"A garden is never quite so good as it will be next year" - Thomas Cooper

Moni's garden plot, Oct. 2011

It's November in Utah. It's cold. It's bitter cold... and dry... and horrible. My eyes itch. I hate winter. Hate, hate winter. Everything is dead and ugly. In order to keep my sanity, I'm starting this blog, so I can dream about and plan my "next" garden. I've tripled the size of my vegetable garden plot in the backyard. Soon I'll have nothing left to mow. :) Somewhere around October 15th I planted garlic and onions around the southern and western outer rows of the garden. I've been learning as I go. I read that I have to plant garlic in the fall if I want to eat it next summer, who knew? I also planted a bunch of onions... planting onions in the fall in Utah gets mixed reactions... some people look at me like I'm crazy, others say they've had great luck doing this. I guess we'll see. I planted the garlic around the outside edge of the garden because I read that "theoretically" the pungency of the garlic should serve as an unwelcome sign to garden pests. Perhaps this is an old wives tales... perhaps not. I somehow managed a miraculous bout of beginner's luck with my first ever vegetable garden this summer. I really didn't have any pest problems. My tiny corn field (six different varieties) turned out amazingly sweet. When my grandpa asked what technique I employed to keep worms out of the ears I replied "They get worms? Maybe there aren't worms in the city."

Me and my grandfather Henry Skriner
in the spring of 2010 standing by his garden.

I grew up learning very little of gardening, though I had a grandfather who was completely obsessed with it. I regret now that I never spent more time with him in his garden. He's in his late 80's now and I'm eager to learn his secrets. I didn't realize as a child that I harbored this obsession. My mother found her father's garden dull, boring, and an unwelcome chore. In all honesty, my grandfather was a perfectionist and wasn't one to easily relinquish control. So, though she may have initially been excited to dig in the dirt, that eagerness turned to boredom as he "showed" her how things should be done... and finished them all himself as she watched. I can't really blame him. He loved the work, as I do now. I think he is actually 88 this year, and he's spent just as much time outside in his garden this summer as he ever has growing corn, potatoes, pumpkins, onions, tomatoes, zucchini, the list goes on. I think he was able to make the 2 1/2 hour trip from his house to mine about 4 times this summer and during that time he imparted several golden nuggets of invaluable wisdom which I'll get to later.

For now I'll just say that this blog is not just about vegetable gardening. It's also about flower gardens. I really started out mostly focusing on perennials the first year I bought my house. The yard was in a state of complete and utter horror. The weeds had completely overrun everything and I found myself with spiky burs stuck to the bottoms of my shoes every time I turned around. My home was built in 1929 and is in the heart of the city. Digging in the yard was a real challenge, from the hard clay soil, to the hordes of stepping stones I would find buried even under the lawn. I think I've dug up at least 20 cement blocks (so far). I've also found quite a few marbles, roofing nails, coins, jars, and action figures. Looking back I should have kept them all in a bragging-rights pile of sorts, but at the time as I was sweating blood and tears ripping out the weeds it all seemed fairly inconsequential. This was a serious war... and I intended to win. I vowed I would not experience another Halloween where the children were afraid to knock on my door because the parents thought the yard looked like a place where a crazy serial killer would put razor blades in the candy. And so in the spring of 2010 I began the transformation.