Planning Time

Another resolution down the tubes!

I tell ya, it just seems to be hard to stick with anything on a regular basis! In my last post, I said my goal for 2012 was to "Blog weekly (beginning this Saturday, January 7th)." Here we are at the 16th, more than two Saturdays later, and I am finally getting the next post written. Ok, to be fair, I actually did start writing Saturday evening (the 14th), but I didn't get it finished, and I didn't remember to backup what I had. So, when we lost power for a second, I lost it all. That's okay, because I think I needed to start over, anyway. This time, though, I'm a little smarter about it. Instead of using the web interface to write this post I've switched to using my word processor, using its blogging feature. It also has Autosave!

I decided years ago that "New Year's Resolutions" were a dumb idea. I mean, why should we wait until the New Year to set goals and plans and try to better ourselves? Shouldn't that be something we do occasionally all year long? Well, this year, I found myself doing it without actually realizing that I was essentially setting "New Years" resolutions until it was too late. I guess, I was looking back at 2011 and realized that I didn't make as much personal progress as I had hoped for, so I naturally started setting a few goals. I do that from time to time, so maybe it "just happened" to coincide with the beginning of the year this time. Who knows?

The Garden Plan

My wife and I went to The Home Depot today (for something unrelated to gardening), and while we were there we decided to walk through the garden center and start planning. We moved from Idaho to Alabama five years ago, and I still can't get used to the idea of Home Depot, Lowe's, Wal-Mart, and all the others stocking their garden centers in the middle of January! I really got excited looking at all the plants and supplies that have already been set out. I hope we are able to stick with it.

Later, we sat down at home with the whole family and did some more planning. We have decided to do a square-foot garden, and have chosen some plants we want to grow. Some of the details need to be fleshed out a bit, but at least we are getting started earlier! I'm looking forward to harvest time and actually doing some canning this year. It has been years since we have had a large enough harvest to can some food.

Follow Up

In my last post I promised that I would do some thinking about how I can avoid life distracting me from the garden. So far, I've only come up with two items:

• Make the garden a priority. When the plants need attention, give it to them. Don't put the garden on the back burner. Have a regular time for checking up on it. Be sure to harvest as food becomes ready. This will help them to keep producing, and will supplement our diet with fresh home-grown vegetables. Yum!
  
• Enlist the help of my family. Usually, the garden is a family project, so this one isn't really an issue. However, last year we decided that we weren't going to have a garden. Later in the year, I decided to do a little bit without the family's help. Enough said about that! Also, doing it this way, it becomes part of the children's chores, so we are more apt to make sure they do it (meaning we do it as well).
  

I think that's about it for this post. As I said, we have some more details to iron out and then we need to start collecting the materials we don't yet have. More to come later. Ciao!