The Perfect January Garden

I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR!

That's something that is not often said about this limbo time of winter.  I remember seeing a  cartoon the other day that went something like this.....




The magical chaos of the holiday season, and the coziness of a warm fire during a snow storm is dulled when you have to go out and shovel, again!

But, in the dull drums of another cold, windy, icy, grey day I know I can grow the perfect garden.

Doesn't make much sense does it.  Unless I take my private jet to Australia when I want to escape.  Which would be impossible of course, there is no way I would just go down there for one day.

But all jokes aside, this is the time of year where my perfect garden comes into bloom.  As the fruits of my labors create the best platform in which hundreds of plants grow in abundance.  In my perfect garden the rain fall is just the right amount at night, the sun shines warmly during the day, not harshly, and there are no diseases or pests to control.  And everything looks as pretty as a picture.  Well, many pictures.

By now every gardener is nodding their heads knowingly.  It's the most wonderful time of year for gardeners? 

It's SEED CATALOG time!

Right now I'm looking over several seed catalogs that have been sent to me by mail.  I'm perusing the glossy pages, becoming enchanted by all the pretty pictures, and circling more and more seed descriptions, having my small garden grow by the acre to accommodate them all.  All thoughts of the prep work in spring, the tiresome weeding in the summer, and the over abundance of harvest in the fall don't affect us gardeners right now.  It all fades away.  The questions of why we decided on so many plants we ask in summer don't even enter our minds when the January Garden is created.  The expressions "That sounds good!" and "I'd like to try that!" are stated often as each page brings more varieties of cucumbers than you thought imaginable.  Twelve pages on eggplants?  Sure!  I'll circle half of them, even though I don't even like eggplant!  That doesn't matter in my perfect garden.  They sound interesting and tasty.  Don't fast forward to summer where all my friends run away and hide when they see me coming with my boxes of eggplants and cucumbers. 

This year my Perfect January Garden is even bigger and better than previous years imagining, mainly because my husband and I are moving soon and a place to have a garden is certainly a necessity.  You know, with everything I've picked out for seeds, I'll need only a few acres to start with.  Hope my friends like eggplant.

So when the cold and dreary and windy and cold and wet and cold and dark and did I say cold days get to me, and if feels like winter will never end, I can go to my Perfect January Garden and become excited for the warm days to come. 

Minus the sweat, and digging, and weeding, and pest attacks, and frost, and lack or too much rain, or lack or too much sun, ect.......... that will come in spring.

Vision Board 2014!



It's that time of year again!  And I have to say I passed the test with flying colors.

 

That's right, I wrote out a check today and I DID put 2014 in the date line!  Score!

 

It's also that time of year where I create my Vision Board.

 

So what is a Vision Board?  Well, it's a collage of sorts that has pictures and words that reflect what I desire for the coming year. I've been creating them every New Years Day for the past five years.  I ended up doing it today, though, because I was feeling not so good yesterday.  But it's not just something you do during New Years.  You can also do it for other times you feel you want to create something about your desires.  Birthday's, new houses, having a baby, and many many more reasons.  The possibilities are endless!

 

So how does someone approach doing a Vision Board?

 

Well, first of all I'm not going to approach this like an infomercial. 

 

With that said, here are some pictures of what I did to create Vision Board 2014!!!!

 

So, if you're like me and you collect pictures from magazines after you've read them and put them in a plastic folder to use for collages like this one, well then you're all set.  But if you're not like me then just pick up some magazines that you like.  Then cut out some pictures that you want to use.

Now, if you are like me then this is a really good idea that will work for any anal retentive people that have a bunch of magazine clippings in a huge purple folder.  If you do not fall into this category, then you can skip the next step.  Hopefully there is more than one person that falls into this category.

Finding that it took me forever to find the clippings I would want for these Vision Boards, I decided to divide them into large envelopes, which took about three days.  I didn't realize I had so many clippings.  But while I divided them I also put aside a group that I wanted to use of my Vision Board 2014! (I feel like there should be a huge echo every time I type that.)

So this afternoon, after battening down the hatches and getting a pair of coveralls for the Blizzard of 2014 (there is NO WAY I'm calling it Hercules), I started VISION BOARD 2014!!!!

Ok, I'll stop with that.  NOT!  So to start the vision board a good card stock base paper is necessary, and any size will do the trick.  Not that the size should limit you from allowing parts to go past the edge of the paper.  But I find a good, solid base is needed for the pictures to come together.  And you can put whatever clippings you would like.  Both pictures and words, or just words, or just pictures.  It's really up to you.  Allow your imagination to fly!  But I do find that starting with the larger pictures as the base and then add the smaller pictures on top to mix things up a bit.  I usually leave the words for last because they are usually the smallest and can integrate very well into a picture.  But, again, it's all up to you.  And make sure you tape some of the base pictures to the card stock and tape all the base pictures together or else you'll get all the pictures taped togethor and a separate piece of card stock.  Not that I did that my first year, but if I did I would totally give you that piece of advice.

And here it is!  My........ VISION BOARD 2014!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It has many things I'm looking forward to this year.  Our imminent move has me thinking about what I desire in a new home.  My desire to be a mother is shown with the babies in the right corner.  My desire to do more gardening and homesteading practices fill the center, as do my desire to educate myself in spiritual healing more is on the lower right corner.  Everything I hope to achieve this year, reflected in this collage.  And I may make other collages to emphasize in more detail some of these points, but overall it's great to see what will come of this Vision Board.

It's always great thing to do at the beginning of the year to put your resolutions and desires for the year in perspective.

Happy New Year everyone!

After I finished my Vision Board I worked on my new pair of coveralls to make them suitable for any farming Hobbit Princess.  Pretty snazzy!

With them and my new gloves I'm ready to face anything winter has!  Bring it on!