My garden plan for 2012 will be based on the disaster that was 2011!

January is approaching and as the cold of the winter months begins in earnest, I find this period of time is a great opportunity to sit down in my easy chair and make my plans for what I'd like to do in 2012. Like many plans we make, sometimes it's best to look backwards before moving forwards.

In this case, I wanted to review some of the challenges I faced in the spring and summer of 2011 to help me make some changes that might improve my harvests. Last year was not all I had hoped it would be as one crop after another failed for various reasons. Following is a list of some of them:

Too much moisture early on in the spring!

As a warmer than normal spring progressed in southwest Missouri in 2011, I had made a great start on plants like romaine lettuce, radishes and carrots. They had sprouted and, though still small, were looking good. Suddenly, towards the end of April, the rains came and came and came. All told, a narrow band of real estate from about the Arkansas border north, up to Ozark, got upwards of thirty inches of rain when fifteen would have been more the norm for the three month period Mar-May. That much rain, in such a short period of time really set back the plants that didn't outright drown!

It got hot hot hot!

After the flood, came the heat of summer which was also way above normal. The month's of June through August averaged over four degrees above normal with many days topping the hundred degree mark. All that heat when combined with average moisture helped to create a bumper crop of hungry bugs!

When bugs attack!

2011 saw three waves of bugs in my garden area and that's not counting the locusts that made hearing difficult! The first wave occurred in June with the appearance of the Japanese beetle, a bug with an appetite for just about every veggie and flower. Then came the cucumber beetles followed swiftly by the squash bugs that finished off whatever crops the other bugs had missed.

By mid July, I had retreated into air conditioned comfort and contented myself with watching the carnage through a window that over-looked the back yard. Outside I could just make out the audible crunching sounds of thousands of insects who were busy reducing my plants to stems and twigs.

After a bad year like that, I plan to make some changes in the 2012 garden that will be posted later in January. Happy gardening!

My lost and re-found amaryllis!

Last year about this time, my sister had bought an amaryllis which produced three beautiful white blooms. After these had gone by in January, I transferred the bulb to a spot in the garden and basically forgot about it.

As the summer wore on, I did notice that the plant had put up some beautiful green leaves. Then, I forgot about it again until it was late fall and I was doing some cleanup in the back yard. That’s when I decided to dig it up, place in a paper bag and tossed it into the lower part of my refrigerator. Then, you guessed it, I forgot about it yet again.

Only now, on Christmas Day did it come to mind. Sure enough, there it was right where I had left it; in the back of the vegetable bin. I rescued it this morning and low and behold, it looked to be in pretty good shape! So, I figured what the heck and have re-planted this Christmas bulb back into a pot to see what happens.

If this bulb produces anything at all, I’m sure it will be sometime in February or even later. But, what the heck, if it does I’ll enjoy it just as much!

Update: This bulb never made it. I threw it out on January the 14th.
Update: Actually, as I was preparing to dump it on the 15th - lo and behold.... a bit of green!

Growing onions are popular! Who knew?

For many years now I've made it a habit of grabbing a small bag of onion sets in late winter at my local frocery store to plant in and around my two raised beds. Each bag generally contains something like 40 to 50 minature onions that, once place in the soil, require very little maintenance. Then every summer and fall, I have had a continuous supply for salads, soups and burgers.

But, imagine my surprise when a short video I made on YouTube two years ago, became popular. In fact it has received over seventy thousand views so far, to date. That was amazing to me, at first, but after thinking about it for a while maybe it's fitting. When you take home gardening as a pastime, it far surpasses most other hobbies by an incredible margin. Someone once told me that the money spent on home gardens in America even surpasses all the money made in professional sports!

This coming season, I think I might even consider doing a few more videos that focus on garden basics. I've come to realize that there is a whole new generation of young people out there who want to learn to garden but who lack some of the basic knowledge required to do so. So, we'll see what I come up with.

January is the pits for us gardeners!

Forsyth Mo. - At least for many of us here in the Midwest, and even though my birthday falls in the month of January, it's still my least favorite time of the year. Sure, the days are getting marginally longer (from Jan 1 a day will be 19 hours and 39 minutes to Jan 31 when they will be 10 hours and 19 minutes), but so what? I mean who can jump up and down when the average temperature is the same as the freezing point of water? Give me July and those nice and hot fourteen hour plus days!

At this time of year the garden out my window looks to be beyond repair. The ground is frozen and pretty much the only thing growing (outside of my cold frames) is a couple of hardy kale plants! I guess I could spend my time looking at garden seed catalogs per chance that I might dream of a garden yet to come… but that’s not as fulfilling as the real deal.

Speaking of catalogs! Have you seen the price they are charging for seed? Add in the hefty shipping charges and I don’t see how anyone would want to buy anything over the internet. This year, like the last, I’m planning to go to a garden center like Home Depot where I can get the same seed for half the price! I also need to plan on buying some more soil and compost to rejuvenate what's already in the raised beds. Every year the amount of soil seems to go down and I have no idea of what happened to it!

One of my other challenges for the coming spring will be what to do about the wooden borders on one of my raised beds. The lumber is rotting and needs to be replaced. Trouble is, the cost of lumber has gone sky high also. I may elect to make some trips to a nearby river where I can haul up some rocks to use instead. Hey! The exercise couldn’t hurt either!