New Year’s resolutions… Garden Style

Happy New Year! It is your GPOD editor Joseph here, and today I’m sharing some of my New Year’s Resolutions… for my garden. Some things that I’m thinking I want do to in the garden this year.

What are yours? We’d love to hear about them!

Learn to use my new cold frame. A neighbor was throwing away old storm windows, so I grabbed them and used them to make myself a cold frame in the back garden. I’m so excited, I’ve never had a cold frame before. So… I need to learn to make the most of it. Right now my plans include using it to overwinter border-line hardy plants, force bulbs, and grow veggies for winter harvest. We’ll see what all I can pull off.

A related resolution… start my winter lettuces sooner! I built the cold frame late and then sowed a bunch of things in it. The lettuce here are growing great, but they are romane and I didn’t start them soon enough to head up before winter arrived. Next year I’m going to get my seed-starting timing better! The same applies to my pepper seedlings… I never get them going soon enough and end up with runty little plants to put out in the garden.

More fall interest! This shot is from my home office window, looking out at the incredible sugar maple (Acersaccharum, Zone 3 – 8) in my front yard. It looks AMAZING every fall. But the rest of the garden doesn’t. I mean, I do have some things that look good in fall, but not enough! Time to fix that. I put in a bunch of asters last year… but the rabbits ate all of them. Time to figure something else out.

This photo is from Oklahoma State University Botanic Garden. I just loved this incredible creative container made from an old plow disc, and it is inspiring a resolution to get more creative with my containers this year, especially in