Things I'd like to Try in 2011

Two-thousand Eleven is starting off with colder-than-typical weather, strong Northerly winds and the unfortunate doldrums that all gardeners experience. The white, snowy backdrop across the fields is pleasant in some ways: it allows me to look on the beds as clean slates, rather than several series of to-do lists and fix-it projects. However, as anyone who has painted or drawn can tell you, a large blank canvas is often daunting on other levels. I have so many ideas, and it is nearly impossible to tell which of these ideas are plausible, good, or even possible.

Instead of new year's resolutions, I have spent the first half of January making lists of things I would like to try. It's quite a list, but I thought I might share some of them here...

Before Spring I'd like to:

• Tap maples here at our place, and up at Roheryn Farms, to make maple syrup.
• Build a new hay trough for the sheep, to reduce waste hay.
• Purchase a soil blocker for starting seeds this year, to eliminate waste from pots.
  
• Fix up the seed starting shelves, and add at least one shelf.
• Muck the sheep stall, composting the bedding.
• Visit a friend's parents' alpaca farm to tote several buckets of alpaca poo home for veggie beds.
  

In the food gardens, I'd like to:

• Grow only open-pollinated heirloom veggies.
• Try growing potatoes (in straw), garlic, asparagus and shallots for the first time.
  
• Grow every veggie bed using companion planting.
  
• Expand the raspberry beds by 100%.
• Begin phasing out most of the june-bearing strawberries to be replaced with Mara des Bois.
• Grow "ground cherry" or "cape gooseberry" plants for the first time.
• Try dwarf fruit trees in pots, including fig and olive (with plans to bring them onto the porch during the winter).
• Grow enough produce to have left overs for bartering and possibly for marketing.

In the flower gardens, I'd like to:

• Grow lavender! My goal is to replace anything struggling with heirloom lavenders, or other useful perennial herbs.
• Eradicate the fleabane from the native prairie bed.

With the critters I'd like to:

• Develop a sufficient field rotation for the sheep and their lambs, starting by grazing them on the site for the new veggie bed to fertilize.
  
• Discuss the possibility of chickens with the land lady, both for meat and eggs. Heirloom breeds of course.
  
• Build a poultry run off the side of the barn, if not for chickens, then for the ducks.
  

Around the property I'd like to:

• Build a wood shed on the north side of the barn.
• Clear up much of the dead fall from the apple orchards.
• Create an outdoor living space out in the orchards, complete with mosquito netting :)
• Find a way to weave or crochet vegetable storage bags.
• Make use my antique ice chest for storage of fresh veggies.

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Do you have goals for the new year? Do you plan to try anything new?