I delayed indoor kale planting for a week until Feb. 13. I will delay planting the other cruciferous vegetables and herbs by two weeks or more. Live and learn. It is an exciting time of the year with seeds going into soil. My heating pad and grow light held up for another year.
2024 was a marginal year for our garden. I couldn’t get the plots planted. Deer started jumping the fence and ate two successive plantings of cruciferous vegetables. Then, weeds grew everywhere. I couldn’t get some crops harvested when they matured. I got decent crops of garlic, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, and collards. I hope to renew my efforts with vigor this spring. May gardening do better in 2025.
The main work is clearing the old plots, weeding, and pulling up the plastic sheeting in a way that preserves it to use again this year. This means a LOT of work. I tried making very large plots last year and the result was deer jumped the fence more often, as mentioned. The idea that plots should be smaller, leaving no landing zone for deer proved to be most effective. Given the Social Security Administration life expectancy table, I have 11 more gardens to plant. No more experimenting with plot size at this stage of life.
I bought two batches of seeds. There will be herbs, lettuce, Asian greens, cauliflower, green beans, and a lot more. The apple trees should produce this year. The Red Delicious tree planted in 1995 has been a work horse. Storms, including the 2020 derecho, have damaged it so it looks like half a tree. I will keep harvesting Red Delicious apples from it until the last windstorm takes its final toll.
Despite all the talk about inflation, food continues to be a smaller percentage of our household budget. Insurance is the killer, ironically. Car, home, life, an multiple health care policies add up. We garden because we control inputs, plus the produce tastes better than store-bought. Our garden will continue in this enduring culture of life again this year.
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