The Garden This Year

Now is my prime garden planning time. When I make my New Year’s Resolutions (and I do, since I find them a very helpful way to mark progress), the garden finds its place on the priority list. In 2010, it is not just place, but the plan for the garden which changes. Food gardening will be rising a couple notches in the emphasis of efforts again this year.

I’m not sure how much of the energy/time pie gardening will get, but I am sure that I will spend much more of my efforts on food growing once again. Last year, there were more disappointments than I liked to see, but a new season means there are more opportunities, and hopes, for a successful crop. Here are a few things I want to work on in the garden this coming year.

• Strawberries. I hope to plant a strawberry patch in the garden once again.
• Tomatoes. Although I like heirlooms, this year I will not make the mistake of overlooking the reliability of ‘Better Boys ‘.
• Gourds. I want to have some for crafts. And maybe some Indian corn, too.
• Swiss Chard. This is so easy and tasty that there is no reason for me to be without it this year. I was just lazy last year to have not planted it.
• I want paths, and raised beds in my vegetable garden. I want something more permanent and good looking. 
• I saved some pruned tree branches… and want to actually make some tuteurs this year. Solid ones (although my flimsy looking one turned out to be quite sturdy- it is still standing ). I just have to handle a saw and hammer with confidence.
• Three sisters. Going to try this traditional combination of companion planting: corn, beans, and squash.
• I’m tired of life jerking me around- I plan to take more time in the garden this year. It rejuvenates me, and centers me….some of my best thinking and revelation comes when doing the mundane tasks of weeding, hoeing, and just tending the plantings of my beds and borders.

Enjoy the garden…enjoy life….
Those are some of my resolutions for the coming gardening year. I guess I shouldn’t refer to obligations as “life jerking me around”, since many of those obligations arise from things I chose to put into my life. It just seems as though those things grow all out of proportion to the space given them, and weigh me down and pull at me to the point where I have no time for the things I really enjoy.

I’m going to look at how to avoid that as much in this year… as I have far less years to work with than I might like….