Planning to plan

Although our big plans will likely mean that we'll move from our current home to a rental before the 2012 harvest, I'm still trying to act and plan and think and dream like a real, live, grounded gardener.

Heather's garden notebook, from Heather's Homemaking

To that end, I'm taking notes on note taking. Garden Note keeping, that is.

My goal is to document and learn from the following:

• Seeds:
• varieties
• sources
• Dates: 
• seed starting indoors
• germination of different seeds
• seed starting outdoors
• transplanting starts to outdoors
• Lessons learned:
• when I realize I've made a mistake, I'd like to document it for next time

Jenny's lovely potted veggies,
from In the Garden

And because we'll be moving, my actual garden plans have changed a bit. I still plan to plant in the ground at our current home, if only to help sell the house... ideally we'll show it in May when everything is big and bushy and green.

I'll also plant in containers as much as possible, creating a movable garden that I can relocate to our new, temporary abode, wherever it is. It's alright - I was going to plant carrots and potatoes in a pot, anyway! ;)

If we move quickly enough, I may even end up with a third, in-ground garden at our rental place. May, June, and July are still early enough to plan plenty of things and get a harvest before the frost sets in.

where you lead, i will follow

Big changes are afoot, but, like most things in the garden, it will take time for these changes to take root, flower, and bear fruit.

In the meantime, take it away, Carole....

Juxtaposition

I spend my weekdays in an office, managing a couple of large technology projects, a 3-person team, and a bunch of websites.

When I need a break, I read farming and homesteading blogs, knit, and crochet.

Today during lunch, I learned a new crochet stitch: the crocodile stitch. I took this photo to send to my husband, who is my biggest cheerleader, and cracked myself up with the accidental juxtaposition of my two worlds.

Scaring myself with daydreams

Sometimes I scare myself with just how much I want to do what Susan over at Farmgirl Fare did: give up all this citified life and take up digging, growing, baking, and making on some far-flung patch of earth.

garden daydreaming

It's just past the middle of the winter and I'm home sick, wrapped in a blanket with a stuffy nose and sore throat, daydreaming about my 2012 garden.

Sleeping Clementine,
next to the first chicken coop wall;
September 2011.

Potential abounds:

• We have a huge yard with unrealized potential -- lots of space that, with the right nurturing, could yield health and happiness.
• 2012 is the year of chickens. The coop is still in pieces, waiting to be assembled, and we haven't decided exactly when or where we're going to get our chooks (as they say in the UK), nor whether we'll get eggs or chicks or pullets, but 2012 is THE YEAR of the CHICKEN.
• Our mature compost pile could use some tending, so that it lives up to its potential.
• The cottonwoods we planted when we bought this house nearly 6 years ago have become sturdy, healthy trees, and I no longer wonder if they'll put on leaves in the Spring.
• I'm starting to get more comfortable with my gardening knowledge after a few years gardening her in the clayey, sandy soil of the South Valley. I'm more familiar with the pests I'll battle, and how to battle them.
• My desire to homestead grows every day. It is my constant daydream.