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The year didn’t turn out as expected.
Though it rarely does.
We had a nice, long spring this year and were able to get a good bit of gardening work done. We mulched and planted the grocery row garden beds, pruned trees, and planted lots of watermelons, potatoes, yams, corn and pumpkins. It was a very good spring until I got sick. I was out of commission for a week, then got better for a little over a week, then was down for a second week. Bad headache, hallucinatory feelings, aches all over. etc. The second time I got sick I also got a terrible earache, and ended up having to take a long round of antibiotics. For a while, I could hardly hear out of one ear.
It doesn’t hurt anymore, but still feels weird and clicks when I move my jaw. Like it’s trying to equalize pressure but every time it pops, the pressure just comes back.
But that’s enough about weird medical issues.
The two spring sicknesses negatively impacted some of our gardening plans, especially the planting of sweet potatoes. We had lots ready to plant, but life got away from us.
That said, the corn field was great, and the watermelons were even better.
Before I cover the final yields this year, let’s look at how we did fulfilling our goals.
2025 Goals: How Did We Do?
- Finish Alabama Survival Gardening
Yes, sort of. I finished my half of it and gave the book to Noah Sanders to complete.
- Finish The Good Guide to Food Forests
No. A good chunk of it is finished, but it’s not done.
- Get a tiller for the tractor
Yes.
- Get a bed-maker/hiller for the tractor
Yes.
- Get a grapple for the Bobcat
Yes, but the grapple had a hydraulic issue with it and I returned it, then decided not to buy another.
No. A friend and I were working on it but it got sidelined. We cleaned up all the parts inside and it just needs to be put back together and set up.
No luck yet.
Nope.
- Plant a patch of sorghum and make sorghum syrup
Nope.
- Plant a good patch of corn
Yes. We did a good patch. The yields weren’t amazing, but the mix of colors was interesting.
- Grow a large patch of ube yams
Sort of. We planted a somewhat larger patch, but we lost quite a bit of the ube we planted in 2024 (which was still sleeping in the ground when I wrote my goal). In January of this year, we had a snow and some very cold nights that rotted much of our ube. Previously, it had overwintered in the soil. This year, it didn’t do that well. Much of it turned to mush.
- Do better at growing potatoes
No. We did worse, despite planting a lot more and trying to do it right.
- Put in a large row-crop area with the tractor
Yes. Large rows of corn, pumpkins, yams, melons and potatoes were all put in easily thanks to the new tiller on the tractor.
No. We keep missing opportunities.
No. We started to do this, then got too busy in spring. Later in the year, we sold the cows to buy our new Farm and Garden store – but I’m getting ahead of myself.
- Build a better chicken coop
No.
Nope.
- Add at least 20 cold-hardy citrus to the homestead
No. This plan was also put aside due to our record snow and cold in January. Full-grown Satsumas across our area were killed. There are few citrus that can take a foot of snow and 11-degree cold.
- Plant some modern pecan varieties
No, didn’t manage it yet.
- Eliminate popcorn trees from the woods
No. They keep coming back. We removed quite a few with the Bobcat but they grow back from the roots. It seems a nasty herbicide is required.
- Plant papaya trees in the ground in the nursery
No, but we did plant bananas, and they look great.
- Grow enough green beans to freeze for the year
No.
- Grow enough tomatoes to make all our own sauce
No. We experimented with some heirloom varieties this year instead of the Romas we planted the previous year. Bad idea! Though we planted more plants, the yields were much worse.
- Make Steve’s mix again and balance our garden minerals
Yes. We did this, though we haven’t done a new soil test to see where we are.
- Grow out the Grenada Black Pumpkin to start stabilizing it
Yes. We did, but it had crossed with Seminole pumpkins and gave us… ZOMBIE PUMPKINS. Happy accidents. They taste great.
- Grow 1000lbs of watermelon
Yes. We beat this handily. When we get to the totals section, you’ll see by how much.
Reaching 8 out of 27 goals ain’t bad. It’s better than 0 out of 27.
Of course, some of these goals got sidelined because…
We Bought a Store
With AI junk taking over the internet, decreasing literacy, and decay in YouTube revenue, I was praying for a new job.
One came along when we got the chance to buy Atmore Farm & Garden in Atmore, Alabama.
The negotiation and planning on the store started in early June. As I posted in the Survival Gardener Skool group on June 14th:
“I was offered the chance to buy a “farm and garden” store near us. We are looking into it.
It currently sells feed, nursery plants, tools, garden decor, fertilizer, etc. Very nice place. It also has enough space to do events and teaching, with a little tweaking.
I’m not sure we can afford it, but it would be a great way to set up a food forest nursery with lots of cool hand tools, etc. It’s already profitable, but we would have to borrow to buy it.
What do you guys think?”
I got some good advice, in particular from Leo Miranda-Castro… and we went for it. Our closing happened over September 15/16, and we now own a feed store/plant nursery.
That, of course, put a crimp in our gardening for the rest of the year.
It also greatly cut back my YouTube, blogging and writing output, as I now work 10 hours per day, 5 days per week, and another half-day on Saturday.
Now I am a respectable member of the community, with a brick-and-mortar business, and membership in the chamber of commerce.
Not one of those questionable “influencer” types.
The store is going great, though. We’ve added a lot of hand tools and machetes, and many more plants and fruit trees. It was a good feed store. Now we’re making it into a great nursery as well.
Total Yields: 2954lbs
Our total yields reached 2,954lbs of food, not counting sugarcane.
We grew more than twice as much cane this year as we did in 2024, for at least 600lbs total. Unfortunately, we had to re-plant, sell or chuck a lot of it since we didn’t have a working cane press or time to process it at a friend’s place.
We had more mulberries than were recorded, but they tended to get eaten fast and not weighted. All the persimmons were from one Fuyu tree. We had our first couple of plums and peaches this year. When all our fruit trees start producing, yields are going be crazy.
I have some ube yams in the ground that I didn’t dig – hopefully they make it through winter this year.
The corn patch was pretty but the yields were so-so.
The big winner was the watermelons, weighing in at 1,702lbs.
This is just one harvest:
You can get these landrace seeds here. The proceeds go to Ezekiel and Daisy. She manages the sales, he does the growing/breeding, and it’s been a great combo.
The next winners were the pumpkins. We still have way too many all over our house.
The Seminoles and the Grenada Black pumpkin crossed in two different ways, giving us pumpkins like this:
The breadth of genetics in that Caribbean pumpkin must have been insane. We got all kinds of shapes, colors and skin types.
It will be great seeing what they do in 2026.
YouTube, the Blog and our Skool group
We posted 60 videos this year and ended the year with 348,391 subscribers.
As for this blog, we slowed down a lot but still kept it alive.
January: 11 posts
February: 3 posts
March: 6 posts
April: 9 posts
May: 8 posts
June: 5 posts
July: 4 posts
August: 2 posts
September: 5 posts
October: 2 posts
November: 2 posts
December: 15 posts
72 posts total.
Since AI is taking everything over and spreading garbage info, this month I decided to add THIS BLOG IS NOT WRITTEN BY AI on our top bar, and start posting more.
I also posted a good bit over at Skool, including adding an in-depth 6-part video course on how to excel at Florida gardening. Since YouTube has been deteriorating in views, I hoped to monetize some high-quality content over there instead by providing extra value to paying subscribers. We currently have 168 people involved in the group and the discussions are excellent.
Scrubfest and Other Events
We had fun at the Farmhouse Fair, American Homesteaders, and Scrubfest IV this year and hope to do all those events again in 2026. Stay tuned.
In Conclusion
Overall, it was a great and exciting year. We’re really looking forward to seeing what spring brings at Atmore Farm & Garden. We won’t be gardening as much at home, but we’ll sure be building up the nursery. In just two weeks we’ll get a few hundred bare-root fruit and nut trees for the shop – it’s going to be a great year.
Here’s to 2026!
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David The Good
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