HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL.  YES IT IS TIME TO SOW SOME SEEDS!

Unbelievable but this is true.  It is time to directly seed some crops now.  According to Texas AgriLife, crops to be directly seeded in the garden in January and into February include beets, carrots, spinach, Swiss chard, collards, lettuce, mustard, radish and turnips. Start vegetable indoors now for planting later this winter and early spring – broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale, lettuce, and parsley.

I hope you all had a wonderful 2022 and will have an even more spectacular 2023 in the garden and in the rest of your lives as well.

More news of gardens. . .

I'll step out and make a prediction:  More people than ever before will be trying their hand at growing some of the food they eat.  If you need an incentive, all you need to do is visit a grocery store and look at the prices. Already from my grand Okra project from last year, we now know that you can grow enough over $800 worth of fresh okra from 8 five-gallon buckets right here in North Texas.  The locals in Garland will have the opportunity to try their hands at this in April of this year.  We are planning a special Earth Day project with our local librarians.  Among other things we will be showing folks how to grow okra from a five-gallon bucket.

Just the other day, we at Loving Garland Green discovered that some generous soul had left a huge sack of quality seeds.  How huge?  608 packets of vegetable seeds--everything you can imagine: herbs, carrots, greens, tomatoes, pepper, pumpkin, squash etc. At an average of $3.00 a packet, we figured the value of this gift is $1,809.  Thank you whomever you are.  The seeds were packaged to be used by December 2022 but any gardener worth their salt will tell you that the viability of most seeds is far longer than one year.  So we will have plenty of seeds to give away this spring. 

Speaking of Things to Look Forward To . . .

This morning I woke up with an inspiration for a grand project.  My grandmother and namesake who lived to be 96 told me that the secret to living a long life is to always make sure that you have something to look forward to.  One of the things she did was to order free stuff from magazine ads and also to purchase things that way and from the Sears catalog.  No greater friend of the mailman than my Grannie.  She often waited on her front porch for his arrival. Those of you who are too young to know:  In the 50's and 60's and. 70's and likely before, but I don't know about that--enticing coupons were often featured in magazines and the newspapers. You filled out your name and address and got something free in the mail which more often than not was a further advertisement for some product that you had to purchase.  Cereal products also had their own version:  save a bunch of coupons from their cereal boxes and you could mail them in and get merchandise in return.  It is really just a more primitive version of shopping on the Internet.

Here is a version of one of the most popular coupons from the 50's and 60's. "DRAW ME".

Sorry I got sidetracked with my reminiscing--that happens with us old folks.  I am writing a book that will be published in 12 volumes.  Its title:  Ten Years of Gardening in North Texas and Life that Happened in Between.

Volume I

Ten Januarys of Gardening and Life In Between- 2013 - 2023

Volume II

Ten Februarys of Gardening and Life in Between - 2013 - 2023

etc.