2026 Homestead Challenge

Last fall the leaves fell, the gardens got broken down, the soil has been amended, we’ve had our rest and now it’s time to start the new year. In this series we will talk about garden planning, preparing for the years harvest and preseeving, and utilizing the space you have well. We will start with gardening.

How long do we really rest for ?

For me, my rest months are November and December. January and February are slow months, but everything begins slowly during those months. March really kicks things off. The first few days of January not only ring in the new year, but for me often mean planting a few seeds, typically onion seeds. I begin planning the next years garden, seriously, about August and September of the previous year and wrap it all up in December/January. This gives me time to think through what varieties I want to do again or what varieties to try, it gives me time to plan my crop rotation, ensure I’ll have enough space, and get all of my seeds ordered.

How do you know what to plant?

The first step is going to be about deciding what your goals are. Do you want to only eat fresh during the growing seasons? Do you want to eat fresh and preserve (can, dry or freeze) some of your food? Are you trying to grow an entire years worth of food? Cut your grocery bill in half or a quarter? Whatever your goals, take some time to think about them, decide what your focus will be and then it’s on to the next step.

Now that you know what your food goals are, it’s time to think about how much of each plant you’ll need!

Most of my August through December is spent researching varieties of tomatoes, peppers, , squashes and carrots etc. If I planted a variety this past year, but it didnt do as well or seem to be a favorite for the bugs in my particular area, I want to find something different, that will hopefully do better the following year. I have limited space, but I need a high-yield plant, I’m going to spend some time researching which specific tomato plant is going to have the highest yield per plant. And so on and so forth.

I grew up gardening a little in the summer in Virginia and have only been in the northwest gardening for a few years. Until this past year, 2025, I still felt pretty lost about this growing environment, despite the fact that the zones aren’t that different. I feel pretty confident going forward, and look forward to hitting my 2026 goals, a lot of work went into them. For your planning, you should also spend some time learning about your growing zone. You can easily find your growing zone information here to figure out what some basic first and last frost dates. Once you figure out the zone that you’re in, you can begin to do some research that’s related to specific plants/varieties/timing of plants for your specific zone.

Every year I write out a list of what I want to store and what we will need to eat during the growing season/winter. For example, in 2026 I need to can 45 quarts of marinara sauce instead of 30 like I did last year. You can learn the basic math of how many pounds of tomatoes it takes to 1 quart of tomato sauce and then do your math from there. I’ll let you know that it’s roughly 1 bushel of tomatoes for 10-12 quarts of marinara sauce depending on your preferred thickness. From there, I determine how many tomato plants I’ll need. And I determine that by looking at the varieties that I’ve chosen to grow, my favorites are Roma, San Marzano , and some new varieties that I spent a lot of time researching last year that I hope to try in 2026.

And a quick note

There are some people that have a preference to go to the local gardening nursery or Home Depot and buy whatever transplants float their boat and plop them in the ground. If that’s your style, no judgement from me, perhaps that’s just what you need this year. For me, I have found after gardening for over a decade that if I’m more intentional about what and how much I’m planting, I get the flavor and amount of what I need to meet my families food goals, and I don’t end up growing a vegetable that takes up precious space that we will never eat… like eggplant.

This week I started my seeds… stay tuned for more.