high winds and arctic blast. Oh! And, I did have more of my direct-seeded asparagus survive, than I'd expected, so a possible tiny harvest, this spring, and more, in '24 - I hope.

I've informed John that my figs and paw paws WILL be replaced, and, in fact the paw paw seeds have been ordered, and should be arriving, any time, now. I'm also, per the thread on growing avocados in Europe, going to try my hand at those. I understand the roots are not fond of transplanting, so I'll put them in very large pots, in the livingroom, in front of my South facing windows & deck door (the side we don't open). Then, if kept pruned small enough, they can be moved in and out, as the weather dictates.

That mini greenhouse idea came about, by me staring at the huge, south-facing window, in the living room. It's awkward placement at the bottom of the stairs REALLY bugs me. I keep looking at it, thinking the builders (the previous owners) didn't plan it "right"! Maybe later, I'll take a picture, and add it to this post, so you can see what I mean. It's a solid log home, so not dependent on a 'frame', and it could have been moved over just a bit, and been installed as a bay or bow window, providing an amazing, year-round spot for growing herbs, lettuces, micro greens, etc. Someday, I may just do that, anyway - not move it, but replace the window. In the meantime, I'm going to build or buy a shelving unit of some sort, and enclose it on the outside with glass, plexi, or something, and create a little greenhouse that gets sun, but can also get heat from the house (which now has good, reliable heat aplenty!), and have something fresh and green, 365 days per year. I hope.

Things I'd LIKE to get planted and try again... perennials: onions, more asparagus, more fiddleheads, more elderberries, more persimmons, more medicinal herbs, hazelnuts, more blueberries, and some June bearing strawberries. Annuals: tomatoes, various peppers, potatoes, medicinal herbs, squash varieties. But, I'm so OVER transplanting! That has played a huge role in my last few years of garden fails. Both the main and the mini greenhouse will be direct seeded, and protected from critters, and(at least to a degree, from weather) and are located in areas that have easy access to water & fertilizer, and I'll have easy access to them.

We may be adding 3 adult geese (1gander, 2 geese), this spring, and I'm hoping there's no trauma this year that prevents my hens from going broody. Last years heat and (at least) tripled predator pressure kept my girls all stressed, so not one of them went broody. I'm also looking into another Nigora doe or two. And... possibly a donkey. Maybe. Possibly. I think...

Edited to add:
The expansion of the chicken run will be accomplished with arched cattle-panels, with chicken wire going up over it, and attached to the front. There will, if I can manage it, actually be 2 bigger greenhouses. John has decided he isn't going to try to keep ducks in the duck run he built, so I'll start with that one, and cover it with heavy guage greenhouse plastic. The 2nd will be made of whatever cattle panels I have, that don't get used for the chicken run.

Glad to see this thread started for 2023. It's good to make garden plans even though they might not always work out.

I use cover crops, compost, manures, leaves, wood ash, & bury kitchen scraps to improve old soils & to make new garden areas. Will continue doing that this year to keep expanding the “sweet spot” in my 1 acre garden. About 25% is rather nice now. The other 75% will eventually get there. Before I moved here it was tilled & plowed extensively. That's simply not how I do it. I try to make it a nice home for the worms & other soil critters to let them do their thing. Can't say plowing & tilling has been totally eliminated but I'm working towards that. So far the weeds are still too rowdy without some machinery to help. The sweet spot doesn't need that anymore though.

This year's new crops include mung beans & some more medicinal plants. Will probably double or triple the amount of potatoes. Intend to build a small raised bed for carrots. Will add more asparagus & other perennials. I need to determine a type of peanut that grows good here. The ones I grew in TN just don't survive here. Also going to expand wildflower areas for the bees & other pollinators.

Have made some progress in hugelfying parts of the garden. This year I want to finish an iron level BB hugel closer to the house. Already have an area cleared & logs staged for that so it might finally be completed this year.

Oh, also in the process of building a chicken coop & enclosed run inside the garden fence. A portable chicken tractor will be a nice addition to the overall garden progress!

Nicole, like you, none of my 2022 garden plans materialised because we ended up moving house, mainly due to my husband's health issues. (Although I am not entirely innocent in that area.)
So, to 2023. We have a new garden so much of my time will be taken up by observation although a few edibles in pots will no doubt appear - probably tomatoes and peas.
The house will be taking up a lot of my time although we won't be doing all the major work this time round due to our own limitations. I used to be scathing of people who "got a man in" to do jobs around the house and I now realise how unkind of me it was to condemn them without knowing their abilities.
I am looking forward to seeing what comes up in the garden although I can see that food growing was not a priority for the previous owner as the only food plant we have discovered so far is a quince. I have not had one before so I will have to read up on care.
Wishing everyone a healthy and productive 2023 and I look forward to reading about everyone's successes in these pages.

My plan is to try to grow anything in vegetable world. Last year was a complete failure and I was able only to grow two parsley plants. I tried probably 60 various kinds of vegetables and herbs and tried 5 times from seeds and everything failed miserably no matter what soil I used, shading, watering.
In the midwest I would throw seeds, come in two, three months to harvest, or if I removed weeds I would harvest more, or if on top of that I would water and fertilize - I could open a farm stand.
My place is definitely not a place for vegetables that we know and like but I'm not giving up and realized that I have to start from seeds no matter what (buying small plants is not an option - I like variety) and I'm going to build cold frames.
Also I have to buy two more families of bees - the heat of summer (44 C top) melted the wax in my top bar hive and everything collapsed.
And last but not least - I will plant 74 more fruit trees for which I have to create interrows in my irrigation system and will finally fence it.
I'm also going to finish the masonry barn/coop (12x12 barn with coop on top) that we built this year.

Hoping 2023 is a wonderful year for all Permies!

Mine will be interesting as I will be working in three gardens.

I have very little space in my UK garden, it grows loads of fruit, and I have a raised bed for growing salad greens. I won't be adding anything new this year.

I have my new Bulgarian garden, which is really two half-acre gardens about ten minutes walk apart. Both have wonderful existing walnut and fruit trees, and probably plenty of self-seeded annuals and edible weeds that will pop up. The soil has been tilled to death, so whatever time I can spend there in my first year will be spend observing what is there, mulching wherever I can, and setting up some compost bins. Also getting water sorted out - rainwater harvesting first and then swales, as it's a dry area. It has quite a slope, but all past tilling has been done on contour so there's a starting point for swales there and no obvious erosion issues.

I hope to set up the distant block as orchard and coppiced hazelnut/ black locust for firewood. The main house block will be more fruit and nut trees, a hazelnut and elderberry fedge along the border with the near neighbour, and the old donkey and sheep pastures will also become coppices for firewood, as there are plenty of young self-seeded wild fruit trees and black locust there. That's on top of weatherproofing the main mudbrick house and the shack that's on the second block, then starting to renovate the interior.

It will be a busy year!

Last year I said:

L. Johnson wrote:My plan -

Plant seeds (especially ones I have saved)
Try to get a yield.
Eat them.
Save more seeds.

Also get more perennials established.

If I can be greedy I'm hoping to have more yields than this past year or two.

I succeeded!

This year I'll have to find a new balance since I'm starting my M.A. studies. My goals are - reorganize the garden such that my kids and my wife want to spend time there.

This includes some ideas such as
- creating a yard space for pitching a tent, kicking a ball, etc.
- planting more flowers
- making a new temporary fire pit (until I can spend time to build my luxury fire pit centered garden living room)
- keeping the garden as tidy as I can, permie style. Hopefully with lots of home-made woodchip mulch and well thought out ground cover.

If I can be greedy I'm hoping to match my pumpkin harvest from 2022 and exceed my sweet potato harvest. They were definitely highlights of the past year.

2022 wasn’t a failure but I only accomplished a few of my goals.  Luckily only one surgery for hubby this year and a minor one for my daughter too.  Main problem is that I was already burnt out from gardening by August and one or the other of us has been constantly sick since my daughter returned to school.  Never did get all the garden beds cleaned off and compost and/or mulch added either.  So I'm going to concentrate on getting things from last year crossed off my list.

-finish the brick and paver patio in the back yard.  Have everything except sand and gravel for this.

-pick up rocks and stones from old shade garden (tree cut down and now its full sun) and pile them for use in a new backyard bed.

-Burn stumps and debris from tree that was cut down and area we had cleared for greenhouse.

-get greenhouse together (hopefully not much of a challenge as I'm using metal framework from an old building)

-try not to burn out too early and concentrate on fall crops.

I'll probably add a few more goals here and there but trying to keep it simple for now.

ugh. the plan at this point is just to have a garden and grow some vegetables. have been focusing on woody stuff and perennials (and a toddler) this year, but the ‘regular’ garden definitely fell by the wayside this time around. hope springs eternal!

2023 is a medicine rabbit year, I hope it will bring a lot of healing. My 2022 garden was all put in when we welcomed a new baby, and it suffered much neglect for the rest of the year. The little herb nurseries I started were the star, and the 100% compost raised bed, which grew enormous tomato and melon bushes. I want to improve on the compost production this year by finding a tool that can chop fibrous stems. We have tons of tansy, raspberry, spirea, shasta daisy, and horseweed for the compost pile, but I keep them separate because they take so long to break down. They clog up the chipper and the loppers are too slow. By creating little nurseries for herbs I was able to raise four garden sages, two bee balms, five lemon balms and eight or ten catnips to about quart-size. Usually when I plant out herbs they get lost but now I can transplant these yearling ones out in the spring and get full size mature plants to harvest in summer. So I'll be starting more herbs close together in beds for next year, moving perennials and putting them in gopher cages, trying to grow an annual vege garden again, and hopefully making some improvements in the swamp.

Since last year I'm trying to pretend that I'm narrowing down my gardening plans to make them more reasonable and doable, and then... yesterday I ordered a ridiculous amount of lily bulbs, though they're not even sending them for another three months!

I also collected a lot of mashed egg shells, to protect the lillies and other plants from slugs, because I'm not using poisons or weed killers. Of course the slugs will eat them anyway, I thought, so I ordered even more lillies...

Of veggies, I ordered broad beans, broccoli, beetroots, onions, zucchini, and I did NOT order pumpkins because this year I had to eat them myself.

I'm also not collecting seeds (almost), because I don't have a place to grow them and they'd get eaten by the slugs anyway (being usually smaller and weaker than the plants that start in the ground).

And I'm planning to make the edge of my pond look more pretty, and maybe get a rabbit. I'm probably not allowed to get a rabbit, though.

Be realistic, they say!
Happy New Year!

Thank you Nicole for this opportunity to write my goals, thereby making their execution more likely.

I want more perennial ,or fully self-seeding, vegetables: maybe I'll try orach again, (no success on my first two tries) and ??? I want at least 3 that are new to me; maybe tree collards, as my kale is doing a great job of self-seeding.

I, too, am making new growing beds. I extended two already this winter, I'll do more work on soil restoration inside the orchard fencing.

I will work on relaxing into acceptance with a friend who will again spend a summer (or longer) on my land. While we have separate dwellings, it can be challenging to not engage too  much of my time in helping him with projects and neglecting my own.

I will try another form of composting this year, or at least move my simple pallet bin out to the sun so it'll be warmer and compost faster. I'm still wondering if I should just incorporate stuff in un-aged and continue to use sawdust/shavings as my mulch. I play with that also.

Grow more dry beans, squash and potatoes; improve my cold storage.

build solar dryer like my proof-of-concept one but bigger.

Build a cover and platform for the elk's mineral block

Happy new year dear permie companions