Harvest Early. Harvest Often
One of a plant’s primary goals is to reproduce.
When we harvest early, picking fruit and vegetables when they’re edible but before they can produce mature seeds, many plants, like zucchini/courgettes, beans, tomatoes, hurry to produce more fruits and vegetables.
We often get a bigger harvest!
And that harvest is spaced out a bit. So we can better enjoy and/or preserve it!
(smiles)
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Gardening – Lovage – A Possible New Perennial
Every year, the Dear Wonderful Hubby and I strive to add one perennial to our gardens.
Last year, it was mint (in containers that we overwinter outside).
This year, it is lovage.
This is a new-to-me herb.
It supposedly tastes like celery, which intrigues me as we use a lot of celery in soups and celery can be challenging to find and expensive to buy in our portion of the universe.
It is also supposedly okay with the cold, is rodent resistant (hopefully this includes squirrels), and once established, it doesn’t require a lot of water or care.
All these things appealed to me. I’m SUCH a lazy gardener. (grins)
Have you ever grown lovage?
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Gardening Plans And Plants That Do Play Well With Others
In 2026, we’re expanding the raspberry bed. They are a perennial which makes them easier to grow, they don’t take much work, they reproduce aggressively, and I love these berries.
This expansion takes up the place where the potatoes were in 2025.
So we’re looking for another spot for the potatoes.
I was hoping to plant them under the triangular butternut squash support (which once was part of a baby crib) but I then did my research and potatoes and squash don’t play well together. They attract the same pests, they are both heavy feeders, and the squash tends to smother the potatoes.
Which means the search for a new potato spot continues!
While planning your garden, research which of your desired plants play together well…or not-so-well. This will greatly increase your success rate!
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Multiple Garden Plans
Gardeners will often talk about crafting their garden plans for the year.
These are usually plans.
Plural.
Because many of the plants we grow will have lifespans shorter than our entire gardening season. And many of the plants we grow will only flourish in specific times of the year.
Peas, for example, love cooler weather. In Canada, they flourish during the Spring and the Fall/Autumn. They might be part of our garden plans for those months.
They can be replaced with another crop during the Summer.
So we might have 3 garden plans – 1 for the Spring, 1 for the Summer, 1 for the Fall/Autumn.
Garden plans help us…well…plan. Have as many or as few as you like!
Don’t feel like you have to stick everything on one (sure-to-be chaotic) plan.
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Dreaming Of Gardens To Be
One of the things I love about the gardening off season, about the short time when I can’t (easily) garden outside, is…
It gives me time first to dream and then to plan.
I’m in the dreaming stage right now.
I’m thinking of all the gardens I could experience if I had unlimited time and space and energy and sun. (smiles) Which vegetables would I plant? Which flowers would I plant? What colors and tastes would I experience? What pollinators would the gardens attract?
I close my eyes and I feel the warmth of the sun’s rays on my cheeks. I smell the roses. (literally) I hear the buzzing of the bees and the fluttering of butterfly wings and somewhere in the distance, I hear the chick-a-dee-dee-dee of a chickadee.
It is relaxing and glorious.
Dream of gardens, my friend, lush and semi-wild and so very, very green.
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Garden Dreaming For 2026
It is winter in my part of the world.
Some more dedicated gardeners have cold frames or greenhouses or are even growing hardy vegetables in the snow.
That is not me.
(laughs)
What I AM doing is dreaming of our 2026 garden. And that is what it is right now – a dream. It is a fantasy garden with endless sun and space and time to work in it. The insects are under control. It rains the exact perfect amount. Everything germinates and grows and bears fruit.
Soon, I’ll start planning. Planning is more practical.
But right now, I dream.
(smiles)
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