The Garden Is Calling!!! Reflecting On The Up Coming Seasons

I have finally recovered from the holidays?  How you might ask? I assure you that it is not in the way of Christmas decorations being neatly stored away for another year! No, in fact, as I write this very blog post, I am looking at my lit Christmas tree in the dining room.  My decorations are FAR from being packed away. However, the normalcy of my days have returned.  Hubby has gone back to work every day. I am teaching school to the older children.  Meal preparation and serving is back into full swing. And I finally have the baby on a “loose” schedule.  It feels good to finally get into a normal family life.  Honestly, I have not felt a normal week in probably close to fourteen to fifteen months, when pregnancy hit and life turned into survival and not thriving.

With time on my hands, I am starting to think about my seasonal goals, family goals and life goals. Last year, with me being pregnant right through July, I lost a good amount of my gardening season due to either being too huge to do anything or just too tired from having a nursing newborn and the physical recovery of just giving birth.  No matter how you cut it….the garden just STUNK last year.  The pole beans never got canned and they sit on the vines even now in the dead of winter.  I didn’t have time to take care of my squash and pumpkins and bugs and disease did them in.  The one pumpkin that did manage to survive my severe neglect succumbed to freezing on the front porch before I could properly cook and freeze it. The garden remains a mess since I never had time to do a fall cleaning.

This year, I really need to dedicate myself to the garden so I can preserve massive amounts of produce for the winter.  With a nine year old boy, eleven year old girl and a six year boy, they are starting to chow down and eat me out of house and home.  I know it would happen eventually but when it did finally happen, WOW, it took me by surprise.

So, as I look forward to the upcoming season, I am trying my best to make the most out of my space. The seed catalogs have arrived and I will probably stick with my old favorites from Gurney’s seed catalog since I have had the best success with them. I’m not sure if I will try growing anything new, but maybe something will tempt me!