The year didn’t turn out as expected.
Though it rarely does.
We had a nice, long spring this year and were able to get a good bit of gardening work done. We mulched and planted the grocery row garden beds, pruned trees, and planted lots of watermelons, potatoes, yams, corn and pumpkins. It was a very good spring until I got sick. I was out of commission for a week, then got better for a little over a week, then was down for a second week. Bad headache, hallucinatory feelings, aches all over. etc. The second time I got sick I also got a terrible earache, and ended up having to take a long round of antibiotics. For a while, I could hardly hear out of one ear.
It doesn’t hurt anymore, but still feels weird and clicks when I move my jaw. Like it’s trying to equalize pressure but every time it pops, the pressure just comes back.
But that’s enough about weird medical issues.
The two spring sicknesses negatively impacted some of our gardening plans, especially the planting of sweet potatoes. We had lots ready to plant, but life got away from us.
That said, the corn field was great, and the watermelons were even better.
Before I cover the final yields this year, let’s look at how we did fulfilling our goals.
2025 Goals: How Did We Do?
- Finish Alabama Survival Gardening
Yes, sort of. I finished my half of it and gave the book to Noah Sanders to complete.
- Finish The Good Guide to Food Forests
No. A good chunk of it is finished, but it’s not done.
- Get a tiller for the tractor
Yes.
- Get a bed-maker/hiller for the tractor
Yes.
- Get a grapple for the Bobcat
Yes, but the grapple had a hydraulic issue with it and I returned it, then decided not to buy another.
- Set up the cane mill
No. A friend and I were working on it but it got sidelined. We cleaned up all the parts inside and it just needs to be put back together and set up.
- Get a cane boiling pot
No luck yet.
- Make our own cane syrup
Nope.
- Plant a patch of sorghum and make sorghum syrup
Nope.
- Plant a good patch of corn
Yes. We did a good patch. The yields weren’t amazing, but the mix of colors was interesting.
- Grow a large patch of ube yams
Sort of. We planted a somewhat larger patch, but we lost quite a bit of the ube we planted in 2024 (which was still sleeping in the ground when I wrote my goal). In January of this year, we had a snow and some very cold nights that rotted much of our ube. Previously, it had overwintered in the soil. This year, it didn’t do that well. Much of it turned to mush.
- Do better at growing potatoes
No. We did worse, despite planting a lot more and trying to do it right.
- Put in a large row-crop area with the tractor
Yes. Large rows of corn, pumpkins, yams, melons and potatoes were all put in easily thanks to the new tiller on the tractor.
- Plant the death hedge
No. We keep missing opportunities.
- Expand the pastures
No. We started to do this, then got too busy in spring. Later in the year, we sold the cows to buy our new Farm and Garden store – but I’m getting ahead of myself.
- Grow 5,000lbs of food
- Build a better chicken coop
No.
- Get Leghorn chickens
Nope.
- Add at least 20 cold-hardy citrus to the homestead
No. This plan was also put aside due to our record snow and cold in January. Full-grown Satsumas across our area were killed. There are few citrus that can take a foot of snow and 11-degree cold.
- Plant some modern pecan varieties
No, didn’t manage it yet.
- Eliminate popcorn trees from the woods
No. They keep coming back. We removed quite a few with the Bobcat but they grow back from the roots. It seems a nasty herbicide is required.
- Plant papaya trees in the ground in the nursery
No, but we did plant bananas, and they look great.
- Grow enough green beans to freeze for the year
No.
- Grow enough tomatoes to make all our own sauce
No. We experimented with some heirloom varieties this year instead of the Romas we planted the previous year. Bad idea! Though we planted more plants, the yields were much worse.
- Make Steve’s mix again and balance our garden minerals
Yes. We did this, though we haven’t done a new soil test to see where we are.
- Grow out the Grenada Black Pumpkin to start stabilizing it
Yes. We did, but it had crossed with Seminole pumpkins and gave us… ZOMBIE PUMPKINS. Happy accidents. They taste great.
- Grow 1000lbs of watermelon
Yes. We beat this handily. When we get to the totals section, you’ll see by how much.
Reaching 8 out of 27 goals ain’t bad. It’s better than 0 out of 27.
Of course, some of these goals got sidelined because…
We Bought a Store
With AI junk taking over the internet, decreasing literacy, and decay in YouTube revenue, I was praying for a new job.
One came along when we got the chance to buy Atmore Farm & Garden in Atmore, Alabama.
The negotiation and planning on the store started in early June. As I posted in the Survival Gardener Skool group on June 14th:
“I was offered the chance to buy a “farm and garden” store near us. We are looking into it.
Total Yields: 2954lbs
YouTube, the Blog and our Skool group
13 comments
God bless you and your family.
Happy New Year! And congratulations on your new store! I also returned to full-time employment this year. With all that in context, I think an interesting theme for 2026 could be “how to survival garden while working a full time job and still have time for your friends and family.”
Happy New Year! I look forward to the opportunities the new store will bring for you. Despite the recent harsh winter, I would still love for you to experiment with different hardy citrus. I think there is a lot of potential to grow citrus in your area, since you don’t have to worry about greening. You may have to protect a lot of the citrus during the winter, but I think it is a worthy tradeoff, considering you won’t have to deal with citrus greening. There is also a citrus variety called Prague Chimera that produces good fruit, is allegedly cold-hardy to around 0-5 degrees, which should be bulletproof in your area.
I would love to find one.
Happy New Year!,
I need to get up with you for tips on growing our new Fuyu Persimmon we bought from you last month. I’d love to get 15lbs of persimmon this next year… that would be a LOT of vinegar!
Plant in full sun in a spot with good drainage, mulch well, water well, throw compost around it, and wait! They are easy to grow.
Amazing goals met (and amazing goals not met!). Thank you for all of the great content and may 2026 bring you and yours peace love and compost!!!
You too, Tess.
Regarding citrus, Dothan Nurseries in Dothan, AL has “Arctic Frost” mandarin satsuma trees that supposedly are hardy to 9F once they are mature. “Arctic Frost” also is grown on its OWN ROOTS. So even when you get unusually cold years, as long as you protect the roots, the tree should grow back.
(I should warn you that that nursery, while beautiful, is expensive. Maybe you can find the variety somewhere cheaper.)
Link to nursery shop page: https://shop.dothannurseries.com/subdept/23028/fruit-citrus-trees
Link to write up about the variety: https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2015/06/10/arctic-frost-satsuma-mandarin-hybrid-named-new-texas-superstar-2/
Hi David, As for your cane mill refurbish, try talking to someone at https://www.toddfarms.com/ I have lost my notes with names but they recently created an electric one that at one time was for sale.I have mill envy as I’m trying to locate one to refurbish as well. good luck Byron @ 3 wise acre farms Fellsmere Florida
What are your goals for this ‘death hedge’?
At my house, I want a native hazard hedge .
Unfortunately the plants I’m finding to work with aren’t natives.
I have lots of hardy orange and cherokee rose going in, I’m also transplanting american holly into the perimeter plantings.
Regarding hardy citrus varieties, Do you have access to I chang lemon? It’s a softball size fruit, hardy here, but slow growing from seed.
I have not found ichang anywhere, though I have heard of it.
My goal with the Death Hedge is to have an impenetrable strip of plants/trees that also blocks the view. It will probably be multiple rows.
I could collect seed of ichang and Citrus trifoliata (if you were interested), I suspect that citrus seeds need to be kept moist like pawpaw, so would need to look into packaging.
After posting yesterday, I moved some clumps of Citrus trifoliata out of the garden out to fence… At my house, these clumps are like 8 ft in height, tough, not difficult to move… and like the osage orange, roots that are left behind during transplant send up new growth!
I expect I’ll move more clumps today.
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