January garden updates

January, 2021. I hope you are having a great new years so far. Make your new years resolutions! I have mine: save more money, eat the healthiest and most vibrant food.

Additionally, my resolutions are to continue growing my food forest making it bigger and better, and do good in my community. On Martin Luther King Jr Day, I volunteered some time at the food pantry where I live, and hopefully created a bridge with a community leader to do more good work this year and the future.

The Winter time is different for everyone. It's pleasant or miserable to some because it's cold, it's beautiful because of the snow or ugly because of the slush. To me, winter is a time that is neither pleasant nor miserable, beautiful nor ugly. It is a time when you get things in order. For me, I am getting things in order for my gardens in the upcoming months when the season turns to Spring. 

As you may know, I live in Zone 6, there's not much you can grow over winter here unless you take many precautions.

There are rows of kale, radish, broccoli, and cilantro still growing in my gardens which I have kept covered for protection. But, who knows if these veggies will survive with only cloth and plastic over them in the next months of Winter.

Most of my garden tasks for now consists of making compost and cleaning the outside gardens, and caring for my indoor tropical plants. This week I mended broken coffee mugs and planted in them. 

My indoor plants keep me motivated and inspired to continue growing throughout the cold, dreariness of the Winter months. They give me hope for life, sustainability, and happiness. I make sure to keep them warm, add soil, fertilize, clean them, pick off dead leaves, etc. 

I have 21 indoor plants. That is constantly changing too, because some die, some bear more "pups" and sometimes I buy plants, sometimes I'm gifted plants. There's always something to do with your indoor plants when you have many of them. 

It is almost towards February. There are plenty of things you can start growing indoors. I never have luck starting early! I suggest starting the last weeks of February in starting lettuces and brassicas, but I have more luck growing these directly from seed in the outdoor gardens. Radishes, cilantro, spinach, prefer cool weather, so you van directly sow them in Mid March. 

Stay warm, safe, cozy, and happy planting!