Gardening... yes, I realize it's 20 degrees outside.

[mellymell]

Which is precisely why I'm thinking about gardening. I can bundle up in some fleece indoors and dream of spring, with my online seed catalogs and my spreadsheets and junk. Normally, I'd just sit down with my notebook and my paper seed catalogs and some graph paper and come up with something I wouldn't follow through on. We'll see if technology

Comments

[yocepha]

Yay! for gardens. I join you in your high hopes for 2013, and like you, was less than diligent with the 2012 effort. LOL - our garden was an experiment in drought-tolerant vegetables. Conclusion: sweet potato harvest was good... but not much else.

I have maybe 15 catalogs in my pile to look through. Ideally, I'd love to work on flower beds, but our priority will be growing food. We'll see how that goes... ;-)

[mellymell]

Ha! I know exactly what you mean. My biggest problem last year was harvesting what food we got. I let several melons rot on the vine and who knows how many tomatoes and squash did the same. I was pretty good about the eggplant as there were only a couple of those. I got exactly one butternut squash and actually the pepper harvest was good, but not as good as years past. I totally forgot to harvest my sweet potatoes. I'm pretty sure they're all rotted now. I pulled one up the other day that was half rotted.

The flower beds will definitely not get as much attention as the veggie and herb beds. I really want to see how self sufficient we can be just off our 6 little 4'x4' plots. I told Chris not to sign up for another CSA and I'm trying to grow all the things we'd normally buy at the farmer's market. As you said, we'll see how that goes. I'm optimistic, but I know me. ;)

[princess_lesa]

You seem highly motivated this year. :)

[mellymell]

I am! I feel like I sat last year out and I've got a lot of catching up to do. :)

[mellymell]

Awesome! The sprouts will be an experiment for sure. I've always done tomatoes and peppers, but I really want to do more cold weather veggies like greens and cabbages and stuff. So I'm really going to put a lot of effort into that this year. Those are some of my favorite veggies anyway.

[mellymell]

I like that kind of rebellion. :)

YUM! I've got a big bag of store bought sprouts to cook in the fridge right now, but I really can't wait to grow my own. I hope they turn out.

[kellsta]

Wow, you inspire me! I've never considered an edible garden. It always seemed like too much work. I did INSIST that we plant some daffodils in the front last year because I've wanted something blooming ever since we moved in this house 4.5 years ago. They're sprouting already, and I'm so excited. Maybe seeing them come up will inspire me to do more for next year. Baby steps. ;)

[mellymell]

Yes, baby steps! That's one of the biggest lessons I've learned. I've wasted a lot of time and money and resources on trying to do too much at once. Our last house was in dense forest so I couldn't really garden except for a few shade loving annuals in pots on the deck. So I kind of went nuts when we moved into this house with lots of full sun areas and absolutely no landscaping, save for an awkward rectangle of impatiens in front that I feel certain was only planted on the insistence of their realtor. It was a blank canvas and I was excited

[mellymell]

Yeah, it would be pretty impossible to garden if you weren't around to tend them. Even if you had an automatic watering system, there's still a lot of stuff to do on an almost daily basis, especially for growing veggies.

But I live vicariously through you on your travels enough that you can totally live vicariously through my domestic pursuits. :)

I will say, I love my little indoor Aerogarden and it's pretty fool proof and low maintenance. Something like that might satiate some of your gardening desire.

[mellymell]

I'd say have a pint for me, but... no. ;)