2009 Gardening Resolutions

Before listing the new 2009 gardening resolutions it's always a good idea to take a look back to see if my 2008 gardening resolutions were kept.

The biggest part of last year's plan was to keep the resolutions doable.

Let's take a quick review.

The first resolution was to keep all gardening projects small and manageable. Check! Everything that was started was actually completed.

The second resolution was to stay within the gardening budget. Check! There's actually $2.84 to add to the gardening funds for this year. True, it may be a small amount; but every little bit helps.

The final resolution for 2008 was to help one other person discover the tremendous joys of gardening. Check! Someone was interested in finding some good books or websites for herbs and edible plants.

A couple of recommendations were passed on to them that they felt provided great information to get them started.

So far, so goo... everything doable and done.

Now, for the 2009 gardening resolutions, I'm thinking along the lines of a "to do more... " theme.

First, I resolve to do more weeding earlier in the season. As with most gardeners, I'm good at spotting and taking out weeds while they are young. Yet, I could be a little more diligent about getting all of the weeds out of an area.

Instead of letting the far back of the bed go and get a few of the weeds back there, I could start at the back and work my way to the front.

Secondly, I resolve to do more to ensure there is enough homemade compost this year to cover all of the garden areas. Last year, some of the gardening budget had to be used to supplement the planted areas with compost.

Instead of taking out the vegetable scraps to the compost pile only when I feel like it, I could keep a pail on the kitchen counter for the scraps.

Then the pail can accompany me on my daily trips through the garden and be dumped on the compost pile each day.

Finally, I resolve to do more with plants that are already in the garden rather than buying another bunch of new plants this year.

The garden really is already full of a good variety of beautifully colorful perennials. If I move a few plants here to there or over to that other area, it could give the whole garden a fresh new look.

I like the 2008 idea of keeping things doable so I plan to continue keeping the gardening projects small and manageable and: