Farming 2025

Year 3

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

2025 Seems to be getting 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 of going to the shops.

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.

Early January
February
Beginning of March

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 self-made hybrids.
I would be grafting some of the Coeur de Boeuf sapling 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.

Grating 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:

Grafting
Hoped end result
Example

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.

Grafting the sapling onto the white potato
Planting them in repurposed containers
Waiting and seeing if it takes
Succes!
Planting time
Potato and Pomato patch built

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.

Hot pepper seedlings
Potted saplings
Planted saplings
Planted hot peppers in May. They have difficulties growing.
Hot peppers are thriving in the pots so I had to replant the doubles.

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.

Building of the vertical herb garden
Placed and letting the herbs grow

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:

November 2024. All garlic planted
November 2024 – some of the white garlic.
January 2025 after a few good freezes
February 2025 – Growing along now
February 2025 – Getting good white garlic
End of February 2025
March 2025 – full blown plants
May 2025 – plants start drooping. When they have yellowed = harvest time
Mid-June – all garlic harvested. Roots to be cleaned, plant to be cut and then dried

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).