My 2026 Gardening Goals

Saturday, January 31, 2026

I looked back on my 2025 gardening goals to see how I did and what I want to strive for the 2026 gardening season for my edible and decorative garden.  I did pretty well against my goals.  Now is a good time to develop this coming year's goals with specifics.

 My 2025 goals were to have a plan, make it beautiful, maximize the production, attract pollinators, try new things and be proactive on pests.  I think I did decent against my goals.  My biggest regrets on last year's garden was our tomato and potato harvest was not what I had hoped.

I think the 6 overall goals are the same I want this year with some changes in how to take them the next step for the current garden.

Goal 1:  Have a plan.  I started planning at the end of the fall season what I needed to plant for 2026 so I wouldn't plant too much, plant a variety that didn't do well, or forget a variety that I wanted to try.  I wrote it all down this past fall and put together my 2026 plan so I am good there. My 2026 Decorative and Edible Garden Plan  I was successful in deterring the voles with my thyme and daffodil planting.  I'll just need to add them around the one new bed we put in in late fall.  I also have ordered a few heat and disease tolerant varieties to keep production through the summer going. 

Goal 2:  Make it beautiful.  My flower beds are dual purpose, production of edibles, fragrance and decorative.  Many flowers are edible, too.  Flowers that are edible  Many of the perennials I planted in 2025 did well.  I'll have to fill in the few gaps of the ones that don't make it through the winter.  My focus for beautifying is the hill next to the house that is not mowable.  I spread many seeds of annuals and perennials in the fall.  I'll do the same in late spring to hopefully get self-seeders going.  I'll also transplant the many flower volunteers that come up in the garden beds to the hill.  

Goal 3:  Maximize the production of edibles.  Continue succession planting.  Want continuous harvests? Succession planting!  Be more ruthless in pulling out what is past its prime to make room for the next round/season of edibles.  Continue to add compost to the beds each spring or fall.  Continue to do soil testing and work to get pH at the optimum level for edibles, 6.5-7.5.  The next step in garden production and your nutrition-soil minerals  Have ordered more heat  tolerant and disease resistant tomatoes for the heat waves we are having nowadays to keep tomatoes coming.  For potatoes, I will either take the sides down from the potato boxes when I plant or I won't plant them in the boxes so they get the sun they need early in the season to produce spuds.  Also ordered disease resistant cucumbers as the ones last year succumbed in August to disease.

I planted many bulbets of garlic this past fall and separated cloves.  I will need to keep an eye on them and space them out once the bulbets sprout in the spring so they can develop.  My potato onions didn't do much at all in their current spot.  I've been watering with whey to get the pH down in the optimal range for them but if they don't develop a lot of greenery come spring, I'll need to find another spot for them.

We bought a shed that we are converting into a greenhouse, potting shed and gardening storage.  After it is completed, I'll be figuring out how to leverage it for the garden.

Goal 4:  Attract pollinators.  As I chose the perennials, annuals and edibles, I will keep an eye to how helpful they are in providing food and habitat for pollinators.  All my pots with edibles include flowers.  Decorative container gardening for edibles  I'll be sure to have the water bath and keep the landing spot I added last year for both birds and insects.  I added a bee hive last year.  The marigolds, cock's comb and zinnias were buzzing in late summer and fall with bees.  I'll continue to plant these annuals for them.

Goal 5:  Try new things.  I am always seeing new varieties to try so that is not a hard thing to do.  It's more about improving all aspects of the garden.  I will continue to look for ways to improve productivity and deter pests naturally, like planting Dragon's Radish next to sprouting broccoli to deter caterpillars.  Part of my garden plan will be making sure I have a strongly scented plant about every 6 feet to deter deer.  This can be marigolds or herbs.    

Goal 6:  Be proactive.  I live in the country so no matter how well your garden plan is for deer defense, they are going to get really hungry come spring and again in the fall or doing any prolonged drought.  I want to continue to be proactive in keeping my deer deterrents refreshed before they get hungry enough that herbs don't keep them out of the garden.