Looking Back On 2025 – By The Month

Posted on January 3, 2026 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Today I thought I would recap some of what I did in 2025, in a month by month format. It was a busy year, with a lot happening both in the garden and outside it. My wife and I spent some time in January someplace sunny and warm: on the island of Maui in Hawaii. We visited Iao Valley one morning to see the sights and do a little hiking. The weather was cool and fellow hikers were willing to snap our pic for us. We also visited several of the Maui farmer’s markets, including the Upcountry Market where we got lots of local goodies and saw a lovely double rainbow as we were leaving.

waterfall at Iao Valley

overlook at Iao Needle

double rainbow at farmer’s market

Back home in February, we had snow. It wasn’t enough to have to shovel, but enough to make the roads slippery. It didn’t bother the lettuce in the greenhouse though, and I was able to keep us supplied for our salads.

February snow

snowy lettuce harvest

In March we saw the first of the daffodils blooming, they are always a welcome sight, signaling that spring is near.

early daffodils

In April we had our first brood of baby bluebirds in the PVC nest box. There were five in all, and they all fledged successfully. We also got our first asparagus spear – another welcome sight indeed! We wasted no time in making Asparagus Mimosa once we had enough spears harvested.

baby bluebirds

first asparagus of 2025

Asparagus Mimosa

The month of May saw me staying busy tending to all my seedlings in the greenhouse. I wound up using a lot of my spare plants for replanting, due to our wet weather in spring.

plants on greenhouse shelf

In June the perennial flowers were blooming nicely, including favorites like purple spiderwort. The container eggplants were blooming also and giving us our first taste of eggplant.

spiderwort

Fairy Tale and Gretel eggplant

July saw the last of the berry crop. The raspberries did surprisingly well, while the black berries and blueberries were less impressive. We had plenty of berries for fresh eating though and they were appreciated for sure.

blackberries and raspberries

In August it turned hot, and the warm-season veggies responded by giving us pepper, eggplant and the last of the greenhouse cucumbers.

August harvest

hot pepper mix

In September we went to Maine for a little vacation getaway. We ate a lot of lobster and other fish dishes while we were there, and visited a couple of iconic and often-viewed lighthouses.

Owls Head lighthouse

Portland Head Lighthouse

In October our fall planting of greens like kale and collards were beginning to size up. A little frost makes the leaves even sweeter, and we had plenty to eat for some time to come.

Yellow Cabbage collard plant

In November I got several big harvests of collard greens, and a big haul of persimmons.

heirloom collard greens

Nikita’s Gift persimmons

December saw a lot of activity at our bird feeders, including frequent visits from the bluebirds and a Pileated Woodpecker. We also enjoyed plenty of greens from the lettuce for our salads.

bluebirds at the feeder

Pileated Woodpecker

lettuce from the greenhouse

I hope you have enjoyed this look back on 2025. I want to thank all of the folks who come here and read my blog, and I want to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year!

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Stars of the Garden 2025 – Part 2

Posted on December 27, 2025 by Dave @ HappyAcres

I hope you enjoyed reading the first part of my annual garden review, and I’m back again today with the second part. I’d like to start with tomatoes, which are a favorite crop of mine and with many other gardeners too. The early rains this year seemed to favor the growth of the vines after planting, and a dry spell in summer helped prevent rotting when the tomatoes began ripening. I got just over 50 pounds of them in total, which was about half of what I got last year. We had plenty for fresh eating, though not a whole lot for processing into sauces and such.

tomato harvest

I always like to trial new varieties of tomatoes and other vegetables as well. This year I had great results with two new ones (Queen Bee and Honey Bee) bred by Johnny’s Selected Seeds in collaboration with the late Fred Hempel (Artisan Seeds) . Both are pink and yellow striped and late-blight resistant, and quite tasty. Queen Bee is the larger of the two, though only slightly bigger, and both were good for fresh eating on salads and as a side dish.  I got excellent yields of both of these, and I plan on growing them again in 2026.

Queen Bee(top) and Honey Bee(bottom) tomatoes

Black Angel is another one I trialed. It’s a medium sized slicing type with a dark reddish/black interior that grows on determinate vines. The ones I got this year were quite flavorful, though not as productive as other varieties were. I plan to give it another try next year when hopefully conditions are more favorable for all the tomatoes.

Black Angel tomato

I got modest amounts of the paste tomato varieties, but enough to make a few batches of sauce for the freezer. They were all tried and true varieties for me, including Granadero, Zenzei, Andiamo and my all-time favorite Juliet.

paste tomatoes

It was a better than usual year for the sweet peppers here. I harvested over 10 pounds of them, and had good luck with the Cornito varieties as well as the Sweet Pie mini-bell. The hot peppers generally do well for me, and that was true this year as well. Many of the hot ones wound up in fermented hot sauces, and I should be well-supplied for the coming year.

eggplant and sweet peppers

hot peppers and eggplant

fermented hot sauces

Eggplant did well also, and we enjoyed the large ones like Dancer, Nadia and Annina as well as the smaller fruited Fairy Tale, Gretel and Icicle.

container eggplant harvest

We enjoy eating the eggplant in a number of ways. I made baked eggplant ‘fries’ with one batch, dipping the eggplant in an egg wash and rolling in breadcrumbs before baking in the oven. We also roast eggplant quite often, tossing it with a little olive oil and salt before baking. We sometimes use the slices to make eggplant sandwiches, which makes for a light and tasty lunch.

Crispy Baked Eggplant Fries

roasted eggplant sandwich on naan bread

It was another below average year for the sweet potatoes here. I got 37 pounds of them in all, with the orange-fleshed Beauregard being the best performer. We will have plenty to eat though, and some to save for next year’s slips.

Beauregard sweet potato

It was an outstanding year for cucumbers, which I only grow in the summer greenhouse. I trialed three new ones from Johnny’s Selected Seeds with lime green skin: Gimlet, Mojito and Margarita. They had a mild flavor and tender skin and I got enough I was giving them away! All three did well, but the small Gimlet and medium sized Mojito did the best for me and are in my plans for 2026. All told I hauled in over 30 pounds of cucumbers this tear.

early July harvest

I hope you have enjoyed this review of some of the things we grew here in 2025. I’ll be back soon with more adventures from HA, including my plans for the garden in 2026.

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Stars of the Garden 2025 – Part1

Posted on December 18, 2025 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Once again it’s time for my annual review of what did well in the garden this year, and what didn’t. The yields of many crops were disappointing, and I’ll dig into the details here in a bit. I usually like to start with a recap on the weather first, since those conditions certainly have a big influence on home and community gardens everywhere including here at Happy Acres. According to my records, in 2024 we got 50 inches of rain, which is a bit more than normal for our area. In 2025 so far we have had a whopping 57.83 inches, which makes it one of the wettest years since I started tracking our rainfall back in 2011.

2025 rainfall

We had an extremely wet spring here, and above average rain throughout the summer months.  August was the only really dry month, as the rains came back for the fall and winter. The 11 inches of rain in April delayed planting of some spring crops, and when I did get them in the ground many of the young seedlings drowned. We have a fast-draining silty loam soil, but even it couldn’t handle the amount of rain that kept falling and falling. The cabbage and broccoli plants suffered the worst, and I got nothing from them. I did get a decent amount of kohlrabi, and was able to use a lot of it for fermenting and making kohlrabi kraut and ‘pickles’ as well as for fresh eating.

kohlrabi harvest

On the plus side, I had a great crop of early lettuce that was planted in the greenhouse and therefore spared from all the excess water. I got over 30 pounds of lettuce and other salad greens for the year, some of which came from summer and fall plantings outside in my cold frame beds.

greenhouse lettuce

Strawberry Oakheart lettuce

The summer plantings of heat tolerant lettuce varieties also did well for me. Tehama, Muir and Cherokee were all quite productive and kept us supplied with lettuce for much of the summer and fall.

Cherokee lettuce

Muir lettuce

Back out in the vegetable garden, I got only 13 pounds of the summer squashes, and only 2 pounds of the winter varieties. The vines rotted out shortly after starting to bear fruit. Contrast that with 79 pounds of the summer squashes and 56 pounds of the winter ones last year. I was pleased to at least get a taste of the 2025 AAS Winner Green Lightning squash, which is a small pattypan type with green stripes. What little bit we got was tasty, and I look forward to growing them again in 2026.

summer squashes

Thankfully, a few of the collards I planted in the fall of 2024 survived the winter and gave us a modest harvest in early spring when they are much welcome. I also got a bit of kale from a spring planting in one of the cold frame beds behind the greenhouse.

collard greens

harvest of Scarlet kale

The beans were truly a disaster this year. The seeds kept rotting in the wet soil after I sowed them, and eventually I ran out of seed after several replantings. I only wound up with a bit over four pounds of them, which is considerably less than the 11 pounds I got last year and in 2023.

heirloom pole beans

The blueberries and blackberries were a disappointment too, and we barely got enough for fresh eating. I actually got more raspberries than the blueberries and blackberries combined, which was a surprise since the raspberries seemed to thrive on my neglect.

blueberry harvest

raspberries and a few blackberries

As usual, I’m going to break up the report into two parts since I have a lot more veggies I want to mention, including tomatoes, peppers and sweet potatoes. They did reasonably well, so it wasn’t all bad news this year. So I’ll be back soon with Part 2 of the 2025 garden recap!

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November Update

Posted on November 19, 2025 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s mid-November now, and we officially had our first hard freeze a few days ago. That meant the end of the frost-tender plants like the peppers and eggplant. I got a modest harvest of them in the days before the freeze though. It was a good year for peppers and eggplant overall, likely because they were planted out later and avoided the spring flooding that wrecked some of the earlier crops.

November eggplant and peppers

I was happy to use the eggplant to make one more lunch of eggplant sandwiches for the year, which is something my wife and I both enjoy eating.

roasted eggplant sandwich on naan bread

The beans did not have a good year, so I was happy to find a few more that set on late in the season. Fortunately we have some from last year left in the freezer, so we should have plenty for soups and side dishes. Hopefully next year will be a better year for them!

last of the beans

The fall planted greens are quite happy with the cooler weather of late, and I made cuttings of both kale and collards in the last couple of weeks. Their taste improves with frost, and they will sometimes survive the winter here if we don’t get much snow or ice. I’ve got quite a bit of both planted, and greens are often on the menu here in the fall and winter months.

Wild Garden mix kale

heirloom collard greens

I’m still harvesting the last of the lettuce I planted in late summer. It has kept us supplied in salads for several months now. I have the winter lettuce planted in the greenhouse, and it should be big enough to start cutting in a few weeks.

red and green crisphead lettuce

Our little persimmon tree still has quite a few left on it, though I will likely have to get on a ladder to get them. I harvested over seven pounds of them in early November, and I have been freezing the puree for later use in persimmon cookies and persimmon bread.

Nikita’s Gift persimmons

I did bake a loaf of no-knead sourdough bread last week.  I proofed it in an oval brotform then baked it in my Breadtopia oblong clay baker. It had a crispy crust and great flavor, and much of it went into the freezer for later use. It’s hard to believe but I have been baking all our breads now for almost 15 years.

crusty sourdough bread

I hope you have enjoyed this update, and I’ll be back soon with more happenings from Happy Acres!

 

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October Update

Posted on October 24, 2025 by Dave @ HappyAcres

I think it’s time for me to share an update on harvests and other things around here. It’s late October now, and lacking any really cold weather our vegetable garden has still been producing for us. I’ve gotten loads of both sweet and hot peppers, plus the occasional eggplant.

pepper harvest

I got the last picking of the pole beans a couple of weeks ago, and those plants are done for. It’s not been a good year for them due to germination issues early on caused by the rainy conditions and wet soil. I got just under 4 pounds total this year, compared to last year’s 11 pounds. We ate on this last batch, and I was able to freeze a few this year as well.

guajillo peppers and pole beans

I’ve been harvesting persimmons from our little tree, and while not really pretty on the outside they are sweet and tasty. Our tree is the Nikita’s Gift variety, which is a cross between an Asian and a native persimmon.

Nikita’s Gift persimmons

My lettuce planting in the cold frame has been keeping up supplied for salads recently. I have a mix of heat tolerant varieties planted, like Tehama, Muir and Cherokee. I harvest these on an as-needed basis.

Tehama lettuce

Cherokee lettuce plants

I mentioned it has been a great year for peppers, and I have gotten a big haul of the guajillo types for drying and turning into chile powder.  I call this one “Dustbowl” because I originally got the seeds in 2015 from a company called Dustbowl Seed which is now out of business. I’ve been growing them ever since, and saving the seeds for replanting. The open pollinated ones have been more productive than a couple of hybrid types I have growing nearby. I also experimented with a couple of chimayo plants this year, and they have not been very productive at all for me here. These is one in the below photo (bottom right), along with the guajillos which are longer and more slender in shape.

guajillo peppers for drying

Last week I baked up a batch of Two-Bean Enchilada Casserole for my lunch one day. It featured my homemade sauce using our frozen tomato sauce and a liberal amount of my homegrown chile powder. The leftovers freeze well and should keep me supplied for a bit.

Two Bean Enchilada Casserole

I have quite a few kale and collard plants I set out for fall and winter use – about 50 in all. These have been growing along nicely, and I have been waiting for the first couple of frosts to come and sweeten up the leaves. The Yellow Cabbage variety is one of my favorites, with large and mild tasting leaves.

Yellow Cabbage collard plant

And in closing, we have hawks visit our property fairly often.  I believe the one in the below photo is a Red-Shouldered Hawk, and we recently have seen it sitting in our mulberry tree out back of the house. It is quite impressive when it takes flight, with a wingspan of almost three feet, and no doubt helps keep the rodent population under control.

hawk in mulberry tree

With frost in the forecast, I dug all the sweet potatoes this week. I’ll give an update soon on how they did this year. Meanwhile, I hope you have enjoyed this update, and I’ll be back soon with more happenings from Happy Acres!

 

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