When Do You Begin The Gardening Season?

Well if you are anything like me, by the end of November, you are ready to put your gardening tools away for the winter (and you hope it is a long winter).  And then, by the middle of January, you can’t wait until spring arrives and you can get your fingers into the soil again.  For me, this creates quite the mental and emotional dilemma.

Luckily, I have found that I can feed my garden addiction in late December to early January by spending the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day pouring over the piles of catalogs that I subscribe to and start planning out the vegetable garden for the next year.  This is a great time of the year to plan things out for the upcoming spring and growing season.  And this is what I consider to be the beginning of my gardening season.

– side note –I guess it is time for a confession…not only am I a gardener, I am a planner.  Some would consider this a character flaw, and someday…maybe I will outgrow it.  But for now, spreadsheets, graphpaper, pencils, sticky notepads, and a calculator are really good friends of mine.
– end side note –

So, with my spreadsheet of my current seeds in front of me and a stack of wonderful seed catalogs, I nestle myself down with a cup of hot chocolate and start perusing.  As I look through the catalogs, I look for any new varieties that might catch my eye and tag them with a small sticky note.  I also look for the “tried and true” varieties that I may be running low on my seed supply and tag those in the catalogs.  With my catalogs tagged and sticky notes everywhere, I am ready to start to plan out my vegetable garden plot. Now, my vegetable garden consists of a few different pieces, including a dedicated growing plot, some grow beds, and some spots here and there throughout my landscaped yard.  For details on my garden plots, you can check out my “Where Can I Plant Vegetables In My Yard?” blog post.  I start planning where I will be planting what and usually plot it out on some graph paper. So, for those of you that are itching to get started with gardening this year and don’t know what to do with 12 inches of snow outside, this is a great relaxing exercise that prepares you for the coming growing season. 

Why don't You Start A Gardening Blog?

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me this question, I would be able to support my gardening habit instead of having to sell pints of plasma.  Seriously, I am doing this more for all those who have requested it than anything else.  There are few things I love more than gardening, and sharing gardening tips is definitely one of them.

So…to all you gardeners out there, I am glad you kept asking me to do this.  Hopefully you will find benefit from what I share.

A little about me and gardening…

I started gardening as a kid and all I remember is having to pick the rocks out of our quarter acre garden every spring in Utah.  This was less than inspiring, and by age 15, I swore I would never garden “when I grew up”.  I left home and gardening behind at age 19 when I left for an LDS mission in England for two years and didn’t think I would ever return to working the soil. Oh how wrong I was.

At the age of 23 and newly married, I found myself in an duplex apartment that had a 4 foot by 10 foot flower bed that was begging to grow something other than weeds, and the gardening itch had me so bad, I had to grow something.  From there on out, the addiction has just gotten worse (or better depending on your point of view) over the years.

Now, I am an Advanced Master Gardener in Utah and find great enjoyment and relaxation in working the soil, seeing things grow, seeing other things die (weeds), and teaching workshops and helping others find the same enjoyment in the garden.

So, I will try and post informative tidbits and tips on gardening here and hope you find them interesting and useful.  Remember, I garden in Utah so, if you want to use any of these ideas in your garden, you will need to adapt them to your location and needs.

Let me know if there is something you would like to know about.  I’m glad to share if I have any information on the topic.