Here's a rough draft of our veggie garden layout for 2025. Not everything in finalized yet, but it gives a good idea of what we grow. The main 8 beds are either 4x10 or 4x12. Some areas are labeled in shorthand, like the peppers (upper right, examples REAP = Carolina Reaper, JAL - Jalapeno), and the Tomatoes are to the left of the peppers (RED STRIPE, AMISH, etc.).
The circles at left near the top are the pepper plants from last year I am overwintering in the greenhouse, not all will make it. They are in 5 gallon buckets. Every year we grow garlic, onions, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, kale, snap peas, potatoes, squash, radishes, and beans. We usually grow beets but skipping this year as we have 30+ jars in the cellar already. I've tried growing cauliflower but haven't had much luck. We buy a dozen or so heads each year when they go on a super sale and pickle them.
We rotate stuff around from year to year, except the permanent items like Rhubarb, Strawberries, and hops.
This past weekend I got all my hot pepper seeds planted. I used all seeds harvested from last year. I have 300 total hot peppers seeds planted this year. I don't need anywhere near that many (usually do 40-60 hot pepper plants a year), but only around 80% will germinate and make it, and I sell all my extras on FB marketplace to help cover some of the costs. 300 is by far the most I've started, I usually do more like 100-150. But this year I started them in 72-cell seed trays, so it used less dirt than 100 with 2" cups I usually start them in. The problem will be finding enough space as I need to transplant to larger containers. I make maybe 100 or so jars of hot sauce (125-250ml) per year, plus I dehydrate and freeze more.
I built a 8x12 greenhouse a couple years ago. 3 sides are double pane glass windows and sliding door panels I bought or got for free on FB. Roof is the clear wavy plastic sheets. The 4th wall is against our house, so it gets a bit of free heat from that. I keep about 1/3 of the greenhouse at 10C over winter, using a small space heater. I insulate it in the winter. The other 2/3 is not heated, but has 2 fridges in it (one is our overflow, the other is my beer keg fridge), which generate a bit of heat themselves. It rarely ever gets below 2C. I also brew beer in there, on the wall against the house. I have 240v there for the brewing equipment.
On the plant side of the greenhouse, i have 3 levels of shelving, about 6'x2' in size each, with LED grow lights on a timer. The lights are suspended on cables so I can raise/lower them. That end of the greenhouse faces south so gets the most sun too.
In addition to the garden, we have maybe 30 muscat grape vines, so most years I make wine from that. Other years we get other varieties (my wife's relatives are all commercial grape growers and let me go pick what i want). We have an apple tree (might be dying, not getting much yield off it anymore) and 2 pear trees. I make hard cider from that too (and regular for the kids). There are also raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and black raspberries. The kids love going outside everyday and just eating berries off the bushes. We have 2 fig trees as well.
So all of this is way more than we could ever use, even with 3 kids. We bring pickle platters to parties, give away wine bottles (neither my Wife or I actually drink wine very often, which is funny when you see 300+ bottles in the cellar). We make gift baskets with jam, etc. The Salsa, tomato sauce, hot sauces, pickles, pickled cabbage/cauliflower/beets and some favourites like pepper jelly are the most commonly used stuff in the house (I don't generally like pickled veggies but the rest of the family loves it).
There are some downsides. It's a lot of work. In April tilling the beds, mixing in compost, then May/June getting everything planted, daily weeding, watering etc. Then in June/july/August/Sept you're also harvesting stuff all the time and we start canning/preserving stuff. The hops and grapes all get harvested at once when they are ready, so then it's a couple solid days of processing all of that. The jars for canning have gotten stupidly expensive the last 4-5 years. It used to be $10 for a 12 pack of 500ml jars now its like 15. We give away all this stuff for free, but do ask people return the jars and rings. Even still we're buying maybe 5-10 cases of jars a year. Lids we get at a dollar store, they need to be new each time and are $3 for 12 there instead of $6 at CDN Tire/Walmart. By mid-august we're almost throwing zucchini at people as they walk by in the park as we're overflowing with it. Water is expensive, drip irrigation helps but it's still pricey. We have a 55 gallon barrel I collect rainwater in to help, but I need to look into hooking up a boost pump to it as there isn;t enough pressure for the drip irrigation so we usually just use city water.
But overall we love it. My wife and i get to spend a lot of time together in the garden or chopping up food, canning, etc. the kids help too and love having all this fresh food available. They often give wine and hot sauce to their teachers at the end of a semester.
Anyway, that's too much rambling from me already 🙂 I do love talking veggie gardens though.
