2021 Garden Recap

It’s the first weekend in a LONG time that we don’t have garden chores that need to be done. And I’m wracking my brain for things to do because I miss having dirt under my nails and the smell of greens in my nostrils. Before we can start (or continue) planning the 2022 growing season we need to take time to reflect on 2021!

Let’s start with our 2021 homestead goals.

I’m one of those people who loves checking things off the list, so it feels pretty damn good to have checks next to each of our goals. We were far from perfect, so let’s dive in a little further:

• Add a greenhouse. In 2020 we started our tomatoes and peppers too early and were moving 60 buckets of starts in and out of the garage for about a month straight. It was nuts and we still ended up losing a lot of those plants. So a greenhouse was a big YES this season. We decided to start with a cheap (under $400) polycarbonate and aluminum option. We weren’t entirely sure (still aren’t) how or if we would use the greenhouse beyond starting plants in the spring so we didn’t want to invest a ton until we had a process down. It’s a starter greenhouse and I highly recommend this approach. I see so many gorgeous greenhouses on Instagram and maybe one day we will have one, but right now we are focused on learning how to best utilize it and less on how it looks. We didn’t use it at all in the summer but we do have some fall crops in it currently. Summer use is definitely on our list of things to explore in 2022.

• Build & fill 10 raised beds. Done & done! Josh deserves ALL of the credit for designing our new raised bed garden, building each bed, and filling them with soil and compost. He did this all while on paternity leaving being a stay-at-home dad. Amazing!

• More goats. We rescued Lenny & Captain Squigs in July! We had been communicating with Happy Trails Farm Animal Sanctuary since April or so and of course they came the week before we left for a 2-week trip. It was nerve-wracking but they adapted so well. Pluto is loving the company and it brings me a lot of joy to look out our living room window and see three goats outside.

• Build a trellis system. It’s a little bit of a stretch to say that we accomplished this goal. We did what we had to in order to manage our plants this season, but improvements still need to be made. We got some great ideas by visiting local gardens and will implement more bamboo structures next season. I ultimately want a cattle panel arch trellis but this is just not in the budget at the moment. In order for them to be sturdy enough to support plants growing on them and retain the arch, we need a thicker gauge metal. It also needs to be 16’ long so that we can still walk under it. Then we need to figure out how to transport it. So we pushed this idea on the back burner, and you know what? I’m okay with that because it WILL happen eventually and it will make me that much happier when it does!

• Improve compost. We made a ton of improvements to the ratio of green:brown, the entire compost process, and general quality of the compost this year. We are still a ways away from having an abundance of compost and we had a couple of times this season when we added compost to beds when it wasn’t fully broken down, resulting in lots of volunteer plants. We feel that we are on the right path with the compost and will keep making improvements as we grow!

• Preserve. I’m really proud of what we were able to preserve this year. We didn’t have any waste from the garden. We canned a lot of tomatoes using a few different recipes (sauce, chili base, jam, bruschetta). We also dehydrated and ground up some peppers, celery, and herbs for spices. Can’t wait to keep exploring new recipes and techniques!

Some other hot takes from the season:

• Plants that it was our first time growing:

  • Sweet potatoes

  • Black beans

  • Pinto beans

  • Popcorn

  • Kohlrabi

  • Wine cap mushrooms

  • Chickpeas

  • Celery

  • Garlic

• Favorite plants we grew this year:

  • LL: Sweet potatoes

  • Josh: Popcorn

• Biggest success:

  • The salad bed! Excited to move this to the deck off our kitchen next season & be a lot better about succession planting!

• Biggest failure:

  • Squash/pumpkins…we got hit with squash bugs hard and it was a BIG disappointment.

• Must do for 2022:

  • Pest management! We shared a lot of our harvest with deer, bunnies, raccoons, and other wild critters this season. We’ve got plans to improve our fencing, add flowers, and some other easy ideas to hopefully keep unwanted friends out of the garden.