With New Year's Day tomorrow, I'm thinking about how to make next year a better garden year. More enjoyment, less work (I hope), better looking, tidier, less watering, more accessible, less waste. That's a lot to think about. It won't be perfect, but those are my guidelines for 2026. The watering work is a big deal. So is the need to make it more tidy. For less to take care of, I already removed most of my fig tree collection, already posted about that. It's too bad, in a way, because they shaded the ground and needed no watering at all. The good news is, the border where they were will be ~6 feet wide instead of ~10 to ~20 feet, and fruit trees that aren't there won't need pruning. I will move lavender plants from the wider border to fill in the gaps. I'll try to keep tomato plants down to 5 Romas and 5 slicing tomato plants. Hybrids this time. All determinate, with cages. I already saved a leaf pile to mulch them better than the cardboard I used in previous years. This year, leaves did a better job. Hand watering needs to be significantly less. I already planted all but two of the container roses in the ground in the rose garden / duck yard and chicken yard. In 2025 I spent a lot of the summer carrying water for container garden and didn't enjoy that, especially as it grew hotter. Also fewer other container plants. I struggle with drip irrigation, but it does help a lot in the kitchen garden. Last year I surfaced the walkways in the kitchen garden with large reused plastic pads, covered with arborist chips. That wasn't all that successful because moles had a heyday with those and it was difficult to walk around and got weedy. This winter I will pull up and discard the pads, smooth the soil, and scatter grass seed. Mowing will be easier than what I was doing. I won't water the pathway grass, so it should turn brown in summer. Some areas will still have plastic mulch for squashes. Trellises worked very well for squashes. Repeat in 2026. Containers were ideal for chilis, despite the need for watering, so I'll repeat. Strawberries did very well in containers, with irrigation lines, so I will repeat. I will try containers for early beans and snowpeas. The main kitchen garden has too much herbivore destruction for beans and peas, until summer is underway (jays, maybe voles, definitely slugs). I can wage war on them, but I want gardening to be a respite, not so much a battle. Miss one entry way and they find the open. When the legumes finish, I can put those containers away for hot dry summer. The former rose containers currently contain overwintering tulips. Easy to plant beans in those when tulips finish. No new containers needed. Being low-carb now, a lot of fruit gets wasted. Resolve to remove more apple trees. Food bank doesn't take damaged fruit, and I don't want to spray. Try to just keep proven favorites, mainly the mini trees. In my mind, I can remove a persimmon tree or three, maybe 4 apple trees, some plums (except I really like those plums). Maybe an Asian pear tree. The other will need grafts in April for pollinating branches. I can do that. I already bought vegetable and flower seeds. Mostly those tomatoes, various beans, dwarf varieties of zinnias, marigolds, cosmos if I remember correctly. One of the hardest jobs will be to dig out the three raised beds that moles got into, and bury a protective layer of hardware cloth to exclude the varmints. I may not be able to do all three beds. I do want to grow sone scented pelargoniums in 2026. They are heat and dry tolerant, look nice enough, and the scents are important to me. All plans subject to change It's more about the guiding principles than the specifics. Less work, more tidy, less clutter, less struggle, more water-wise, more enjoyment, and be adaptable.
I too am already planning. I am trying to decide, after I dig holes and stick stuff in them, should I sit and drink beer and watch it grow, or should I lay in the hammock and drink beer ? But I also have the option grilling while I sit and drink beer. So much to decide. And what beer should I buy this year. And how much ? So confusing
Those sound like great plans Daniel. My mind has been whirling in the same direction. It must be hard to part with your fruit trees. I lost so much to Voles last year. I'm really hoping this year will be better. I'm also going to have to use more hardware cloth . It helped with the strawberries. My access to it is quite limited and costly. Can I ask what size you purchase and if it is metal or plastic? I have to go to 1/4 inch to keep the Voles out. We don't have moles thankfully. I'm also planning/hoping to trellis more squash this year but for some it is not possible. I hoping to prop the larger ones up onto milkcrates with hardware cloth around them. I'm moving more of my smaller items to totes with some protection around the perimiter. Artichokes, bush beans, and some early spinach will all be behind a fenced enclosure and elevated a wee bit. I'm also considering not doing flower planters on the deck this year, but utilizing those large pots for pole beans to climb along the railing, and possibly some artichokes. I had such success with the Rhodos in the hanging basket last year, I'm trying a few different trailing vining flowers from hanging baskets this year, to make up for much fewer flower planters. I have to create a safe zone around the Early cantelope that I grew in the greenhouse last year. Two grew, and had the most amazing flavour. When I picked the second one, the entire back of it had been eaten out by a vole. Weeding is becoming quite an issue for me now with the arthritis in my hands, and I have to come up with some better solutions this year or limit the garden sizes. Hubby and I are talking about building some raised beds in both gardens with the existing garden soil and covering the walkways in between That will be a future project but I think that is where we are leaning. Lots of planning and scheming going on
All I'm doing differently is I plan to dig up the roses out in the East garden that are closest to the fence and move then to the south garden that has afternoon shade. I have to widen the south garden by a couple feet to do that. That's it for me but since that bed is over 50' long, it's gonna take me a while !!
