2018 The Year of the Garden

Last fall, I tried my hand at canning for the first time ever.  I've always been afraid of canning, fearing that if I did it wrong, I would poison all my friends and family.  But my desire to do something with green tomatoes pushed me to buy some books and materials and give canning a green tomato relish a try.  And what I found was, not only was it delicious, canning was fun and easier than I thought it would be!

Thus, I've coined 2018 "The Year of the Garden".

In typical LoriBee fashion, now that I've had one success at canning, I'm going full speed into this year's growing season with designs on doing even more.  On the list:

• More green tomato relish.  Here's the recipe I used.
• Fresh Packed Dill Pickles
• Green Tomatillo Salsa or Sauce
• Red Salsa
• Marinated Green Beans

Granted, I don't know if I will get to all of them, but as I plan out what to plant this year, I'm making sure to grow the supplies I need for all of them.

I'm also growing a number of varieties I've never tried before.  Here's a photo shot of all the seeds I bought this year:

As my planting space is only a little over 100 sq ft, I'm packing a LOT into a small space, capitalizing on vertical gardening as much as possible.

Toward that effort is my new garden tunnel.  I'd actually put this up while in the middle of chemotherapy, and it's been sitting here all winter waiting to be showcased.  I can't wait to see it covered in beans and tomato vines!

Another thing that helps me pack a lot in a small space are my planning tools.  I have three things I live by when it comes to planning out my garden.  The first is my garden plotter.  It's basically a blank template of my garden beds that I use to decide what is planted where and when.  Here's this season's version:

As you can see, it's been marked, remarked, notated and scribbled.  (The garden is always plotted in pencil, since one glance through a seed catalog can change everything.)

I've also been pretty good about keeping a planting log of all the things I've tried, when I planted, and how well they did.  Though there are "gap years" where I didn't log much, I've found those years I did log have become invaluable to me.  While weather and circumstance never guarantee that one year will turn out exactly like the last, this helps me recollect what I've tried and what worked/didn't.  I give each "try" a grade and comment when necessary.  Though I don't always follow my own advice, it's fun to look back and see what I did.

Click here for the link:  Planting Log

My final planning tool is this great book for those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area.  It's my favorite garden book and I refer to it often, especially when trying something new:

Click here for the link: Golden Gate Gardening, by Pam Peirce

So here we go into 2018!  When it comes to the garden, I've been neglectful of this blog since the advent of Facebook, but I'm bringing it back.  I find blogging is fun, and much more organized than a series of random posts.  So in the spirit of 2018, The Year of the Garden, let's get to it!