JACKSONVILLE, Ill –: As the new year approaches, I often look back on the events of the past year. The new year also offers an opportunity to start fresh, often in the form of New Year’s resolutions. Whether you’re starting a vegetable garden, growing more flowers for pollinators, composting, mowing less, or looking for a garden, consider making a garden resolution/goal or two. Please. Below are some of the 2023 Gardening Resolutions.
Timeliness – Every year we get sucked into the tractor beam of procrastination. Gardening for a living often puts gardening at home on the back burner. Articles, classes and videos on planting cool season crops in August take precedence over putting into practice what I preached and planting seeds and plants in the ground at the right time. You live and die by your work calendar, so put a real appointment in your work calendar and come home and start sowing seeds or planting transplants. I’m tired of
Get to know sedges – Sedges are grass-like plants that have taken the horticultural world by storm. Many of the sedges on nursery shelves are thought to be native to parts of North America, some from Illinois. Sedges can be used as a groundcover or planted in bulk to give a more textured landscape bed. Let’s take a look at the first resolution. In 2023, he hopes to order some sedge flats to landscape around the trees. increase. The sedges on my list are sedge radiata, sedge pennsylvanica and sedge valpinodea.
This winter we will be expanding our seed start practice. Last year was the first year in which we invested time, energy and resources to launch our own seeds, and the process has been incredibly rewarding. It was exciting to be able to grow more diverse varieties. And being able to harvest food from plants that the kids and I started with seeds was a thrill.
Expand the amount, variety, and season of cut flowers. We would like to harvest the bouquet and donate it to a local elderly care facility, but last year it was limited to the summer season. Longer.
organize. When I give presentations on various gardening topics, I often ask them to take notes on what they are doing and what is happening in the garden. When I start sowing, I write down when I started sowing on the label of the plant, but trying to remember when I started sowing next year doesn’t help much. not. Or, when directing seed harvesting in the garden, I usually take a picture of a packet of seeds next to a row, but never look at that picture again.
This year, I’m going to take notes on what we’re growing, so I don’t have to sort through seed packets or refer to old emails to figure it out. Also, make a note of when you start planting and when you sit down and plan your garden so you know where you put things.
nurture something new. This is probably cheating, as we try to grow something new every year. Growing something new allows you to experiment in your garden and expand your knowledge of plants and gardens.
Every year my family and I look through our garden catalogs looking for something new to grow, either a new crop/plant or a cultivar of something we’ve grown before. We have grown cotton, passionflower, artichoke, Carolina Reaper, and various snapdragon varieties. Sometimes these plants are one-off. Other plants, such as cotton and passionflower, were incorporated into the landscaping and expanded planting.
Good Growing Tip of the Week: Another great New Year’s resolution is to tell your friends and family to check out Good Growing.