I made my big order for seeds for 2009 from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds today. I also bought used copies of Seed to Seed and Four Season Gardening. I am going to try to start saving many of my own seeds to be more economical and we are going to be moving into gardening year round by utilizing cold frames. Bob and I are planning a couple new beds to add to the four we put in last year and I am thinking of applying to get a 20x20 plot at our town's community garden as well. I need the space for bigger plants like corn, squash and melons. I just can't manage the vines in our smaller beds and I'm sure our HOA wouldn't be pleased if we dug up the entire back yard and made it into a garden a la Food Not Lawns.

I will blog my seed order soon. There is nothing more exciting in dreary, bitterly cold January than getting the year's seed order in the mail. After they arrive I will get busy making a gardening chart figuring out where it is all going to go, how much extra room I need for all the additional plants we are adding to our garden and at which times the seeds need to be started to be ready for transplant in late spring. Another late winter project is stepping up our composting system. We have a regular old rubbermaid bin with holes poked in the top in our basement full of red worms busy composting most of our whole food kitchen waste. They are doing a great job but we just need more worms and a bigger system. I've been doing some reading and I'm not quite ready to commit to any specific composting product yet but by March I hope to have something here and up and running. Another possible addition will be a rain barrel. We are pushing our HOA as it is so we'll see what we can get away with in our little back yard.

I just have to add that parsley is surprisingly hardy. I had no idea until this winter. We've had some bitter cold days, below zero days with a good bit of snow and ice and it is still perky and green down there in the bed. Now it isn't producing like it does when it is warmer but it isn't dead. I picked some just last week to be used in a recipe. Imagine that!