New year, new plans

Hiya friends! I know it’s been a good, long while since I last posted. I don’t even remember what happened back in 2013 after that canning post, but I know for sure that 2014 was kind of a waste gardening-wise. There was a garden, but we only grew about half our usual because we had a baby due in August (prime tomato canning season) and I didn’t want to be fat and pregnant and awkward out there trying to weed and such. As it was, by October we had a monster amount of tomatoes to pick before we ripped everything out.

What to do with a new baby and a garden that needs tamed. Multi-tasking for the win!

So now that the new year is here, it’s time to start planning the upcoming garden. Charts get made, seeds get ordered, and our rigged grow box gets the cobwebs dusted off and ready for use for seedlings.

Our planning process goes a bit like this:

• Take inventory of seeds to see what we have, what we might need to order, etc
• Look at last year’s planning chart to see what we planted where (our garden is divided into quarters, and each year we rotate the whole layout so nothing gets planted in the same place as the previous year)
• Map out this year’s garden with our “must plant” items.
• Fill in the empty/free spaces with our “like to try” plants.
• Order seeds.

This year we had to order new brandywine seeds, as well as a paste tomato. The San Marzano tomato seeds I purchased at Menards ended up being… well, tiny. That’s what I’m picking in the photo above. There was NO WAY I was going to try to peel all those tiny tomatoes to make sauce. Nope. Not going to happen.  New(ish) this year, we’re going to try brussel sprouts. I attempted to grow them from seed last year and then I let them die in the grow box in the basement. Oops. So we’ll try them again this year. Also, tomatillos, because I LOVE roasted tomatillo salsa. That with some homemade corn tortillas… Mmmmm mmmmm!

What are your gardening plans this year? Are you trying anything new? Do you have a favorite standby that you plant every year?