2016 Garden Resolutions

The ball has dropped and it's time for new year's resolutions, right? Time to improve yourself and your garden! Time for some hearty self assessment! Time to reach into the reserves and give just a little more to make yourself and your garden a little bit better in the year to come!

Nah.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that I love experimentation. I'm always trying to do better: whether it's experimenting with cover crops to improve the soil, experimenting with water-saving techniques to save resources, or experimenting with permaculture to save, well, everything I guess, I've always got some scheme brewing.

But looking back on 2015, I see that things went pretty haywire. I had big plans, as usual, and it looked like they were going well, but somewhere around mid-year, I realized that the whole garden's soil was diseased. I had to rip everything out and solarize the soil to bring it back to health. Quite frankly, the jury is still out on whether it worked---I won't know until next summer---but something else happened then too. I stopped having time for my garden.

Last year, I had to travel a lot for work. I took trips to California, Florida, Minnesota, Ontario, and London. As you can imagine, it interrupted my work in the garden considerably. I also found myself battling more and more migraines, which made it near impossible to get things done, even when I was here. I got more and more frustrated, because I couldn't carry out any of my plans, until finally, I just accepted it.

So this year's resolution for me is simple: Take it easy on myself and ease up on the plans. When I am able to plant something in the garden, I will plant whatever is appropriate for that time of year. If I am not able to plant anything, I will try not to worry about it. When I have time in the garden, I will try to enjoy it.

Even if means just watching the balloons go by

I do have some vegetables growing now, thanks almost entirely to my husband, who dug holes for almost all my ollas when I was on my last business trip. He knew how much it would mean to me to look out on a garden, so even though he's not a gardener, he went to work and did it for me. I have some pretty little broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and herb plants growing now. Hopefully, they'll make it to the dinner table. Regardless, just seeing something growing out there after such a long stretch of nothing is wonderful.

I'm also happy to report that my migraines are improving. I've been working on various changes (diet, exercise, breathing techniques, sleep, etc.) that seem to help. I'm hoping that my plans to go easier on myself will too.

So Happy New Year to you all. Here's hoping you go easy on yourselves too.