What are your BIG plans for next year?

I'm just wondering what everyone is dreaming up for next spring. Building things? Planting new gardens? Growing something new and exciting? Going on an amazing trip?

I will be adding many more new garden beds. I also hope to grow many more heirloom veggies. Maybe build a cold frame or two.

Michelle

Oh, and for those of you who aren't familiar with my situation. I garden in the summers in MI but spend fall, winter and a bit of spring in NC. Four months in MI each year then back to NC for eight.

We're planning a "chicken garden" where we till up a good size plot of land behind their run and plant things they like to eat. :) Then they can go in and help themselves. We also plan to till up an acre or so and plant pumpkins. THe chickens love love love pumpkins. Our veggie garden will be about the same. We'll be raking out all the leaves the chickens have fertiilized for us and putting it on the veggie garden and tilling it under. My flower bed will be about the same other than the ten new Knockout double pink roses I added this past summer. Oh, I did plant thousands of daffodil bulbs all along the ditch of our property so I'm really looking forward to them coming up and blooming. It should look very grand. I'll have to take pictures. I had help with that and it took several days to do it.

My big challenge will be to keep the chickens out of my flowers. I'm hoping they'll prefer to scratch around in their own area. We'll see.

I will probably add 5 more fruit trees like I do each year. I'll have to wait and see what the conservation department is offering this spring.

Wow! Sounds wonderful. I can't wait to have chickens and a pumpkin patch. I put in about 500 daffs, tulips, hyacinths, crocus, allium, etc... this fall too. Can't wait to see what they look like.

I hope you put them where they can multiply and not crowd out your perennials. That's what happened to mine. Looked beautiful in my bed but the daffs took over. I had to pay a young guy to dig up all the bulbs. As they mature they go deeper down into the soil. It was a big job even for him and he admits he didn't get them all. :) Then I had to dry them out on screen in the dark corner of our pole barn then get help planting all those. I even invested in an attachment for the electric drill to make all the holes. Where they are now they can multiply all they want to and not bother anything.

Hello Loon and Flower,
Well I always resisted planting daffs as they looked so pedestrian. But now in my older years i see the great value in the things that grow and multiply on their own. Things you don't have to lift or things that
don't bloom OUT.
I love daffs now. Did I have to get old to learn that lesson??
Probably.
Well glad to hear about your plans for the new year.
My big plan is to reduce my flower garden. I have been unable to keep it in a neat condition . It is getting away from me so it is time to rework it and make some BIG changes... More conifers and more berms
with shrubs and less flowers. It is that or take out the beds and grass over. UGH!
That seems to severe. i still have allot of pep. But 3/4 of an acre of grounds and working full time at my age has left my gardens in a mess.

Oh yeah and as you can see I also grow about 50 flats a year and I pot up 50 to 100 pots that I put all over my property! I cause my own gardening issues cause I just can't stop!!
I love plants. Have since i was a very young girl.

So that is my new plan. I will be drawing and make some site plans. Looking for stuff on sale next year!
What about the other Michigan gardeners?
Julie

jazzzy-you have a lot of wonderful plants! I love starting seeds but haven't done any in a while since I am not home enough to tend them. Someday....

I love daffs! I can't get enough of them. THey are a gauranteed show every spring, along with all the other bulbs I can get my hands on. I just ordered a bunch of lilies and next fall will probably add many more little bulbs and alliums, daffs, tulips, etc...!

to sell off most of the daylily and iris and DOWNSIZE
To get out of the gardens and all the work and to enjoy my family!!!!!!!!!!!!

i only have till the end of dec left here at daves and im not sure if i will renew or not!!!!

WHAT?????
Say it's not so Dori?
We would all miss you. I know you have been on here longer than most of us Michiganders. But say it's not so?
Please consider or reconsider. You offer lots of knowledge and support to all of us gardeners.
I agree with you though. At some point you wnt to 'Smell' the roses you are growing!
I'm with you..
Par it down. But I still want beauty and I will still poke my head in here.
I hope you will too!
Julie

Flower you have a longer growing season than us Michiganders! if we want certain plants we have to grow them or buy them partially grown. Our season is barely 3.5 months long and that is a stretch in some years.
I envy your climate zone. Maybe I'll retire there in NC and then i could enjoy relaxing in the spring by self sowing all my seeds!!
Wow what a dream.
Julie

Dori, I don't blame you for downsizing your gardens. We did that when we moved up here. I know what I can manage and what I can't. Please rejoin here at Dave's though. We'd miss you an awful lot.

Brenda

Dori you can't leave us..I know you need family time do as you say and down size and smell the roses!!!

Just checked and you was here since 2000!!

I hope you renew Dori I'd miss you also but I understand I had to think about it too .
I'm Going to change the gardens this year to make them less crowded and put different plants with like ones I tend to stuff things willy nilly so I won't be buying to much this year I don't think ;0) I need to come up with a good plane for what I have
Gloria

jazzzy- I actually do not garden in NC. My only gardens are in MI. I am only in NC temporarily. NC does have a great growing season but the hard red clay here makes it a really difficult job!

I love my MI gardens and can't wait to return permanently to play in them.

Dori- Please don't go. You have been such a big help to me when I first joined dg. and your help with co ops has been wonderful!

It's funny how sensitive I am to the idea of downsizing. Whenever someone says they will be cutting back I want to shout no! I know though, that there does come a time for it.

Oh Flower ,
i am sorry i am so behind in the info here. A couple of years ago when i joined I was on here all the time then I went crazy getting bigger gardens and buying lots of stuff. Then the economy went to hell and i had to work allot more and allot harder. That really left little time for fun. So I have not kept up well with the comings and goings on here. So I am sorry i did not recognise you and a Mich. gardener.
Well I also do not want to see Dori leave. We would all miss you my Bay City friend. And what about
our annual Hortmark Trip??
Julie

no worries jazzzy!
There is so much to keep up with here!LOL People probably think I'm lost when I post here in the MI forum but i figured I should put my current location whenever I move. It's such a pain to not be in one place. oh well. Just a few more years I think! Hope your not working too hard.

I have some wonderful garden friends here in NC. at least I have beautiful gardens to visit while I'm in the south.