I know, I know ... resolutions are a futile exercise and we forget about them by January 15th.
They are amateurish and a waste of time.
In terms of a blog post, they are so cliche and lack originality.
I get it and really had no intention of creating any resolutions this year. Until late last night ...
I'm in bed rifling through the recorded shows on the DVR, looking to clean it up and eventually settled on the few episodes I had remaining for Growing a Greener World.
The episode that caught my eye was "The Dirt on Healthy Soil". As I watched the host, Joe Lamp'l, gather soil for a soil test, I started to get really pissed off at myself. I call myself a "gardener" and I've NEVER tested my soil before. Chew on that for a minute ... think my credibility should sink a bit lower? Me too.But wait, it gets worse ...
After "Joe Gardener" walked through the process of how soil is actually tested in the lab (which was really friggin cool by the way) he then took it to the next logical step. We determine our soil deficiencies and then look to address said deficiencies with ... wait for it ... you may have heard of this "stuff" before ... I believe it is commonly referred to as ... compost.
Imagine that. Compost. What a novel idea.
Oh, you've heard of it? I swear to you, it's 12:18 AM and I'm in bed and I am stewing. How can I claim to be an "obsessive" and "neurotic" gardener and not make use of the single most important resource in the world of gardening? Heresy, right?
Oh I made strides two years ago and installed a compost bin and religiously composted all of our table scraps and leaves and grass clippings. But that is where it ended. I naively just dumped and hoped for the best. I got caught up in all of the other gardening tasks and forgot about the most important one. All of that composted material still sits in the bin but it never truly "composted" in a useful way. Son of a ...
So as we entered the last day of 2012 and I considered self mutilation, I decided it was time to go back to the basics in 2013. And hence, my gardening resolutions were born. For this upcoming year, I will focus on three simple things:
1)Soil test
2)Compost
3)Education
In fact, I added these three items to the right side bar as a constant reminder to get back to the basics. See it? I'm that serious.
Soil test - as soon as the soil is workable in spring, I will get my samples out for testing and I cannot wait to see the results. Enough of the speculation and guesswork, time to get scientific.
Compost - it will take some time to get the production going, but thanks to that wonderfully inspiring GGW episode from last night, I now know where I can purchase compost in bulk. Check out this link.
Education - this is more of a keep reading, visit local gardens (and to think I'm not too far from both Longwood Gardens and Chanticleer and have never been is another strike against my credibility), talk to other gardeners (take a look at what is literally right down the street from me - Federal Twist), look into becoming a Master Gardener and simply get in the dirt kind of thing.
It is that simple.
I figure if I can address these three areas, then all else will fall into place.
Happy New Year and let's do this in 2013!
John
