Early plans for spring 2024 garden; plant room update

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a restful and joy-filled holiday! But the “most wonderful time of the year” continues for gardeners as seed catalogs begin arriving in the mail en masse, and planning for the spring garden gets underway! What are your favorite seed catalogs? Leave a comment!

This past year, I more or less continued with what I had been growing since my wife and I moved into our new place back in 2019: tomatoes, peppers, basil, kale, eggplant, rosemary. But I’ve blossom end rot has been a real problem on the tomato plants for several years now, despite my best attempts with regular fertilizer and as consistent watering as I could manage. Same problem with the peppers, though to a lesser extent. So this year I’m taking a break from both. So far, the plan for this year is:

• Kale and/or collards

• Bok choy

• Arugula

• Beans

• Cucumbers (pickling)

• Potatoes?

• Winter squash

• Garlic?

Odds are, I’ll only get to half of that list. It’s hard when I work outside year round for 8 hours a day, and some overtime during the spring and summer, while also trying to expand my native plant garden (a mix of perennials and shrubs) and keep grassy weeds at bay. This time I have the benefit of a drip irrigation system hooked up to a timer so I don’t have to fret about rushing home to water everything. I bought a kit at Lowes for $50 if that and it was super easy and quick to set up, and you’re able to control the rate of flow from the nozzle heads.

Outside of the garden, my wife and I have been converting one of our spare rooms to a “plant room” with lots of different houseplants set around the room, including some trailing ones, plus a giant bean bag chair and sound machine for just chilling out and taking naps.

We have a humidifier in the room since some of these plants really don’t like drier air. So far, we have:

• Pothos

• ZZ Plant

• Dracaena

• Peace lily

• Bromeliad

• Spider plant

• Chinese evergreen

• Hoya

• Various small cacti, and three other houseplants whose names I can’t recall at the moment

So that’s what I’ve been busy with. I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Years, and much gardening and personal success in 2024!