Looking Back on 2023, By The Month

Today I thought I would recap some of what I did in 2023, in a month by month format. It was a busy year, with a lot happening – including some things which were more enjoyable than other things! My wife and I spent some time in January someplace warm: on Maui. We stayed in Kihei for most of our visit, and spent a few days in Hana on the east side of the island as well. We had a couple of great hikes, the first one in the Waihou Spring Forest Reserve near Makawao. It was a lovely hike amongst the trees on a mostly soft pathway of bark and pine needles. We spent about an hour hiking, enough time to work up an appetite for lunch! While in Hana, we hiked the Pipiwai trail to Waimoku Falls. It was a hard 4 miles that took us about 3 hours including many photo stops, but well worth the effort. While the bamboo is a non-native and invasive plant, the forest is lovely and a popular place for hiking and truly a sight to behold.

hiking in the Waihou Spring Forest Reserve on Maui

trail through the bamboo forest

February is usually the time I start sowing seeds indoors for the garden, and last year was no exception. I sowed seeds for parsley, petunias, brassicas and greens like mizuna, lettuce and arugula. I use plug flats for most of the seeds, and start the seeds indoors under lights. I usually move them out to the greenhouse after a few weeks. I start some seeds like petunias and parsley in individual pots, and transplant to plug flats or larger pots once they are germinated and showing their true leaves.

petunia seedlings at 9 days after sowing

In March I was surprised to find the bluebirds had not only built a nest in one of the PVC nest boxes we have in our yard, but there were babies that had already hatched! Our pair of birds went on to have two more broods of young last year, and it is always a joy for me to see the young and the adults flying about outside.

bluebird chicks

April is asparagus season here, and we got our first spears in early April. Our asparagus patch is declining in production, and my wife and I have decided not to replant any more. We are enjoying all we get though over a harvest period that lasts six to eight weeks, and last year we got 13 pounds of it in all before we stopped cutting it in late May.

first asparagus of 2023

May was planting time for a lot of things in the vegetable garden. I’ve been experimenting with using woven weed barrier fabric on the beds, and last year I used it for all the beds except the sweet potatoes. I’ve also been using the no-dig no-till method, and that has made planting a bit easier. I’m quite happy with the results, and plan on continuing to plant that way in 2024.

laying out the weed barrier fabric

squash seedling

June was a month for many of our perennials to come into bloom. I have quite a bit of bee balm planted, and the bees and butterflies always flock to the blooms. It’s also a month for many of our irises to bloom, and my wife has quite a collection of colors and sizes that are always lovely to see. I tend to like the ones with darker shades of purple or yellow, and Black Magic Woman has dark red standards and jet black falls, and is quite striking to see in person. I typically start humming the Santana song of the same name whenever I see it!

bees on bee balm

Black Magic Woman iris

July was a fairly unpleasant month for me since I came down with a case of pneumonia.  After taking a course of antibiotics I felt much better, but then developed complications in the form of a pleural effusion (fluid around my lung) which had to be drained twice in the coming months. I have been symptom free for a couple of months, and I hope it is all behind me now. The garden suffered while I was sick though, and the weeds did not take a vacation even while I was taking it easy and on the mend! I was able to keep up with harvesting, and July saw a bumper crop of brassicas along with the first of the summer squashes.

July harvest

August saw the beginning of a bountiful tomato harvest. Before they were done for I hauled in 186 pounds of them, which we enjoyed eating fresh as well as turning into sauces and ketchup. I think there is nothing quite so tasty as a homegrown tomato, and I plan to keep growing them as long as I can put out a garden.

big haul of tomatoes

pizza sauce ready for freezer

In September I began harvesting the hot peppers, and turning many of them into hot sauce. It was not a great year for peppers in general, but I got plenty of the hot ones for fermenting and making sauces.

assorted hot peppers

hot sauces

October is usually sweet potato digging time, since they need to be dug before freezing weather and our first frost usually happens sometime in the latter half of the month. This year I waited until late October to dig them, and I was pleased with the results. We love our sweet potatoes here, and we should be enjoying them for months to come.

sweet potato poking up out of soil

2023 sweet potatoes

November was a quiet month in the garden, but my wife and I enjoyed celebrating Thanksgiving – twice! The first time was a quiet meal for just the two of us, and my wife baked up a pumpkin pie using one of our homegrown neck pumpkins. We also enjoyed a second Thanksgiving the next week with our friends Steve and Sharon in Alabama.

pumpkin pie

December was another quiet month in the garden, and I spent a good amount of time on woodworking projects, doing a seed inventory, and other indoor organizing projects. It’s also time to start planning the 2024 garden and to begin ordering seeds. I also made a Christmas ornament for our little tree. My wife and I have been making ornaments for each other ever since our first Christmas together back in 2005. Every year we make them in secret, then exchange them on Christmas morning. This year she made a lovely bluebird from denim material, and I made a wooden intarsia creation I am calling Georgie the Green-Nosed Reindeer.

Georgie the Green-Nosed Reindeer

Lynda’s denim bluebird

I hope you have enjoyed this look back on 2023. 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!