What’s new at the farm in 2022?
In many ways I love the month of January. Though I am not a fan of -20 temperatures, I truly enjoy the chance to slow down a little bit. I spend more time in the kitchen trying new recipes. I spend more time reading books for fun. I spend more time working on my latest crochet project. I regularly sip hot cocoa or tea in the evenings.
One of my favorite parts of January is having the chance to do some of the “behind the scenes” work for the year ahead.
I will admit that I have never been one who fully maps out my garden. I always consider crop rotations year to year and by April I tend to have a general idea of where I want things to go. Yet, there are admittedly days where I do not know exactly where the seeds or plants will be planted until I am out in the garden surveying the space!
Here are a few of our projects and plans for 2022:
We will be growing more melons! We grew cantaloupe in 2021, however we will definitely increase the amount that we grow this year. Last year we also experimented with growing a couple varieties of watermelon for the first time, and we plan to grow even more watermelon in 2022.
We will be planting another pear tree! We currently have one pear tree that is at least 50 years old. It keeps on faithfully producing year after year, however we know it won’t last forever. We plan to plant at least one more pear tree in the spring. We are hoping to try some new pear flavored canned goods soon!
We will grow more squash! Squash is one of my favorite things to grow and unfortunately our squash patch was completely decimated last year by squash bugs. We will plant the favorites such as butternut, buttercup, and spaghetti, but we are adding Hubbard and acorn squash to our gardens in 2022. We plan to grow more in the new year with plans to keep an eye out for any squash bug evidence earlier in the season.
We will have more lettuce heads! Our lettuce in 2021 was excellent, however with the unseasonably warm June temperatures the lettuce bolted (went to seed and got bitter) with the extreme heat. We have a plan to grow more lettuce and also stagger planting our lettuce in hopes of a longer season.
We will have even more heirloom tomato and cherry tomato varieties to choose from! There is nothing quite like a fresh tomato in August. I have a tendency to get slightly overzealous with my tomato seed orders - this year was no different! - so we are excited to share with you our new varieties in 2022.
We cannot wait for spring! In the meantime, you will find me poring over seed catalogues with a cup of coffee dreaming of the warm, sunny days to come.