I can not stress the importance of establishing a plan. January is the perfect time to write out your goals for the forthcoming year. There have been studies that show written intentions have a greater chance of becoming reality. I strongly suggest writing it all down. This of course doesn’t mean you can’t edit the pages along the journey but it can help you stay focused on the goals you set for your homestead garden or anything else you want to accomplish. It’s also a great way to reflect on what did and did not work for you at the end of the year.

You don’t need anything more than any old notebook, loose paper in a binder or folder. Even a post it to start. I do also recommend starting small. My first ever garden was quite ambitious and oh my did it produce vegetables! So many in fact that I couldn’t keep up and there was so much waste it was upsetting to me. So start small. If you’ve gardened before you’re already ahead of the game but if you haven’t do yourself a favor and start with just one or two types of plants and add a few more the following growing season. There is more than one growing season during the year. I’ve heard some people call each year the growing season but I don’t. There are plants that grow better in the cool weather of spring and fall and others that thrive on the heat of the summer months. There are also the plants that can overwinter with some cover or in a hoop house. So you can potentially garden or harvest from your garden year round.

I was so happy when I found this book Vegetable Gardening in the Northeast by Marie Iannotti It is a month by month guide on the who, what, where, when, and why. It is chock full of charts, list and resources. I put my own tabs on my copy for easy access to the month by month and zone information.

Once you’ve learned all the zone and frost date information required to get you started another book I really like is Vegetable Gardener’s Week-by-Week Handbook by Ron and Jennifer Kujawski . This book goes into even more details and tips from the cleaning and repair of your garden tools and composting to cover crops and thinning seedlings. Breaking it down even more from the month by month to the week to week.

Back to the plan. Paper, pencil (with eraser, trust me here.) and a compass…. it’s not actually necessary but very helpful when it comes to the positioning of a garden, hoop house or cold frames to get the best sunlight exposure for warmth and light. Being that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west as well as the fact that moss grows mostly on the north side of a tree
in my neighborhood of the world, due to the lack of sunlight, full southern exposure with all day east/west sun is the best positioning for gardening, hoop/green houses and cold frames. (It is also good information to know for positioning sun exposure for a chicken coop but I’ll tell you all about that later.)

So what do I write down? For me it is helpful to write down my plans to work on each month. From the projects to the plants. For example my January list is currently: Plan out gardens, decide on plants, write list of projects, consider schedule – calendar with planting dates, project dates, Begin record keeping – track all expenses. Projects for the year include: New Chicken Coop, Goat House – play yard, combined pen, wood shed, Hoop House, Fencing, Back Patio/Social area. Continuing is a list of plants I plan to have in my gardens. Right now it is a generic list. I know I will be planting tomatoes but I didn’t write down specifically what variety yet. I also have a list of fruits and a list of maybe I’ll try that one. That’s my ooooh – ahhhh list.

From here I will move forward in a more detailed manner with sloppy sketches and internet searches. I will dig through books and old seed packages and dream of warmer weather and longer days. The internet has all the information out there in cyber world for FREE. Yes for free! You just have to search for it. Use these resources to your benefit. it is a great tool for finding all sorts of information.