Gardening Part II: Gardening Goals

SMART Goals. Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time bound. I love setting goals and am a supporter of using the SMART model of goal setting. 2013 is my third year of gardening. I believe I am turning the corner of becoming a successful gardener. I had no goals in 2011, one goal: preventing deer from eating my garden, in 2012, and have established the following as my goals for 2013, 2014, and beyond:

2013 -

• Profitable (even if minuscule)
• Current progress
• Expenditures: $40.96 (excluding rain barrels)
• Does not include time or water
• Revenue: $22.00
• 53.6% of the way to turning a profit as of 7/14/13
• Garden size > 200 ft²
• Of note, median/mean garden size is 96/600 ft²
• Some big gardeners out there
• Learn how to grow plants from seeds
• Build and test rain barrel

Russ' Remarkable Rain Barrels :)

2014 -

• Garden size > 300 ft²
• Return on Investment (ROI): 3:1
• I believe 2014 will be a breakthrough year. I feel I have learned enough to start maximizing production and many of my upfront costs out of the way.
• $1 per square foot ROI

• Cost effective plants via Cheap Vegetable Gardner
• I utilize ~75% of my garden for planting purposes (25% for rows)
• Need ~$1.33 per square foot of growing space
• Thus (for 2014) 300’(0.75) x $1.33 = $300
• Transplant rhubarb/asparagus
• ~10 ft²of rhubarb and 15 ft²of asparagus

Long Term -

• Increase garden size by 100-200 ft² per year
• $1.5 per square foot (total ft²); $2 per planting square foot (excludes rows)
• Greenhouse effect
• Living in northern Minnesota I need to lengthen growing season
• Expensive, will need to do research
• Self sufficient garden with use of composting

Please send me pictures and your own gardening goals (past, current, or future) you may have. I look forward to evaluating if I met my goals in the fall!


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