New Year, New Garden: 2025 Wins and 2026 Garden Planning
January 11, 2026 | By TigreBlume
Happy 2026 Gardening Season, my friends!!
It’s hard to believe 2025 is behind us and we’re already a few weeks into the new year. For me, 2025 was filled with lots of gardening wins…
I harvested over a hundred pounds of paste tomatoes – for canning pasta and pizza sauce.
I harvested several pounds of bell peppers, banana peppers, fish peppers, and cubanelle peppers – using some of them to make hot sauces and freezing the rest to sustain us through the next growing season.
I harvested several pounds of green beans – and preserved them by placing them in my freezer. This harvest will last us through the next growing season.
I harvested several pounds of green leafy vegetables (swiss chard, collard green, cabbage, lettuce, bok choy) throughout the growing season for fresh eating.
I grew over 20 varieties of flowers throughout the season – using many of them to make an endless number of fresh cut flower bouquets.
I successfully installed drip irrigation in two of my existing garden beds.
I expanded my garden by adding 3 additional raised beds.
The majority of the items I harvested were grown from seed by yours truly...I didn’t have to buy a single vegetable or flower plant in 2025 (with exception to a few dahlia and caladium tubers that I purchased online).
It’s quite amazing how you can get a bountiful harvest from a tiny seed. Each year I gain the confidence to grow a little more, in an effort to maximize my growing space and harvest a 6 to 9-month supply of many of the vegetables my family and I enjoy eating or utilizing in recipes.
I’m super excited about the upcoming growing season! 2026 garden planning officially kicked off for me during the month of December. Winter is the perfect time to get ahead on the upcoming growing season. Here’s a quick recap of the key tasks I’ve completed thus far:
Stocked up on seed starting mix and indoor potting mix! I prefer to sow my indoor seedlings in a sterile and light/airy plant medium. I use an indoor potting mix, with a low strength granulated fertilizer, to pot up my seedlings.
Replenished some essential seeds — like cucumbers, onions, and hot peppers (plus a few "bonus" varieties I definitely didn't need—we've all been there! 😅).
Reviewed last year’s successes and challenges to help determine which vegetables, herbs, and flowers I’m growing this year!
Started drafting my 2026 gardening goals. This year, I’m leveling up on some of my vegetables to ensure my family has a year-long supply. I’m also hoping to have much better luck growing onions this year – my family and I don’t eat a lot of onions throughout the year, but would be nice to grow enough such that we don’t have to purchase any from our local grocer.
Finalized the line-up of vegetables, herbs and annual flowers I’ll be sowing indoors for spring and summer planting. This year, I’ll be growing 10 different varieties of peppers, 20+ varieties of flowers, and a multitude of herbs, tomatoes, alliums, root veggies, and brassicas!
Cleaned and sanitized dirty seed starting trays and nursery pots. This is an important step to ensure they are free of any bacteria and fungi that might be lying dormant in the containers.
Created a basic indoor seed starting schedule based on my last spring frost date (see image below). I’ll start sowing my first set of seeds in mid-January!
Started mapping out my garden for spring and summer plantings. I use good old-fashioned pencil and paper to physically draw everything out – raised beds, in-ground beds, containers, planters and everything in between! This ensures I am maximizing my space to the greatest extent possible, growing what I can reasonably fit in my space, and planting what we will actually utilize.
By TigreBlume
I still have a few tasks to wrap up this month—like finalizing my garden layout (mapping), setting up my indoor seed starting equipment (grow lights, heat mats, indoor thermometer, timer, etc.), ordering my dahlia tubers (and maybe a few caladiums as well😊). Am I the only one who feels their gardening to-do list keeps getting longer each week...oh, the joys of gardening!
Later in the week…I’ll be sharing what seeds I’m sowing this month—along with a few useful indoor seed starting and growing tips.
What seeds are you starting this month?
Happy Seed Starting My Friends!
