Gardening for the New Year

   Ahhhh, It's hit me, I can't wait for spring! Don't get me wrong, winter is great and I enjoy the snow and the cold quite a bit (alright, this negative zero stuff could go away.) Sledding is a blast, the trees are beautiful when frosted over, I even gave ice skating a try, it was wonderful and I'm planning on doing a bit more of it this year. I'm also wanting to give snowboarding another shot. As charming as winter is, however, it does not halt my desire to maintain my garden. I'm going to safely say that having a garden is my favourite part of our warm weather seasons. What the hey, you give it care and it turns around and gives you food! Excellent!

 

   We are going to build onto our operation this year, I believe. As of right now, we have a couple pots and one raised garden bed. We were able to produce incredible amounts of food from this single 4x8 box. Pounds each of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and lettuce. This year, I would like to make at least two more garden beds and perhaps a sort of raised herb shelf thing which will hold pots of herbs. It should be pretty fancy. We made just a little bit of basil pesto this year and would like to see that turn into jars.

 

   Also, I would really like to try and preserve a lot more food this year. Last year I canned about fourteen jars of pickles, and despite having a bounty of pears, I failed to do anything with them due to landscaping, road trip and other things. This year, I would like to can more pickles, relish, tomatoes, peppers, salsa and jams for starters, freeze a good amount of spinach and try my hand at drying a few things while I'm at it. I'd like to see Jacinda and I stocked up for winter.

 

   As of right now, I believe we will support the basics in our garden, tomatoes, green peppers, lettuce, spinach and cucumbers along with basil, oregano, chamomile and other herbs. If you have any suggestions as to what we should plant, no matter how much fun, practical, difficult or tasty it is, I would love to hear from you!