For some people, January is about “white sales” and buying things for the home. For me, January was always about garden planning and seed catalogs. Looking for vegetables and flowers that started with the letter which would guide that year’s plantings (we started a new letter each year – I called it my alphabet garden).
Last year I gave up – I never seemed to have time for the gardens the last couple of years and they had become overgrown. Rather than being my happy place, they now just made me sad. So last year we did not grow any of our own food and instead paid for a share at our local CSA. The food was great and it was fun to “shop” every week from their weekly harvest – but it wasn’t the same. I missed being able to just walk into the yard and pick our dinner. I missed watching the movement of the year through the changing blooms of the perennials in the yard. I just missed my garden.
So I decided that I was going to use minurism to give me the impetus to take back my garden. I want to think about seeds and plants and watch my yard turn back into the flower and vegetable garden that I was turning it into. I want to pull out my garden gloves and dig in the dirt (and let the boys deal with the worms – yuck) and watch the yearly parade of colors restored in my patch of the world. It becomes minurism when I compare the cost of seeds to the cost of the vegetables if we were to buy them in the store.
And all I have to do is say that I want to do it and my beloved husband grabs the boys and goes outside and starts to make it happen for me.
They started to clear out the strawberry patches which had just fallen apart over time with the help of our local deer who really enjoyed them (sigh).
Then armed with his trusty lawnmower, Chip just started to clear all of the garden beds.
Mattie stayed out there with him while Jesse took pictures to memorialize Dad’s hard work. 🙂
I walked out to a cleared lawn and garden area – all just waiting for a run with the rototiller as soon as the weather goes back to spring.
Its not alot, but it is Chip’s way of giving me a clean slate to begin dreaming about and planning the new gardens. Being able to grow alot of our food again means alot to me. And to bring the color to our main street from our flowers matters too.
Now to start writing the seed lists. I think I am going back to the “A” year. My garden needs a new start and where better to start than at the beginning.
The bonus pic for today is Jesse on his 13th birthday. He is, of course, wearing the ceremonial birthday hat for the day. They are growing so quickly. He stood nose to nose with me yesterday. Soon he will be taller than me too. My boys are all growing up.
I hope you all are getting time to start planning those things that bring you happiness too.
Onward and Upward. . . . .
A Polish Granddaughter 
You are getting ready and planning for Spring, while I am still heading into hibernation for the next 5 months. Spring seems so far away to me. I look forward to seeing all your garden bounty. Tell Jesse I said Happy Birthday! Wow… two teenagers in the house!
January is when the seed catalogs would typically start arriving which is why we start planning now. I have to get the racks up and trays cleaned for seed starting. In my house that requires alot of moving of stuff so I have to start now. I need a greenhouse!! And yes – 2 teenagers. I am just lucky they are Markus and Jesse who are generally great people so having them as teenagers is not so tough. If anything, they help more now, not less. I am sooooo lucky with my boys.
Good for you!!! Time be damned….just pick what’s easiest and will make you smile. I know you want to do ‘a’ plants…bees LOVE Anise Hyssop, and it’s purple, and easy. Does it ALL have to be a plants? Lemon balm would give you alot of pleasure…..We have big scale planting on your brains…..and are seeking out places that will let us have a hive or two. I’m still waiting for winter but garden dreams are whispering. Have fun–and ps……pretty awesome your family is right there supporting it.
We find all kinds of ways to bring in variety while staying with the “a”. We use latin names (my white forsythia came in the “a” year – abelythium . . . – or something like that. I got my “Autumn Sunset” rose in my A year. This year I want Apples!! We are working on where to put them now. Always the balancing of loss of sunlight with adding more trees and needing sunny garden plots. I am also pro-bees. We had them when I lived in the Black Hills. I was not the beekeeper – Jack did that – but we all helped with spinning the honey. I was blowing honey out of my nose for a week later. . . Hah!. I hope you are able to do it. I do need a good herb garden this year. Lots of planning needed!!!