What are your 2025 garden plans? Anything new?

[Jukebox Actual]

Oh man, I'm tweaking my entire system this season. I learned TONS from this past season and aim not to make those same mistakes (knowingly) again. My main changes summarized are...

More peppers, all the peppers. Starting them indoors a full 6 weeks earlier as well.
Expansion of the fence line garden.
Expanding my flower residency to incorporate closer to 20% of the garden, vs. the 5% last year.
Amending my irrigation system. (I believe I have one too many lines per bed and will subtract one.)
Redesigning my trellis systems and adding/subtracting trellis from plants. (last year I had a trellis on my squash and zucchini beds for some reason, it was NOT needed)
Adhering to spacing more strictly. (I let my tomatoes run wild and I suffered with a weaker crop yield. Ooooh did I have the vegetation though!!)
More fertilizer, more compost.
Implementing the "3-sisters" method HEAVY this year, as it absolutely thrived last year with my trial set of 3.
Herbs, herbs, herbs.
Starting over with all new and fresh seeds. (I aim to narrow down why things aren't working specifically. I was using some seeds that were up to 3 years old with almost zero germination at times). I bought $140 in seeds this year.
NO OUTSIDE STARTERS. (I was out of time and needed replacement plants. I bought some $1/2 starters off of the marketplace and I believe they introduced foreign species and disease to one of my beds.)

 

[Meadowlark]

Nothing new in veggies here...but a major push to grow flowering plants as attractors for pollinators.

My list of non-veggies this year:

Marigolds French and African
Zinnias
Coneflower
Sunflower mammoth and teddy bear
Bee Balm
Gomphrena
Lavendar
milkweed swamp and sandhill
Ixia
Basil
Asters

 

[Meadowlark]

Ran across a new veggie to me today...cucuzzi, an heirloom Italian gourd that produces long, curved, cylindrical pale green squash. If harvested while immature, it is edible with a mild, sweet, and nutty flavor, similar to the texture and taste of zucchini. Zucchini gets tough and stringy pretty quickly here and looking for this to maybe replace it.

 

[Jukebox Actual]

Nothing new in veggies here...but a major push to grow flowering plants as attractors for pollinators.

My list of non-veggies this year:

Marigolds French and African
Zinnias
Coneflower
Sunflower mammoth and teddy bear
Bee Balm
Gomphrena
Lavendar
milkweed swamp and sandhill
Ixia
Basil
Asters

I've grown them all except Gomphrena, Milkweed, and Ixia. I have a packet of milkweed seeds, but I've never heard of the other two.

 

[Meadowlark]

Ixia is very colorful in photos and looks like a butterfly magnet. I got a few bulbs, and they should be planted in fall, but I'm going with spring.



The Gomphrena is also known as globe amaranth. It is native to Central America and produces dense, clover-like flower heads that come in a variety of colors, including purple, pink, red, orange, and white. The flowers are small but gathered into tight, globe-shaped clusters. It's also quite drought-tolerant which is good because I'll be planting it outside the range of my sprinklers. Definitely reminds of clover.

 

[Jukebox Actual]

Ahhhhh I've heard of the globe amaranth.

 

[Mike]

I've got a lot of new things going on in the garden this year.

I plan on growing some eggplant for the first time. We're also going to put some carrots in for the first time.

We're also going to try putting our tomatoes in protein tubs, following @Meadowlark's advice in his Hügelkultur Container threads.

Finally, I'm putting everything in the garden on a drip irrigation system this year, with timers, so it'll water every morning while the sun is rising (and I'm at work).

Oh, one more thing...we're building a hydroponic strawberry stand that will, hopefully, hold 10-20 plants. The hope is that we get much more strawberry production from that than we did from the plants in the ground. If we do, we'll use our ground bed as a feeder for the hydroponic stand in future years. This year, though, we'll just have both growing, just in case the hydroponic stand doesn't work out.

 

[skinyea]

My neighbor and I trade seeds every year. I am going to try round zucchiniis last year. might trade for some of them.

 

[Meadowlark]

I tried those @skinyea one year and liked them...but for some reason forgot about them. Old age, I guess.

However, seems like they may have been a hybrid.

 

[skinyea]

I tried those @skinyea one year and liked them...but for some reason forgot about them. Old age, I guess.

However, seems like they may have been a hybrid.

i ate a few of his last year. I like them. his did not take up as much room as a black beauty would. I am going to grow them vertical. do you think that would work? doesnt seem to be as heavy as most zucc.

 

[Meadowlark]

It might...keep it off the soil that way.