As I slowly get my seed catalogs in the mail I can't help but get excited for this coming year! I have decided to be more relaxed, per se, in 2012. I will explain.
This past year I tried out square foot gardening. Although I didn't have the 4x4 foot beds as suggested I made it "work" for me. Not only was this year a total bust for some of the crops I found them to be quite difficult to keep weeded because I had all this extra space so I planted a ton of extra stuff to "try out". Now of course I was also pregnant this entire past summer and canning season SO I don't know if I really over did myself or not. I also am not quite sure if I just didn't like some of the stuff I planted because I was pregnant or if it really was that funny tasting.
So I have decided to plant my 2012 garden with totally new seed. I am sticking with as many open pollinated heirloom varieties as I can. I found out I get the best harvests from open pollinated heirlooms. Well at any rate I'm only planted 3 different varieties of squash. a C. pepo, C. moschata and C. maxima. That way I will help to minimize cross pollination. I'm only planting bush beans as I found out this year that pole beans didn't grow well in my garden compared to the bush beans (I also HATED the taste of the pole beans). So I'm only planting one variety. I haven't picked it out yet but I intend on canning and freezing them mostly so I will be planting quite a few of those. Thankfully those are easy to take care of for me.
I'm still not sold on growing sweet corn this year as I always wanted to try popcorn but I started thinking about it and I really don't eat much popcorn so I may just forget about popcorn this year. I'm only planting enough peas for fresh eating because it was too much work for me to process them to freeze with the kids underfoot so I will just enjoy garden peas fresh this year! I can buy them organic cheap enough where it really doesn't pay to do it myself.
I am trying out a different type of carrot, not planting potatoes this year (they did absolutely awful in this soil and I don't have enough compost to fix it). I can buy organic potatoes from a farm for just about the same price I could buy conventional potatoes.
I'm still deciding on the other garden type items and I also found myself getting overly enthusiastic but I just look at my little baby in my lap as I browse these catalogs and then I remember to calm down and keep my garden simple and useful this year. Not fancy or too exotic. That can wait until my kids are older and can help and also pick out their own varieties of things to plant!
Simple is not less but more! More produce, More time with the kids, More enjoyable summer and less weeds :) haha
Thoroughly enjoying my yearly shipment of seed catalogs,
~KT~
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