Garden 2026 Update #1 - Planning, Winter Sowing & Some BIG Changes!

My garden planning updates are mostly for me to keep a journal of what works, what didn't, and what I can do to improve my efforts.  I've decided to make them public to help anyone who might be along the same gardening  journey as me. I sure hope you find them helpful!

GARDEN PLANNING

Now that Christmas and New Year's celebrations are over, it's time to get back into the garden mindset and get to planning!  While I always look forward to the last few months of the year when the garden is put to bed and things are a little slower, I also look forward to gearing back up and getting ready for another amazing year of growing. 

This year planning it's a little more enjoyable since my sister-in-law gifted me a really cute little, spiral, lay-flat garden journal. She had no idea but over the winter I've been busy creating some custom, personalized garden journals and coordinating garden supplies myself!  For the last few years I've been using a simple, plain 3 ring binder and notebook paper but I've opted to create some custom binders as well as lay-flat spiral journals that can easily be taken out into the garden for quick note taking. Just a little prettier, and personalized so they make a wonderfully endearing garden-lover gift as well.  You can see the newest lay-flat spiral journals and 3 ring binders here at my zazzle shop. 

WINTER SOWING

The first update this year is the winter sown seeds. Last year I discovered winter sowing for the first time and sowed many seed types. It was tremendously successful for my Sunflowers, Yarrow and Chamomile. Much better germination rates and stronger, taller plants than I've ever grown. Checking in with my notes & updates from last year reminded me I needed to add more rain water intake holes in the tops of my containers, and more drainage holes in the bottom. So I've done that with a little help of my hot glue gun by simply melting the holes in my dollar store lidded totes. This year the winter sown seeds are Purple Cone Flower (Echinacea) and Lavender. 

GARDEN CHANGES

My garden plans this year are to make some pretty big changes, that make growing & tending to the garden even easier. Since I built my first garden beds many years ago I've made some pretty ambitious choices but now I'm dialing it back quite a bit. I gave up the "experiment" garden last year and dedicated that space to what I know grows really well here in growing zone 6a. To make that even more useful, my plan is to rebuild that bed and reduce the size slightly to make room for another comfortable seating area right in the middle of the garden. While I will lose a small amount of growing space, I still have more than enough to grow what we eat and what grows well, so adding the seating area is just an added bonus that benefits anyone spending time in the garden.  You can never really have too much comfortable seating tucked here and there in your garden. 😊

This year I'll be growing less than what I've grown before (no potatoes, onions or beans) but will be growing some sweet potatoes in a new bed I built last year & using the main trellis for Sugar Baby pumpkins. I just prepared the organic sweet potatoes today, so they'll rest here on the heat mat & grow their slips, and hopefull they'll all be ready for garden planting come spring. Next to the sweet potatoes are a few pots of cinnamon basil I picked up recently. I love basil but I've never tried the cinnamon variety so I'm really looking forward to that.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope this helps you in some way as you begin to plan your own garden.  Please feel welcome to leave a comment or question & have an awesome day! 💖

Family Favorite Comfort Food Sandwiches: Beefy Cheesy Melts

Recently one of my adult kids asked about a family favorite sandwich recipe that's been lovingly known as the "Beefy Cheesy Melt".

Essentially her question was along the lines of "where the heck did that even come from?!"  😁 

I'm not sure which one of my kids came up with that name as they were growing up, but it stuck almost immediately, and they've been called this for at least a couple of decades now.  

The fun thing about this super simple recipe is that it was originally inspired by a fun, cultural trend while I was growing up, in the mid 1970's. 

At our local K-mart there was a kiosk style deli right near the check-out lines, called the K-Mart Grill (that literally wasn't a grill at all)  that sold sandwiches, cold salads and a wide variety of items.  This was long before all the chain sub sandwich shops, so this was the closest we had to deli style sandwiches. Our family favorite was the honey ham and cheese on a toasted bun. It was SO good!

Fast forward a couple of decades (with a houseful of little people myself), I decided to make my own homemade version of these simple sandwiches for a fraction of the cost but also to snazz it up a little bit. (Spoiler alert, it worked brilliantly). Everyone loved them, and they instantly became a family favorite and are still requested to be added to the weekly dinner menu!

Without further delay here is the recipe:

BEEFY CHEESY MELT SANDWICHES (makes 6 sandwiches)

Pre-heat oven to 400.

6 Toasted Onion Buns*

Mustard spread (any style, hot, honey, etc.)

2 Lbs. Deli Thin Sliced Roast Beef - any style 

6 slices sharp cheddar cheese (or Pepper Jack, or any favorite cheese)

6 Foil squares (12"x12" foil for wrapping sandwiches)

DIRECTIONS:

*If you cannot find onion buns at your local bakery, shame on them, but also: use any favorite sandwich buns and loads of carmelized or crispy onions. 

Split each sandwich bun in half.  Apply mustard spread on each side.

Split roast beef slices 6 ways & layer onto buns. Top with cheese, onions (if using) then the top bun. 

Wrap tightly in foil - set aside on baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes, flipping wrapped sandwiches at the 10 minute mark.

Serve with Baked Beans, Coleslaw, Baked French Fries or any side you prefer. 

EASY DIY Christmas Basket Add-Ins: Dried Fruit and Spice Simmer Pot Pouches

One of the easiest DIY add-ins to any Christmas basket is a fun and festive Christmas Simmer Pot filled with dried fruit and spice.

Here's the recipe I used to make mine this year that has all the same ingredients I use in my Hot Wassail that simmers in the crockpot all day on Christmas eve.

3 orange slices, dried

6 apple slices, dried

6 whole cloves

2 cinnamon sticks

1 T cranberries, chopped & dried

1 sprig dried pine or rosemary (optional)

Pour the entire contents into a small pot with 3 cups of hot water. Let simmer over low heat. Add more water as needed.

This recipe is kitchen tested, and it works really well for a 6+ hour stove top simmer.  You can also remove from heat at the end of a day's use, let cool and use the next day.  2 days is the longest recommended use for optimum scent infusion. 

Garden Update 2025 #8: End of The Outdoor Season 2025

My garden updates are a fun little way for me to keep visual track of what's working for me (and what failed miserably! Because that's all a part of the gardening journey as well.) in the garden.  I share these publicly and just hope they bless you as much as they help me.

I haven't been very regular in my garden updates this year. This one is 8 weeks after the last one, and that was 8 weeks after the one before that. 😁 I've just been busy in the garden and haven't really set much time aside to update my garden journal minus a few scribbled notes here and there. 

One of the biggest learning curves this year was, cucumbers and heat. 

I've planted cucumber seeds indoors on heat mats & under grow lights, for years. They always work out.  Until they don't. That was this year. We had an unseasonably cold spring.  What I learned this year was, no matter what may have worked before, wait until June 1st at least, before planting out the cucumbers. I planted all of mine out in early May (with all of my tomatoes and peppers, like I always do) and all but one died. I then re-planted several more in mid-May from local nurseries and they all died as well. Between trips to local farmer's markets and local grower's farms I'd spoken to a good number of gardeners who were all having the same problem. Refusing to give up (because we're a HUGE pickle eating family!) I bought a third round of seedlings from a local grower at the end of May, and planted those out at the first of June.

The growing conditions were finally optimum and all of those plants thrived for the entirety of June, July and August. I was able to can multiple batches of pickles for our family's pantry for the winter. My plan for next year is to keep it the same as this year:  if you're in zone 6a (or colder), WAIT and plant out your cucumbers no earlier than June 1st. You'll save yourself a load of headaches and the cost of replacing all your plants. 

2025 is my  first year with Elderberries. I have two plants, and both produced about the same amount of berry clusters seen here on this one. They've all been harvested and are currently sitting in a brown paper bag in the freezer.  I have just enough to make 1 recipe of Elderberry syrup for a fully natural way of fighting off winter colds & viruses. 

A brand new challenge to me this year was... propagation. 

I've tried this many times before and never had much success with it minus one small Basil plant. This year, that finally changed with 2 small plants (Trumpet Vine & Strawberries) that I was able to facilitate into multiple brand new plants!

Both plants did really well over the summer and fall so we'll just wait & see how they do over winter, and into next spring. I'm hoping for great things for them both!

This winter sown sunflower grew to about 16 feet tall. 

Both my winter sown sunflowers and chamomile plants did remarklably well.  I may do this again over winter to see how more plants do. 

2025's batch of pasta sauce from (mostly) home grown tomatoes. I need about 30 pounds of tomatoes for my homemade ketchup, and another 30 pounds for my pasta sauce for an entire year of product of each. I'm currently only getting about half of that from my garden, so I supplement with the incredible produce from my local farmer's market, for both products for my family pantry. 

My goal for the 2026 garden is to double my tomato plants, and hope I can grow enough to cover all the ketchup and all the pasta sauce for an entire year. I've been working on this for several years now and each year the garden produces a wee bit more than the previous year so I'm happy it's increasing each year. 

DAMAGE CONTROL: This was the first raised bed I ever built of this size, and looking back it's easy to see everything I did wrong. In 2021 I built 2 of these 8'x4'x10" raised beds and just used deck screws to attach the end cap 4' (untreated) boards. 

What I didn't know then and what I know now is, I should have used outdoor treated wood (perfectly safe for edible plants) and maybe even these Oldcastle Planter Blocks I originally bought to construct a simple "tool free" sand box for all my little people.  I had 4 of these on hand from an old sandbox and when I saw the joints giving way to far too much soil/water pressure I did this simple repair. 

My plan going forward for spring 2026 is to replace all corners with these blocks (that I already have) and with 6 inch width pressure treated lumber for each side & end. I'll be losing 4" of overall height but that's okay since this is my pepper bed and they don't need that much depth anyway so it really all works out. I've since learned to raise the bed for those with mobility issues, you can easily double up the planter blocks to a 12 inch depth, drive a stake of rebar in to secure them in place and use 12" tall side & end cap lumber for 1 foot deep beds. I really love how easily this building style is so versatile depending on personal needs and mobility. 

Aside from what I've learned with each plant this year, I've also learned much more about fertilization & soil amendments. Both of which I've unintentionally neglected for a few years so another big improvement for spring 2026 will be the much needed soil amendments of some nutrient rich compost as well as some liquid fish fertilizer. I've used both randomly but never intentionally, so spring 2026 will be a much more intentional gardening plan with richer soil than ever before. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you're encouraged by what you've read here, and if you have any thoughts or suggestions or questions please feel welcome to leave a comment. 😊