I sat down this morning to write a post about the vegetable varieties I am growing (and NOT growing) in my kitchen garden this season. To preface the post, I started talking about my biggest goal for the garden this year, which is shifting a bit from my usual why behind gardening. As the post got longer…and longer…and longer still, it felt like garden goals needed to be discussed. So I bring you a big ol’ post about three of my biggest goals for gardening this season.
There are many reasons why I’m dedicated to growing food. Including learning the process of growing and where food comes from, teaching these things to my children, bonding with my family in the backyard, reducing my carbon footprint, saving money, and learning something new. Plus so many more reasons including benefiting my mental health. Plus, it’s one of my hobbies that I truly love. Bonus that it feeds us.
This year’s approach to gardening feels a little different. Watching current events unfold, the threats of significant grocery cost increases looming, and in general a through-current of uncertainty over the economy.
There’s something about knowing and being able to grow our food that has always given me a sense of peace. The world could be on fire, often actually is, but I can ground myself in the peace and privilege that is my garden. Sinking my hands in the dirt, feeding my family from our backyard, and soothing my spirit. The garden provides for me in so many ways.
While in years past, I didn’t mind dedicating a whole section to vegetables I struggled with growing. Ahem, I’m talking about you cauliflower, my ultimate garden nemesis. Or if I was tired and didn’t feel like planting the shelling peas because they are a lot of work, I just skipped it. And if I wanted to try growing ALL the fun hot pepper varieties, I did.
I would also give serious space to things that didn’t produce much. For example, last year I grew an entire bed of celeriac, which I love but no one else in our household does, and it has a loooong growing season. In that same amount of time and space, I could have turned over hundreds of pounds of green beans for the family.
If I were to give a general theme for this year’s gardening season, it would be food security. I want to produce as much food as possible for my family AND our community. We’re so lucky to live in a small town that takes care of its own and I would love to help contribute to those in need.
More specifically, my goals for the 2025 garden are to optimize our food production volume (primary goal), save money, and a bit of education.
Garden Goal #1: Production
Producing as much food as I can in the space that I have is priority number one for my garden this year. I chose this goal to help me feel secure. It feels like preparing to take care of my family’s diet in case something goes awry with our food system. Everything will probably be fine, but at least I have some backup and a sense of security.
Setting this as a goal not only dictates which vegetables to grow but also which varieties of those vegetables to grow. For instance, while cucamelons are adorable snackers, they take up a lot of space for such little production. One trellis of cucamelons can yield a few bowls of snack cucumbers, but if I gave that space to slicers or pickling cucumbers, I would be overwhelmed with cucumbers. And if there’s one thing my family can down, it’s pickles. I choose cucumber overwhelm this year.
It also helps me focus, which happens to be my word of the year for 2025, on the vegetables we eat the most along with the ones that can be stored or preserved for the winter. For me, that looks like lots and lots of green beans, shelling peas, carrots, celery, onions, winter squashes, and more. True story, we haven’t bought onions in years thanks to the garden.
A word on tomatoes. I love tomatoes. And this winter, as I’ve been percolating over the varieties to grow in the garden and figuring out what my family eats, I realized how many tomato products we go through. It’s significant. Ketchup, whole and diced tomatoes for soups and chillis, salsas, tomato paste, marinara sauce, and more. While I do love a large slicing tomato like Dr. Wyche’s for a tomato sandwich and unique cherry tomatoes for salads, I need sauce varieties at the heart of my tomato garden, which hasn’t always been the case.
Garden Goal #2: Save Money
Our family runs essentially on a single-family income. I do make some money from working winters as a ski instructor and also your readership helps provide income for my family (THANK YOU!!), but it’s a fraction of what my husband makes.
We’ve been feeling the pinch on groceries for the last couple of years and it’s getting worse. Our same basket of goods jumps in price week to week, month to month, and it’s unsustainable. The cost is high enough that I may have talked Colby into purchasing another round of 25 baby chicks for layers this spring. The last time we did that was in 2020.
I’m turning to the garden this year to help save us money. And this goal is shaping many of our decisions for the garden and how we use our land.
For example, I don’t have a great composting system and tend to buy about $300-$400 of compost every year to help top off my garden beds. This stops this year. Mark my words, 2025 will be the year of the snake compost. I started working on this in the fall but didn’t finish setting up my new system before the snow started to fly.
It also means I want to stop buying seeds. Well, at least as much as I can. Most years, I have about a $150 budget for seeds. This year, it went a long way when buying the more budget-friendly seeds from MI Gardener which are all heirlooms at $2 per pack. It’s one of my all-time favorite places to buy seeds.
I know very little about seed saving and this is the year I plan to educate myself. While I have saved seeds from beans and peas, which are the easiest in my opinion, I would like to expand my knowledge. For example, learning how to avoid cross-pollination with blossom bags and save the seeds from my tried and true, favorite heirloom tomato varieties.
The goal of saving money also makes me think deeply about some of the most expensive grocery items we buy and how I can help lessen that cost. Some of the worst culprits for our family are leafy greens in the winter, berries, and artichokes. So this year, you’ll find me attempting to grow greens all year round, expand our fruit-growing capacities, and plant an in-ground section of artichokes.
Garden Goal #3: Education
Education is usually my number one goal for growing a garden. I love learning how to grow food, experimenting with different tastes, trying new varieties that our grocery stores don’t carry, and even figuring out how to defend my favorite vegetables from pests. The pest pressure is different every year and is always a learning experience!
If I remove education from my garden goals, simply focusing on production and saving money, the garden becomes a chore. I would rather keep it fun and learning new things is what does that for me. AND teaching my children in the process, which will never go away. But given that it’s a lesser priority than the first two goals, I have had to get creative with the education part.
Photo of two-year-old Beatrix helping lug dead leaves and plants to the compost pile during spring bed cleanup last year.
That’s why learning composting and seed-saving techniques can be helpful since they save money AND teach me something new in the process. Other cross-over goals include making fertilizer instead of buying it, which I experimented with last year and have lots to share, along with a DIY seed starting mix. Both of these new explorations not only taught me new things but also saved me a ton of money. More on these tasks soon!
I also want to experiment with plant varieties and track yields. For example, I have two broccoli types I love, Covina and Belstar, both F1 hybrids from High Mowing Organic Seeds. I have yet to find an heirloom that produces well in my garden. I feel like Belstar is a better producer of heads and side shoots, but Covina tends to be less finicky and avoids bolting longer. This season, I’m planting both and tracking how many pounds of each type I harvest to determine if one produces better for me than the other.
What Are Your Garden Goals For This Year?
So I challenge you before you start that first seed or come up with this year’s garden plan, to determine your goals for the garden. It’s always a great idea to determine and align our goals with our actions. In life and the garden.
Feel free to share your gardening goals for the year in the comments. From what you’re working on to something new you’re learning.
What a fabulous post! Thank you for sharing your goals. They’re particularly inspiring and helpful to me this year!
We live in the city, with a tiny urban lot, and most of my edibles are grown in two galvanized troughs.
Like you, I’m ditching the cucamelon. I need to go back to my tried-and-true Spacemaster Cucumber instead.
I also need to do fewer experiments. I always grow purple shiso (so pretty and yummy), but last year, I tried green shiso as well, and it was such a disappointment (slow to grow and crankier about drought).
I may need to dial back the aesthetics, too. Having such a tiny space, I always tuck in pretty perennials and annuals, but I may need to focus more on perennials.
I think the main thing I need to do is USE THE STUFF I HAVE. I have seeds I’ve never planted. Sprout starting supplies I’ve never used. Cloches that only sometimes end up in the garden. Etc. I need to use all of them.
Again, thanks for the helpful post, and good luck this garden season!
Yes to “use the stuff I have.” I feel you on that one!! I love how all gardeners seem to have that problem. We buy all the seeds and garden things and don’t end up using them all. Also, I think you do need that beautiful balance in the garden as well, especially if it brings you joy. Good luck with your growing season as well! You’ll have to let me know how it goes! PS…I already have too many seeds and now I’m searching out shiso seeds (naturally) because of you!
Hi Angie! I’m really liking your newsletter format! My garden goals are crazy simple compared to yours, I guess I’m less adventurous! I’m also a beginner so still learning here! My husband found plans on YouTube to build a new raised u-shaped bed so that’s our first project. The rest of my family doesn’t eat a lot of veggies so it’s just a salad garden for me. I’m not sure I’m skilled enough to grow onions?! Maybe green ones! Also I’m looking forward to lower prices on everything, especially food and gas! Not sure where you got the idea that prices will increase but maybe because you’re in Vermont?! Shrug. I guess time will tell. Love your gardening posts despite the fact I’ve never heard of a cucamelon?! Lol
Oooh…those U-shaped raised bed gardens are so beautiful and a salad garden sounds dreamy! Green onions are totally the easiest and you can sow the seeds directly in the soil as soon as its workable. They’re a great gateway variety to onions. And you’ll have to do a web search for cucamelons. They’re also called Mexican sour gherkins. They’re cucumbers that look like miniature watermelons. Absolutely adorable! Good luck with your garden this season!