Join Us for the 2012 Garden Planning Series

January is National Garden Mail Order Month.  If your like me, your mailbox has started over­flowing with garden cat­a­logs of all kinds. And maybe, like me, the thought of all those choices fills you with excite­ment mixed with a hint of trep­i­da­tion.  So this month, Lakewood Hollow will con­cen­trate on my journey into the gar­deners’ favorite winter pas­time; Garden Planning and Seed/Plant Ordering.

The stacks of Garden Catalogs that will soon fill your mailbox can be over­whelming.  If you are an advo­cate of sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture as a social respon­si­bility it can be down­right intim­i­dating. The desire to create a healthy alter­na­tive to genet­i­cally engi­neered, pes­ti­cide and petroleum-based fer­til­izer laced super­market diets can lead you into a maze of con­flicting and vague mes­sages deliv­ered by “experts” of every descrip­tion.  The thought of wasting your time, effort and enthu­siasm (not to men­tion, your hard-earned cash) on pro­duce that is ques­tion­able in any way can seem like a cruel joke. So this month, I will devote my time to cut­ting through the maze and with your help we can create a clear path to our own garden dreams.

The first thing to know when clearing your path is where you want to go.  Are you looking to build an orna­mental garden? A kitchen garden?  Are you a pro­po­nent of organic or heir­loom gar­dening, or maybe these things don’t mean much for you.  And by the way, what do all of these terms mean?  Whats the dif­fer­ence between hybrid, heir­loom and non-GMO plants anyway?  Why is that impor­tant?  Last, with all the nursery and seed dis­trib­u­tors out there, who do you buy from?  Who’s rep­utable? How would you know?

We will spend the coming month or so dis­cov­ering these answers together.  First, we’ll look at Garden Planning from dreaming, to assessing to devel­op­ment.  Then we’ll move on to ter­mi­nology, what do all those fancy words mean to us?  After that, we’ll look at Mail Order Companies; “the good, the bad and the ugly”.  And after we’ve decided what to order from whom, we’ll look for­ward to what to do once all of those won­derful seeds and plants arrive.

Planning your garden can be chal­lenging, but I know of few things as rewarding as biting into your first home­grown straw­berry.  I guar­antee that it will be the best straw­berry you ever tasted.  Gardening is an adven­ture, a process that is always evolving, fas­ci­nating and self empow­ering.  It’s never per­fect, but even the fail­ures offer com­post for next year’s adven­ture and so become a valued part of the whole.

Subscribe to the Lakewood Hollow RSS feed above to receive auto­matic updates when new arti­cles are posted or check back with us often.  Start an elec­tronic or paper note­book to record what you dis­cover and read a book to inspire you.  I rec­om­mend Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education by Michael Pollan or any of the books in the sidebar.  And don’t forget to reg­ister with us, so you can com­ment on what you read, ask ques­tions and offer advice.  I want to hear from you.