Thinking about the garden

Last year I started all my tomato plants inside, using one of those mini-greenhouses that can be purchased at Walmart. It worked out well for me, and I've bought another such greenhouse for use this year. I'll be buying Legend tomato seeds again, because their blight resistance really did prove superior; they also produced quite well for me. I see the experts are working to come up with better blight resistance in tomato plants all the time, so maybe there will eventually be something even better than the Legend tomato. One thing that helps control blight is to plant the tomatoes in a different part of the garden each year, and I do that.

Last year I got in a hurry and started the tomato plants at the end of February; they were getting pretty leggy by the time I could set them out. So this year, I'll wait until at least mid-March.

My two worst garden enemies are blight and squash bugs; I totally stopped gardening for a few years because of them. Last year, squash bugs killed the zucchini plants early on, but the cucumbers survived. I won't be making pickles this summer, since I have plenty left from last year. I'm thinking one hill of cucumbers will be more than sufficient. After the prolific production of butternut squash last year, I know I don't need to plant so many of those, either! Maybe I'll plant a hill of acorn squash instead; their size is much more appropriate for me and Cliff.

I'll be planting only Yukon Gold potatoes; we love them! And I'm going to try Bodacious sweet corn; it seems to get rave reviews. I'm not planting a huge amount of anything, except for tomatoes; I want to can a lot of tomatoes again.

Cliff and his sister are going to stay out of the gardening business this year; they've both decided they'd rather put their time, energy, and talents toward other enterprises.

Ah, garden plans in mid-winter. Hope for the future. Something to cancel out a little of the depressing news I hear on television.