Christmas Day is for me the start of the next year’s gardening season.
And I’ve often thought that for many it is the same.
After everyone goes home, or you make your escape back home….there is something about the desire and pull to become more simple in our lives. To stop and just be for awhile. The frantic build up to the holidays is fraying on the nerves, as is the loud music and the push to “buy, buy buy!” A cup of hot herbal tea, a comfy chair, and a pile of seed catalogs can reverse that feeling.
Time to think on what I want to change in the coming year. What I want to grow. What I want to try.
Btw, Chamomile tea is my choice, with a touch of lemon juice for that Vitamin C we need, and a pinch of Stevia for sweetness.
But I digress, that last week of December slips by. And suddenly it is January. And if it is like it is here, winter is about to make its showtime. This is the prediction for this current week. We have had a mild winter so far, so this is needed. Cold hours are miserable, but make plants grow better come spring.
Make lists. Make charts. Doodle drawings of how you would like things. If you must get items do it now so you can watch prices.
I got a new gift for myself to use in the garden:
A Hori Hori Japanese weeding knife. Amazon had a great sale on them awhile back and I snagged it.
A month back I planted hardy lettuce. It is growing slowly. We are still at around 8.5 hours of daylight so it won’t grow big for another 2 months. But I am testing it to see how it fares through a freeze in the winter, although in the greenhouse.
Our Meyer Lemons are approaching being ripe.
A few more weeks and they will go to an orange color. They ripened into yellow this past week.
With the potential of a freeze cycle, I covered the citrus trees in frost fabric. It can give an extra 10 to 15* degrees protection.
If there is a project for January? It is get your garden ready to go. Work on the inside things first.
For example, most of the shelves in our greenhouse are covered in trays, full of 4″ pots filled with potting soil. While they are seedless, they are ready to go at the end of the month, when it is time to start seeding and into February. This is a boring job to do, so I did it when there wasn’t anything pulling me away. And working in the greenhouse is pleasant when it is cold outside.
So yes, I work outside but I also know…it’s OK to just plan!
~Sarah