Every year I post my resolutions/goals and see if I can hit them. This post is later than usual as I have been traveling as well as spending more time reading and prepping for what looks to be a rocky year incoming.

Yes. This is a good time for prepping. This site ain’t called “The Survival Gardener” for nothing, right?

But enough about that. Let’s jump in to this year’s goals.

GOAL I: Get the 2nd edition of Create Your Own Florida Food Forest in print

The text is done but I still need to organize the illustrators and illustrations and get them all finished. This is going to be a great book and should prove quite useful to Florida gardeners.

GOAL II: Create an Epic Spring Garden

As I wait for the cold to pass, I have been dreaming and planning my gardens for spring. I need a name for the system of linear food forest beds I am creating. My garden in Grenada was the first test and turned out marvelously.

What I plan to do is to adapt the system to a temperate climate and use different species for the high vertical portions. Instead of bananas and papaya, we’ll have Japanese persimmons, rabbiteye blueberries, hazelnuts and other temperate species. I also plan to space my 4′ beds as much as 3′ apart to give the system more space and sunlight.

We need a name for this system, though. It’s almost like food forestry in strips. Fedges with veggies. Not the same as Syntropic Agriculture as it isn’t based on bananas and meticulous timing, but it’s similar.  Anyhow, I’ll come up with a cool name. I’m excited about the concept and I’m working on getting a bunch of berry varieties, small trees, shrubs, chop and drop, vegetables and blooms to mix in.

GOAL III: Re-Launch My Plant Nursery

Since I’m now in Alabama, I suppose it’ll have to be the “Alabama Food Forests” nursery now. But it’s time. I need a good source of work that is not tied to the internet and I know I’m good at running a little plant nursery.

Getting the infrastructure in place may take a bit of work as it’s colder here than it was in Florida, but I don’t think it will be too hard. A small greenhouse, some nursery fabric, some irrigation… plus I need to get licensed here and figure out where some good wholesalers are located. It takes work, but it’s good work. I’ve been spending too much time indoors anyhow.

GOAL IV: Become Proficient at Painting Portraits in Oil

This has nothing to do with gardening, but I’ve always been impressed with good portrait painters. It’s something I need to improve. At the end of 2020, I painted a couple of portraits, one of my little daughter and another of a friend.

This year I want to improve my skill by studying the old masters and working slowly in layers. Practice makes perfect. Or at least… it makes you better.

GOAL V: Get Back Into Shape

Building big gardens and re-starting a plant nursery should help with this. I know, it’s a very common and boring goal, but I am feeling less strong after almost a month of being sick in December. It was a stressful year and I need to get back into better health. Low-carb and heavy lifting seems to be the key.

Conclusion

Other than those five goals, I don’t have much else. I am working on reading through the entire Bible this year, plus I would like to see Jack Broccoli II in print and I’d also like to hit a goal of 2,000lbs of food again, but everything is too up in the air and crazy to make a bunch of goals that I may or may not hit. Even the idea of getting better at oil painting seems silly this year, but maybe it’ll be a good break from prepping.

Do you have any goals for 2021?