Garden Planning

September 2013

The seed catalogs are going to start pouring in any day and it's that time of year when the thought of the garden in the spring feels so exciting while it's dark and cold outside.  Every year I've always ordered way too many seeds and planted too many things, only to neglect them over the course of the season. We've only had a garden for 4(3?) years now (here are the garden archives so far, hello sweet sweet little ones!) The thing is, we live smack dab in the middle of Agriculture-Farm-Town, U.S.A.  We can throw a stone in any direction from our little suburb and hit a farm.  We're three minutes from a farmer's market that runs all year and less than 10-15 minutes (at the most) from at least a dozen other farmer's markets or roadside farm stands.  We have multiple CSAs in the area that we could join, too, if we wanted to have a dedicated stream of produce. So while growing our own produce in the backyard is awesome, we'd still have access to so much produce all year without it.  And every year I keep saying that the next year I'm going to grow less vegetables and more flowers, but inevitably plant so many veggies and forget about the flowers.  

So this year I'm really going to do it.  We'll have a few tomato plants (not 14 like last year!) - one for big slicing tomatoes and two with some variety of cherry tomatoes.  Herbs.  Greens. One or two plants that the kids choose to grow themselves (likely carrots.)  A patch just for the chickens of greens that'll keep growing.  The rest of the boxes are going to be flowers to cut and enjoy.  It feels overwhelming since I haven't had the best luck with growing flowers in the past, but I've also never really given it a ton of time and attention.  

Are you making any garden plans yet for the year?? Please do share, I want to hear all about it!