Looking ahead to the new gardening season, here are some of my hopes and ideas.

1. Adding another raised bed to the garden, mostly likely to be used to protect my dahlias from the voles. I plan to put hardware cloth down on the bottom before filling the bed.
2. I am currently propagating figs via cuttings and will be looking to sell them come spring. I have over 20 that successfully rooted so far, and have a second round in the works now. There may be three varieties available.
3. I received a few free elderberry and black currant cuttings from a coworker in the fall. I planted them outside, and am hoping that they survived our strange winter. It has been mostly mild weather, but we had a streak of 4 days of non-stop wind and a few quite cold days. Not much snow overall.
4. I planted a bunch of strawberry runners from last year’s plants. This should allow me to increase my total number of plants (by up to 30%) and provide more berries for this season. I am currently battling spider mites on the plants.
5. I purchased a Meyer’s lemon tree in the fall and it has spent the winter in the basement. Looking forward to potting it up and moving it to the greenhouse for the summer.
6. My dahlia tubers are out in the garage in small boxes of coco coir. I will bring them inside in a couple months to re-pot them and wake them up from winter dormancy. Starting them indoors will give them a head start for the season.
7. I plan to start pepper seeds earlier this year than last year. My plants were very slow to produce and I only got a few ripe peppers before frost. The plants were covered in tiny peppers and flowers in October.
8. I plan to spread my small batch of homemade compost over the beds in late April/early May.
9. I managed to grow a few small onions and leeks last year but want to improve my allium game. I do very well with garlic, but not any other types.
10. I received a new dehydrator for Christmas with temperature and timing controls. I plan to put it to good use this season to preserve my harvests, especially herbs and dye flowers.

Strawberry plant in the vertical tower from last season.