Are you planning big changes, or minor tweaks to a working system? Are there new-to-you plants you’re excited to try your hand at? Let’s share our dreams and goals and inspire each other!
Strawberries. Lots of strawberries
Any specific varieties you have in mind? If not, we’ve been really pleased with our ‘Marie du Bois’ cultivar - they’re huge and delicious
- get a proper composter because the bin I was using started rusting
- plant more herbs
- really a lot of herbs, they’re so worth it
- don’t forget to fertilise my olive tree
There’s tons of ways to properly compost! What kind of setup are you considering?
Something small 😅.
I currently just have an actual bin with a ton of mulch that I put my dead plants in and give it a little water sometimes. Has been working fairly well for a couple years now.
I know there’s ‘proper’ ways to compost but I never really got into it because it feels like overkill for the amount of compost I actually use (there’s already basically a never ending supply).
Any suggestions for a small setup?
We have a few small welded wire rings, roughly 3 feet in diameter and 4 feet high, that we use around the bird yard. That’s about the minimum size to get the piles to heat to the point of being able to kill off most seeds that make it in there, and it’s a simple thing to lift the ring and move it over so the pile can be turned. You could make it smaller if you’re not too concerned with volunteer plants sprouting. I know a few folks who will line the inside with landscape felt (not the plastic stuff) to have less material fall through the gaps in the wire and make them look a little cleaner, if that’s something you’re interested in.
I want to build a fence like, with integrated plants in too , I’m not that handy, so it’s gonna look great😁😛
You’re going to do great! And the plants will help to hide things you learned from 💕
I built up a few new raised beds / sunken pathways for more vegetable production before the ground froze, and used them to heel in dozens of perennials for the winter. We also have some spaces along our property boundaries that have newly opened sun access, so once the soil is workable again we’ll be investing in native hedgerow to replace some of our fencing. We and a few of our neighbors have had tree work done by a friend in town recently, so we’re going to have another 30+ yards of wood chips from the block for pathways and mulching.
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install three more raised beds and a shed
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start vermicomposting
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border the yard with lilac bushes, my favorite flower
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not make a malapropism of “Florida Weave” all season
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convince the Virginia creeper to only grow on the house and not cover the yard
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I’d like to get rid of my front lawn, the maintenance of it is a massive mental strain, it always feels like an insurmountable job. I’d also like another raised bed in the back garden for veg!
That sounds like a great set of goals!
I’m planning to devote about half of my fenced garden space to trying a three sisters patch, and this year I’m going to be more strategic about where I put my potatoes so they don’t shade out everything around them early in the season. I haven’t grown beans or corn before but my squash did great last year so I’m looking forward to more of that!
I didn’t have great luck with brassicas last year so I’m hoping to do better by starting earlier and figuring out how to fight the cabbage moths.
I also have tentative plans to build out a patio/fire pit area on the site of a pool and deck I tore down last year. I want it surrounded by raised beds with various perennials like blueberry bushes, and maybe someday a grape trellis. I have plenty of wood from that deck so I may also build random stuff like a bench to go inside my squash tunnel (:
This was a good reminder that I should start putting together a planting schedule and a seed order soon!
The cabbage moth solution I see everywhere is low tunnels with a fine mesh to exclude them. We were gifted a hinged low tunnel and I’m planning to use that for our frame, I’ll let you know how it goes
All of this sounds amazing, I can’t wait to see your results!
Good to know! A contractor we had doing some work on the house last year left behind a roll of thick poly sheeting so I was thinking about using that to make some floating row covers anyway.
I’ll be sure to post lots of pictures this year! I also started a personal website recently for fun so I’ll probably be putting stuff there.
Not all poly is equally UV resistant. If your roll has branding information on it I would highly recommend checking that before using it. Cleaning up the pieces of the wrong poly is a huge pain because it fragments more while you’re trying to pick it up.
If what you have lying around isn’t up to the task, ask around at your local greenhouses for offcuts from their last greenhouse skins. The box stores will try to sell you rolls from the paint department, and that’s no good for this. You could also try any local dance studios about tulle they didn’t use - plenty of folks use fabric mesh to do their brassica low tunnels.
Good to know - thanks!
