First off, Happy New Year Everyone!

The New Year is a time of celebration and festivities. We set new goals and begin those ever so loved New Year resolutions. Hopefully, everyone has their new year resolutions in gear for the start of this year.

I want to add to that list one thing: either Keep gardening or start gardening as a 2021 resolution. Because truthfully, never too late to start gardening, and if you ask seasoned gardeners or even the new gardeners of 2020, you are bound to hear an overall positive vibe from the Urban landscapes we are creating. Gardening is such a positive way to connect to nature.

Not to mention that gardening is a great way to connect to nature while staying active. For some, it may even assist some of those common New Years' resolutions such as lose weight, eat healthier, or simply be more active. Gardening can cover all of these! Just think of the fresh fruits and vegetables that come out of the garden that will surpass anything from the grocery store, in both flavor and nutrient density. So, check off all three with gardening!

The New year is upon us; what did 2020 teach us?

Let us know below in the comments what you learned in the 2020 garden season!

For many, the year 2020 was a crash course in gardening. This year brought upon us ample time at home, which many used to rekindle time in the Garden. It may have been years since or your first backyard garden but, 2020 was indeed a gardening boom. This past year taught us that it’s possible to spend a little more time in our garden playing in the dirt learning new things.

This past year taught us that there were nearly 15 million new gardeners throughout the season. From starting new gardens in containers, raised beds, or larger plots in their backyard to apartments and urban living gardeners getting into growing foods in small spaces. This included a rise in urban bees (seen above) and backyard chickens. 

Not to mention the growth in backyard bird watching. The year 2020 is a year to look back on and remember as the one that allowed us to rekindle time among nature, whether in the backyard or nurturing plants in our apartments. 

The rise of the backyard homestead

This past year a large percentage of Americans started working from home regularly. This easily could have helped push anyone interested in sustainable agriculture, backyard gardens, urban chickens, backyard bees, resilient food systems, and the growing of mushrooms into experimentation with these projects. Saving an hour of daily commute can pay off! 

We learned that this growth in the industry meant supplies, seeds, and live plants were in high demand and almost everyone was sold out of everything, pretty early too. Growth in the agriculture industry has not been seen since the Victory Gardens during WWI and WWII possibly.

We learn a lot in our first year of gardening from how different plants grow in the garden, what pests are the worst and to which plants in our gardens, diseases may overwhelm our plants, as well as deer or rabbits, show up to snack, tomatoes topple over, and the list can go on and on.

We learn what works and doesn’t for our situations. We are always learning in the garden, this is true of the beginner and the experienced gardener. That is the beauty of the backyard garden, always something new to experience. Our backyards have a lot to offer, it just takes a moment to appreciate the tiny things in life. Gardening sure helps create those moments. 

An optimistic outlook of the gardens of 2021

For many, the hard work in 2020 is going to begin paying off in 2021. That is good news. First-year gardens are often less productive, weedier (unless you brought in truckloads of weed-free compost), and a lot of hard lessons learned.

Let’s jump into a new season with new possibilities, and forgetting to include the kids isn't an option. Kids bring so much curiosity and enjoyment into the garden. Hopefully, they also provide a little extra help with pulling weeds, if they are not busy gorging themselves on cherry tomatoes.

What are the first steps moving forward into 2021 beyond the celebrations of leaving 2020 behind? Let’s start with where we left off in 2020 and the two things I think you need to start doing in 2021.

• Starting a garden journal and garden planning notebook.

• Improving your garden soils year after year. 

Starting a garden planner and keeping garden notes.

Gardening is trying new things and learning from previous years of garden experiments, triumphs, and failures. This is where I recommend getting yourself at least one or two notebooks to keep as your gardening journal and planner

It never hurts to have a garden journal to keep information such as crop locations, success and failures, new ideas, lessons learned, and more things during the growing season. These daily garden journals, come long winter days, are great for going back through to help plan for the future gardens, where a planning journal comes in handy. Use this garden planning journal to keep track of big picture things, such as crop rotations, companion plantings, secession planting, and important dates for different tasks needed to taken care of during the season.

If you were late entering the 2020 garden season, begin this season off by planting perennials such as asparagus, strawberries, or different fruit trees and bushes. Spring is a big time to plant. Early planting gives your shrubs and trees a whole season of growing to set roots and establish themselves before winter.  

Soil building; what makes or breaks the future of our gardens.

If you broke into sod for the first time in 2020, your soil structure should only be improving. That is if you added organic matter and keep your weight on the walkways and out of the growing beds- quite possibly two of the most important ways to protect the soil.

Over time, with the addition of organic matter such as dressings of organic fertilizers, compost, worm castings, mulches like woodchips, straw, and more your soil structure will keep improving. Healthy soils, Overtime grow mycelium networks which along with beneficial microbes feed our garden plants. Organic matter creates microclimates that small bugs and insects can move around in. This organic matter also helping in shading our soils and keeping them cool while holding onto moisture.

Gardens of 2021: A New Season to share.

I believe, with a bit of planning and years past reflection, some reading up and chitchats with fellow gardeners along with a mindset to build the healthiest of the soil in our gardens, we are off to the best start to a new Gardening season.