Garden Planning

One sweet, joyful experience that January brings is garden planning. 

It’s a meticulous process, spending day after day, mulling over each detail. (That’s why I start in January!)

I layout the seed varieties of previous years, displaying what my current crop could look like. Seed catalogues become dog-eared and highlighted while I determine what my future crop may be. 

It is a planning effort for species and space. Where garden beds may go and what will fill them. Books on companion planting scatter about. With each newfound do or don’t comes a sketch. And another sketch. Until finally, I have the perfect mix where garden friends are near, and foes afar.

I anticipate the lunar cycles, and expect when my roots, fruits, flowers and leaf plants will be sown. 

This certainly wasn’t the type of garden from my childhood. One with long equal rows, and loud machines keeping them weed-free. This garden is one that works in harmony. One that is tended with the mind as much as the hand.

I can visualize the sweat pooling on my upper lip in July, and am sure I’ll have some inevitable failure no matter how much I’ve tried. But the sensation of a small round tomato to be popped into the mouth, or the snap of kale after first frost is more enticing than any exhaustion that I anticipate. 

For now though, with garden plans secured, I’ll rest in this dark time of cold and snow until the days become long enough to sow.