Let’s say that hypothetically, you didn’t want your entire life to revolve around your garden. I know: outlandish notion that you might have other priorities/interests/obligations, right?
So much of gardening can succeed or fail on doing the right thing at the right time. Beyond the obvious of (typically) planting in the spring and (generally) harvesting in the fall, there are numerous ‘tasks’ in gardening that have to happen in preparation of (planning, ordering seeds, anticipating germination), and throughout the growing season (water, pruning, trellising, pest mitigation).
I want you to imagine that you’ve drawn Garden Year #1 to a successful close with a bountiful harvest and between toasting yourself and your root veggies and uncanning your tomato sauce throughout fall and winter, you begin to turn your thoughts to Year #2.
Fortunately (in this imagined scenario), you set so much of the groundwork (literal and metaphorical) in place that Year #2 will be a cake walk. Surely those garden plots are mostly ready-to-go. The garden tools are also highly reusable. Pan back to the present moment and let’s consider some other things that can be invested before Year #1.
Reminders are a great start. Did you know that the average frost date for your zip code is (generally) the same as last year? That means you can set annual reminders in your calendar and/or with your preferred robot assistant to help you with (1) Ordering seeds, (2) Indoor starts, (3) Hardening off, (4) Garden bed prep! You don’t need to reinvent all of horticulture every Spring and Future You will thank you for the jump start.
Peak summer means frequent watering. While this might take some seasons to perfect, setting up irrigation throughout your garden and investing in a programmable water timer can spell the difference bountiful harvest and “well, I guess there’s always next year,” if you are hoping to travel out of town for a week. Cute as they may be, the neighborhood children can be…unreliable at times. Building out the watering system for your garden early is a huge load off your shoulders and mind.
Pruning and Trellising may be a little more hands-on, but you can at very least carry that knowledge forward from Year #1. I encourage you to take notes on what you do and when you do it and THEN review those notes to reinforce what worked and revise plans for what didn’t work. Making these notes digital can make it much easier to re-sort, edit, and search for keywords!
Even if you’re staring down Year #2 or Year #20, there’s still time to be kind to Future You. She’ll thank you for it!