Goals

[GnomeGrown]

What are your gardening goals for the year, Tomatovillens?

[livinonfaith]

Pretty simple: Get a bunch of tasty Tomatoes! (And a host of other things, but tomatoes top the list)

Unfortunately, fulfilling that goal has been really tough for me. Always some new pest, disease, something different every year, it seems.

But I have a good feeling this year! Trying the grafting, starting a little earlier.

This is the year I reach my goal!

[ninilie]

My goals are to try to grow things I have not tried before even if it is just a different variety. I want to experiment and taste new things. I also hope to not kill to many plants this year. I get joy from growing the plants even if they don't provide alot of fruit. Another goal is to not go overboard since I only have a small balcony to garden in. The last is a very hard goal to keep to. I am also looking foward to the warmer weather so i can sit outside with my plants. I'm also looking forward to spending time with my daughter doing all this. I know I got to plant at least one container of flowers each year because my daughter likes to pick them out. She runs around the garden store saying mom this one is full sun what do you think of it and than usually picks out something pink.

[kilroyscarnival]

Originally Posted by GnomeGrown

What are your gardening goals for the year, Tomatovillens?

As a first time gardener, my main goal is to learn by trying, researching, discussing, and occasionally just pigheaded experimentation. Also to have fun, share my produce with friends, and not go broke over it all. Or get too frustrated by setbacks and failures.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by GnomeGrown

What are your gardening goals for the year, Tomatovillens?

I took on too many goals this year to be honest.

1) I am still working on figuring out Oklahoma weather & climate. So I am still working on figuring out planting dates, varieties, pest controls, etc So I will be growing hundreds of varieties this year, and working out different planting dates methods of pest control etc. I am fairly confident I can achieve this goal about 80% this year.

2) I am helping several people at Tomatoville develop new varieties or save old heirloom varieties. Since the goal here is simply to help others. I am confident I can achieve that goal 100%. As long as I don't injure myself or as long as an Oklahoma tornado doesn't destroy everything.

3) I am searching for a long lost Indiana strain of Rutger's from my youth. It will be a miracle if I achieve that goal this year. But I have 5 strains to test.

4) My main goal will be to develop a permaculture model for agriculture that is scalable, profitable, sustainable and capable for any size from small gardens to large commercial farms and everything in between. That can't possibly be done in only one year. So I am taking a step by step approach here and simply testing if it works to generate income small scale this year. I will plant around 500-1000 tomato pepper and broccoli plants in a small area of my yard that never had a garden before. But I will do it in a way that I keep in mind the larger goal and test a method I think can work and be a part of that larger goal.

5) My last goal is to generate enough income to finance my other gardening projects. I don't need to make a lot extra. I am semi-retired though. So I need these projects able to support themselves. This is not the time in my life to be loosing money.

[AZGardener]

My goal was to successfully start, transplant, and succeed with planting over 100 varieties of tomatoes and peppers. I have about 150 started inside right now so we shall see Also, I'm going to try growing corn and some heirloom beans this season. We have such extreme heat by June that I'm hoping for success by May.

Wow Scott- I'm curious to see how you fit 500+ plants in a small area, like you said? Do you have a blog?? I'd love to see pics...

[bwaynef]

1.) I want to grow vegetables to offset the expense of food for my household. I haven't set a dollar figure that I'd like to grow/save ...likely because that is too concrete/measurable and sets me up for disappointment, so I'll keep it generic ...and reachable.

2.) I want to broaden my family's palate. Luckily my 3 & 5yr old children aren't picky and will choose broccoli over mac-n-cheez. I'm growing eggplant, and okra this year along with a variety of squash (we eat mostly crookneck & zuke).

3.) I'd like to manage to get something harvestable from my squash, beans, and peas. Last year those were a resounding failure. For the squash I'm going to look into svb traps. With the beans and peas I'll be more diligent in getting them trellised/supported.

4.) I plan to grow a lot more tomato varieties. Having to be a little creative, I plan to give away a bunch to people who'll agree to save 1 or 2 for me so I can refresh some of the seeds I have. (1 Big Beef F1, 1 Cherokee Purple, and 1 heirloom of my choosing w/ their input.) Also, my wife is interested in making sauce with my tomatoes (as I'm the only one in the house that eats them fresh).

[SteveS]

1) I will continue growing out some of Tom Wagner's blues, Dancing With Smurfs & Blue Woolly Mammoth & also OSU Blue.

2) Grow out earlier generations of my variety which had crossed in 2011.

3) Getting heavier into growing giant maters. Goal is to exceed the Indiana state record, 4.2 lbs. To that end, obtaining seed & re-reading Marv Meisner's book.

[jerryinfla]

Add three more 4' X 8' beds to my garden plot, discover a few more nematode resistant tomatoes that we like through trials and get the 30 year old Mighty Mac chipper/shredder I inherited from my dad up and running.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by AZGardener

My goal was to successfully start, transplant, and succeed with planting over 100 varieties of tomatoes and peppers. I have about 150 started inside right now so we shall see Also, I'm going to try growing corn and some heirloom beans this season. We have such extreme heat by June that I'm hoping for success by May.

Wow Scott- I'm curious to see how you fit 500+ plants in a small area, like you said? Do you have a blog?? I'd love to see pics...

BY yard standards it is a very large yard, by farmers standards it would be a tiny field. I am trying to mimic on a small test plot scale what would happen if it was done on a much larger pasture or farmers field. Yards and pastures are not exactly the same, but close enough for a test plot to find out if I am crazy or not. Then there is a real field across the street that I will try to lease in 2 or 3 years once I work out the bugs at this scale.

And yes I will take pictures and keep good records and make them available to everyone at Tomatoville, so anyone else can help in this mission to heal the land. That is the ultimate goal of all permaculture. To provide abundant food in a way that is not ecologically harmful. Most farmers take a bad rap from environmentalists. If they had an organic method that worked, they would use it. The problem is most small scale gardening and intensive horticultural methods don't work on large full scale farms. Most equipment is designed for conventional methods. Most methods take too large an amount of labor for a farmer to use on a larger scale operation. In fact even medium scale farms are nearly impossible in organic without an army of laborers. So you can't blame farmers for not producing abundant low cost healthy organic food for the supermarket. And you can't blame the organic farmers for charging a higher price. But you can blame people like me though. Because it is up to us to develop the methods. You can't expect a company like Monsanto or "someone" else to solve all the problems of the world. Everyone has a duty to make their contribution however small.

In fact I may not like the big agribusiness companies methods, but I refuse to blame them. In fact they are at least researching methods and products to use and make available to the farmer to "improve" the conventional methods. To criticize them would be hypocritical unless you have done the same for organic!

So this goal is me personally taking responsibility for myself and doing my part. I have no doubt it will take hundreds of others smarter than me doing the same and all of us combining our efforts. But you have to start somewhere. I am starting here.

[GnomeGrown]

RedBaron wrote: "But you can blame people like me though. Because it is up to us to develop the methods. You can't expect a company like Monsanto or "someone" else to solve all the problems of the world. Everyone has a duty to make their contribution however small."

Powerfilled words, RedBaron.

[Crandrew]

Goals:
My goal is to work hard, eat well and enjoy the journey along the way.
There is a balance struck between chaos and control and all the while the leaves, flowers and fruit paint my garden with colors I could not begin to replicate. I enjoy teaching and learning from other gardeners (you folks ). I enjoy encountering issues and finding a corrective actions or workarounds.

Above all else I love when somebody enjoys the fruit of my labor. When they see a tomato or pepper they have never seen. When they apprehensively try it and then you watch as the smile crosses their face. You can see them thinking to themselves "why havent I tried this before"

Thats my goal for this and every season.


...and each year it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger

My ultimate goal is to produce a garden as productive as last years then stand back and smile as people tell me how much better they think home grown tomatoes taste than store bought tomatoes. Sometimes its as if a light clicked on in their brain and I can see it in their eyes before they say a word.

My winter and spring goals are to successfully germinate my plants, prepare my garden beds, plant a few winter planted veggies for spring and summer harvest, and last; to get every thing planted and growing.

My late spring and summer goals are watch my garden and stand as usual in amazement as it grows and produces. I don't know why I am still amazed at the wonders of nature, but I am.

Since my brain tends to function in a mechanical manner, I am always looking at my beds to figure out ways to make them function better, easier, and more productive. I suppose my last goal is to simply continue looking for better ways to grow a garden.

Ted

Crandrew and I must have been connected by telepathy. We seem to have the same goals stated differently. I love it.

Ted

[Crandrew]

Well said Ted! Different yet appropriate