“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”
Genesis 1:11 KJV
Highlights
Zone 5
10-gallon fabric planter bags
Maintain regular watering and feeding
Don’t overcrowd
Keep your varieties small and focused
Don’t forget about wildlife
2026 Garden Plans
less plants, more focus!
Garden Overview
I live in zone 5 and my garden gets full sun majority of the day. I use 10-gallon fabric planter bags and they are awesome! They are easy to move around and keep things organized. I will definitely be using them again in my 2026 garden. I haven’t started my own seeds yet, that’s a project for another season, so I will be using starts this year.
2025 Lessons Learned
My 2025 garden didn’t go so well. Below are some lessons I learned and will be applying to this garden season.
Lesson 1: Water and Feed regularly
This one might sound pretty obvious, water and feed your plants. I was gone a lot during the 2025 gardening season, so my plants didn’t get the care they needed. I tried those water stick bulb things, but it wasn’t enough to keep the plants happy while I was away.
Lesson 2: Don’t overcrowd the planters
Plants need space to grow; I did not take this into consideration when I was buying plants. I was so excited to start the garden that space wasn’t even on my mind. I put 3 or 4 plants in each planter and I should have only done 1 or 2, whoops!
Lesson 3: Keep it focused
Again, I was so excited for my garden that I wasn’t thinking about what I was buying. Tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, cabbage, cauliflower, strawberries, pumpkin, watermelon, cantaloupe, onions, carrots, squash. I didn’t have a plan or place for where to put everything!
I also didn’t know how to care for each of the different plants. Cauliflower has different needs than pumpkins and both are different than tomatoes. It was too many new plants for me to properly learn how to care for each one.
Lesson 4: Squirrels! (and other animals)
I did not think about the squirrels stealing the produce! They especially liked the tomatoes and strawberries. I’m still researching this one, hopefully simply being around more will help. If you have any suggestions let me know in the comments!
A really fun and adorable surprise was finding out my dog loves strawberries! I found her stealing them right off the plant many times. I’ll be putting that one out of reach this year.
2026 Garden Plans
This year I will be focusing on a smaller variety of plants and putting less in each planter, 1-2. I’m planning for a salsa garden, with hopefully some tomatoes to preserve too.
I’ll also do a watermelon and cantaloupe for each of my boys again, they had a lot of fun planting and watching them grow last year, and I have to plant strawberries the puppers.
I did not start my own seeds this year, but maybe one day I will have the space and skills to take on that project.
2026 Plants
Peppers: Sweet and hot. My husband is awesome at growing peppers, so he will do those again this year.
Tomatoes: The orange cherry tomatoes was one of the few plants I had luck with last year and they were delicious! I’m also thinking Heirloom and Paste varieties would be fun. I haven’t figured out if indeterminate or determinate would be better, I would love to hear your recommendations!
Onions: Some type of storage onion, likely sweet.
Melons: Watermelon and Cantaloupe for the kids
Lettuce: If I have space. I eat a lot of lettuce wraps as a low carb option; it would be awesome to have my own to harvest.
Herbs: I will do a small pot of these inside so I can control the sun exposure.
Conclusion
I went into the 2025 season so excited to garden and grow produce, but I didn’t have a plan. I’ve made my 2026 garden plans and am sticking to it! I’m praying that God will bless my garden with abundance! 😊
What is your 2026 garden plan? Share your plans or advice in the comments!
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