Garden 2023: Plans, problems, and potatoes

Our raised garden bed plan for 2023, and how we plan on approaching this gardening season. Affiliate links are included – full disclosure here.

If you’ve been here for a little bit, you’ve seen our garden over the last few years. In 2021, we built massive raised garden beds in our backyard. I shared how we built them in this post .

 

 

How we’re approaching our garden this year:

A few notes for our garden this year:

• Life is busy. Even when we work to guard our time, we’re at a busy season of life with our kids. Instead of letting go of our garden, we’re making it work for us in this season. That looks like:
  • Simplifying the varieties of crops we’re planting
  • Growing low maintenance plants
  • Not adding in new things this year
• With that in mind – we’re growing crops that we already know and love, and not branching out too much with varieties. 
• One thing we loved growing last year that were very easy … potatoes! So in our garden plan below, you’ll see lots of potatoes represented. Basically, they have grown well for us in the past, they’re easy to take care of, and they’re something we all love to eat. Wins all around.

Things we need to do better in 2023:

Gardening is a LEARNING experience, no matter how long you’ve been doing it! We will always be learning when growing.

Here’s things we want to do better in 2023:

• Keep on top of the weeds
  • Ugh the dreaded weeds. They’re actually not terrible in our raised garden beds, but around the perimeter of our garden and in our garden pathways…they get out of control so quickly.
  • We don’t use chemicals in our garden, so we’re going to try an all natural weed killer with vinegar, salt, and a little soap. I’ll see how it goes and report back on my Instagram!
• Pollinator garden
  • Our first year, we had an amazing pollinator garden. Second year…not so much. It was fine! But just not as great as the first year, and it got weedy fast. I spent more time inside the garden than the perimeter, and it showed. 
  • We’re growing a bunch of flowers from seed again this year, and I’m excited to get the outside looking beautiful AND attracting those pollinators! 
  • We will also be adding beneficial flowers inside our raised garden beds as well – that’s worked well for us in the past.
• Herbs
  • I love herbs, and want to do a better job putting them throughout my garden beds this year. They can be such a beneficial addition for the crops themselves, and I need to do better about planting them throughout our beds.
  • In the plan below, you’ll see a clump of herbs in one place. I just didn’t get super detailed with the map, but we’ll have many of them spread throughout our beds as well – they won’t just be in that clump.
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Our raised garden plan for 2023:

I’ve used this garden planner for a few years now and I truly love it! I believe you can use a free trial before they have you pay for the service (I’m not affiliated in any way with this company).

It’s fun for me to see how our garden has changed from year to year. 

Here’s our tentative plan for 2023:

Last year we had great success with tomatoes, potatoes, and green beans. So we’re really looking forward to more of those this year!

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Here are some of our gardening essentials – just click on the pictures below to be brought to the product page (these are affiliate links):

 

I have put out a lot of gardening content, and I wanted to make sure you haven’t missed these posts! If you have questions about gardening, please write a comment down here and I’ll try to address it on my Instagram or in another blog post. 

How to fill raised garden beds without spending a lot of money

Pollinator Garden : Why you need one, and what to plant in it

8 gardening essentials (from a gardening minimalist)

Vegetable Garden Lessons, Plans, and Inspiration