Today, I wanted to share with you my five goals for the farm in 2023. As the new year comes around the corner, these are goals that I want in order to prioritize my projects, get excited about new developments on the farm and have new content to share with you.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Goals for 2023
1:00 Goal One
2:21 Goal Two
3:26 Goal Three
4:27 Goal Four
5:31 Goal Five
6:43 See You in 2023
TRANSCRIPT FROM VIDEO:
Hi, I’m Lindsey. I’m here at the Urban Farm, 2022 is coming to an end, and with 2023 right around the corner, I wanted to give you my five tips for starting the new year off right in both your garden with your livestock and anything you’re doing to grow your own food.
If you think that the world is headed in a direction that makes you a bit concerned for the future and you’d like to be as self-sufficient and independent as possible, then you’ve come to the right place. My name is Lynette Zang. Now it’s time to go Beyond Gold and Silver.
Here at the farm we have our coldest months right now in December, in January. So my first tip is to start sooner than later. And this is a great tip no matter what you’re doing, but especially with gardening, it can mean the difference between having really small plants going into the ground versus transplants that are ready to go. So when we grow seeds here at the farm, we start them indoors and then move them outdoors when the season is right, but depending on when it starts to warm up here in Phoenix, it could be a very different set of dates. So what we like to do is start our seeds indoors and then transplant them as soon as the temperatures warm up so our seeds can get a headstart. So here at the farm, as you’ve seen in the past, we grow our seedlings and transplants in the cold room. This is an an indoor room where we can manipulate the temperatures in order to get optimal growth. This is a great way to get a headstart on our season. We can start seeds there and by the time the temperatures warm up, we’ll have perfectly sized transplants that are ready to go and can optimally thrive outdoors. This is a great way to get a headstart. It’s also a good way to just have produce sooner. So when you put a transplant that’s this big in the ground versus a seed, you’ll have produce way sooner in the season. So it’s really important that we take these steps sooner rather than later, is a great tip no matter what you’re doing, but especially in the garden, it can make a really big difference.
Tip number two is to have a concrete plan for the upcoming season. The winter is a great time to plan for the spring and the summer. Usually the least amount of stuff is happening in the garden during the winter, so this is a great time to figure out what you’re gonna do. My tips for this is to always have your planting calendar. So this is a planting calendar from Arizona Department of Agriculture, and this will tell you when transplants can go into the ground when seedlings can go into the ground for all the different varieties. This is a really helpful tool and this helps me plan for the upcoming seasons and know when everything can go into the ground. Another part of this tip is to figure out what seeds you’re gonna have. Seeds can sell out quick. So this goes along with tip number one, start sooner rather than later so you can get your supplies, but also just knowing what you’re gonna put into the ground and where it’s gonna go. If you’re like us here on the farm and you have scattered raised beds, it’s really important to have a plan for where each one of those vegetable crops is gonna go. Another really helpful tool that I use all the time is my calendar. So along with this, I write down when I’m gonna plant things, when I need to start transplants, and just so I can have everything ready to go. And this is really helpful in just being organized, getting a head start, and just being as productive as you can because your time is valuable in the garden. So having a plan will really help you nail that down.
My third tip for 2023 is to do research on the varieties of plants that you want to have in your garden. Whether it’s vegetables or trees. Researching the varieties is essential to ensure the success of your project. So, and one way you can do this is simply by looking in seed catalogs, reading the descriptions, seeing what zones and what climates the different varieties will work best in. That might mean for us here in Phoenix, we choose a carrot that can go longer into the spring season. This will give us more longevity in our growing season, but knowing those different varieties is really important to know what will work best in your garden. And experimenting is totally okay. Sometimes you might have something that works out better than something else, but doing that research ahead of time, whether it’s simply with a seed catalog or online, or maybe asking a Facebook group, we discussed in a previous video how you can look up online resources that’ll give you a lot of valuable information for your particular area. But using those resources is essential to determine what varieties are gonna work best for your garden, and it’ll save you a lot of headaches in the long run.
Tip number four is something that I have definitely struggled with a little bit in 2022 and something that I want to get better with. But tip number four is to ask for help and always share the experiences you’re going through and see what you can learn from other people’s experiences. So asking for help can be really hard, but there are so many great resources out there, whether it’s your local library, the people at your extension service or people on a Facebook group that also garden or raise livestock in your area. These can be great tools and you can learn from other people’s experiences. Oftentimes, I will go on Facebook groups and see what other kinds of varieties of fruit trees people are planting, what people have had good luck with, and what people are disappointed with. And this experience can really help me learn what I want to do, use other people’s experiences, and also share when I have a success, because acting as a community is a great way to learn, a great way to grow, and it helps us become better gardeners, better livestock caregivers, and just all around communicative people that are able to share their experiences, and that is really helpful. So tip number four is to ask for help and to share your own experiences.
Tip number five is be as prepared for the unexpected as you possibly can be. You never know exactly what’s going to happen, especially if you have a lot of things going on on your property like we do with aquaponics, a pond gardens and a chicken coop. But being prepared is essential in anything you do. One of our biggest unexpected surprises here on the farm was that the pond behind me was leaking, and this is a mostly ornamental pond. We do grow some edible plants in there, but it is home to our COI fish. And when we found out it was leaking, it is a massive overhaul to do our pond, and you can see that in the video. It had to be completely redone, and this was something that we were unprepared for, but by having a good team behind us, we were able to get a running start on it. We were able to get our fish moved, and we had a lot of things in place already, like emergency totes that we could use to put our fish in. And this was essential in order to make sure that we just had the right things. Having extra filters, water test kits, all those things on hand, all those supplies made a huge difference. And then we didn’t feel like we had to rush around trying to get all these last minute things for an unexpected project. Along with that, we recently did a video about a chicken preparedness kit. So we treat our chickens the exact same way. We always have medicine on hand. It’s always better to have it before you may need it, especially when there’s little sicknesses going around. Other people may need it and stores may not be able to keep it on the shelf. So by having things before you need them and being prepared, you’re setting yourself up for success. And whether you’re taking care of koi fish, chickens, or just plants in your garden, having those tools and resources ahead of time will give you a substantial amount of success going forward.
Those are my five tips for 2023. I hope they help inspire you and give you success throughout the new year. Stay tuned on our channel for more content and we hope that we can continue to grow with you well into 2023. Happy New Year.
