Farming 2025

Year 3

The full thread of my 2025 farming adventure can be found on X here:
Dimi_H 2025 farming updates

2025 was quite a sunny year. Also the year where I broaden up my horizons in regards to home farming. More crops, better and closer maintenance. REALLY trying to grow fun vegetables and fruits for day to day use.

The main goal for my home farming journey is rather simple.
Getting fresh produce out of the garden and lowering costs.

Enjoy!

Year 3 – January-End of March – Surprise 2024 harvests and sowing.

Late winter and early spring are generally very calm moments for farmers.
So is it the case for people who do some home-growing. Most of the time, it’s about tilling and preparing the soil for spring.

Having those moments of freeze in January up to March to really “clean” the vegetable patches in preventing abundant weed growth early on (still will have to deal with it though…).

During January and February, there wasn’t much I could do. Only think about which plants to grow and informing myself on “how-to”.

The garlic planted in October 2025 is showing promise as (mostly) the white garlic was giving nice sprouts. The Elephant Garlic was lagging a bit behind but eventually pushed through in early January.

The chicory was pushing through AGAIN. Eventually, between January up to 1st of March did I have about 2 harvests in total. Harvests were used in preparing soup, Chicory hamrolls in cheesesauce (Belgian delicacy) and a greater part frozen for later consumption.

I also decided to try my hand on cultivating hybrids.
I would be grafting some of the Coeur de Boeuf saplings onto some of the small remaining potatoes from last year (which I left in the ground).

That way I would create my own “Pomato” or “Potato and chips” plants.

Grafting is an easy process but needs to be done quickly in order to have the least amount of stress on the plants. Scheme and (hopeful) result:

Reading up a bit on the grafting process and resultant “Pomato”, tomatoes will probably be harvested BEFORE harvesting the potatoes. So I am afraid I won’t be able to show the home-grown result… though I might want to try it next year in a dedicated pot.

Year 3 – April-June – Sunny days, rainy days and growth spurts.

In April did most seedlings become saplings.
I also emptied the chicory-bin and cleaned it out to start growing fresh chicory from scratch (cultivating the roots, harvesting them and then growing chicory again).

Beginning of April, I started my grafting experiment which was proving a success at the time.

End of April did I start planting out the various saplings into their final containers and destinations.
The hot peppers proved to be growing better than expected and had multiple plants per pot.
Decided to put some (original intent) in plant pots for optimal growth and displace a few of the plants into the full ground.

This was done in order to see which should grow best and to have a back-up should either fail to grow. In early June, I noticed that the hot peppers in the plant pots had multiple plants as well.
So I trimmed them out and put the additional ones is additional pots I prepared.

I also added a few new things to the garden:

• As the neighbour is clogging up the view behind my yard, I built and made a vertical herb garden. Herbs I am trying to grow are:
  – Thyme
  – Mint
  – Rosemary
  – Basilicum
  – chives
• Bush beans (second attempt. No luck so far)
• Winter cauliflower (no luck so far).
• Trying my hand at growing brown mushrooms (DIY kit). No luck so far.

Month of June is one of garden activities.

• Moving plants
• More frequent pruning and cleaning of the growing beds
• Garlic harvest

For those interested, the entire photographic growth of Garlic up until harvest:

The month of June is also the month when the cherry tree produces cherries.
Great month for harvesting. I make jam out of the cherries.
This year, the harvest was bountiful despite fears of the tree not producing much due to having been trimmed earlier in April.

Also is this the month where the sunflowers (my favorite flower) start to bloom.
Sadly enough, this year aren’t they getting big. Last year I had flowers of about 1m50 in height.
The ones of the year before were +1m80. This year.. barely 50cm.
I assume it has something to do with water in the soil and the weather (perhaps even the variety).

Year 3 – July-October – Hot summer, good harvests

Until mid-July I had a fear of hot summer spoiling the garden.
Growth of the plants went VERY slow and I was fearful many of the plants would fail. Somewhere in mid-July did we get a few rainy days which boosted growth. Sadly enough, this meant that potential harvest dates have been moved further down and things might be not as swell.

Most of July was treating the plants nicely. Pruning the melons, tomato and pumpkin plants for optimal growth.

I also decided to try and grow some winter cauliflower. What I thought would be a failure gave rise to a few sprouts popping up at the end the July which I carefully treated. My first tomato harvest occurred as well (the first of many to come).

Since the first harvest of the tomatoes, I’d do almost weekly harvests of the tomatoes starting in early August. A result of pruning and the placement of the plants. Noticeably are the “hybrids” that I created being the ones who are most resilient and give the biggest fruits. I suspect that the grafting on the potatoes gave them an advantage.

August and September were mostly focused on keeping weeds at bay and giving the plants enough time for growth and ripening.

A LOT of tomatoes were harvested. The potatoes next to them would be harvested mid-september. While they were small (bintjes), they proved to be very tasty. Some of them were replanted for next year (potatoes can survive year round in the soil on the condition when well-maintained).

I was also happy to see the melons pushing through. For a time I feared the plants would fail due to being strangled by a pumpkin plant which decided to grow close to it… in the end we had a few tasty ones.

Mid-October, the tomato harvest started slowing down.
Weather was less sunny and warm. Less sun and more rain.

I still had plenty of unripened tomatoes on the plants.
It would be a shame letting them go to waste.
So I made chutney out of the remaining green tomatoes.
This allows me to safe-keep the fruits of my labors for months without the work going to waste.

Last day of October (first of November)

It’s been rainy days which does not allow me to do much work in the garden.
The cauliflower is growing exceptionally well and I do hope getting some nice results when harvest comes!

The last pumpkins are harvested totaling 10 I have taken out of the garden (counting the one accidental harvest).

I could tell the strange weather moved harvest season a bit.
The hot peppers were only harvested in this period (while it should have been mid-October at max).

None the less, the harvest is bountiful. Few remain to ripe… with a bit of luck will I see the last of them in November though not counting on it.

Year 3 – November-December – End of year and preparations for 2026

October and early November are harvesting months.
Mid-November and December generally are for letting the soil rest and prepare for the next year.

This means we are cleaning out ALL the beds and tilling and treating the soil.
Hoping for days of freeze when the soil is freshly tilled (as this kills the roots of weeds as well as harmful insects hiding in the soil).

I had some late potted peppers still ripening. I tried to move them into a more sunny warm spot but had to give in and empty it all mid-November.

The white cabbages got harvested and while they were rather small to my liking, they tasted excellent.

Mid-november, the last of the hot peppers were harvested and the plants uprooted.

I dried these for easy and long lasting storage (and to spice up sauces).

I also prepared for chicory growth. My little boy helped me out with replanting the roots.

Ending the 2025 home farming adventure, we go forward into 2026 with chicory which is growing happily inside and 3 winter cauliflower plants for harvest near spring 2026.

2025 is also the year we lost a dear family member.
During the Summer of 2025 we lost our beloved white cat Tilly.
She’s been with us through Corona, engagement, marriage and the birth of my little boy. She has been buried in the pumpkin patch near the sunflowers… but I decided to give her a more proper remembrance. An apple tree is now planted on her grave. A more fitting remembrance for a small 4-legged white furball gone too soon. Her sister Lola is still with us.

Thus ends 2025. The full thread with pictures and updates can be found here: Dimi_H 2025 farming updates

We shall continue the adventure in 2026 with where we left off.
Stay tuned!