Starting to Think About the Garden Again

The 2017 garden was one of the most productive and pleasurable that I have had though that was not reflected in the quantity or quality of my blog posts.

Probably the greatest lesson last year was the importance of regular feeding of the plants. I had always figured that if you make the soil rich enough at the beginning of the season, that should be enough. But after experimenting with regular fertilizing during the season, I am a strong believer in the practice.

2017 was unusual for the absence of insects. I had no problem with slugs, cabbage moths/green caterpillars or cucumber beetles as in the past, and mosquitoes and bees were rarely a bother. In one sense, that is nice, but as Joni Mitchell sang, "put away that DDT and leave me the birds and the bees please".

After putting in the effort to build a greenhouse structure, I have hardly visited it this winter. Early on, we had several periods of deep freeze which prevented me from doing anything productive with it, but there have been several weeks now where it was warm enough to get started and I have been involved in other projects. It probably would have helped if I had easier access via a door on the greenhouse, currently I have to pull up the plastic on the end and duck under.

Hopefully, I will get some seeds started this week so that I am able to take advantage of having the greenhouse for an early start. Also, there will be some plants like kale, parsley, celery and lettuce that will be reviving as long as the roots survived the winter. (Update: kale and parsley, yes; celery and lettuce did not survive the cold.)

Last year was a strange year with regard to the blog. There are many drafts of posts that were never completed. Mostly this was due to having trouble getting photos uploaded to accompany the posts. I am still hoping to get this backlog of posts completed before the 2018 season begins in earnest. As I review the unposted photos, my enthusiasm for the coming garden season is growing.