Well another gardening season is almost here. It's been over 60 degrees for the past week and other than the giant piles of snow that I made when I shoveled, most of the snow is melting. And with the disastrous season that I had in the garden last year becoming nothing more than just a bad memory, I'm writing down some garden goals for the new year.

Winter Sowing - I've actually been winter sowing all winter long. Through the blizzards, the snowmaggedon and the snowicanne, I was filling up empty soda bottles and apple juice containers with soil and planting seeds. I've been known to do some leaf thieving in the fall to add to my compost bins but this winter I became a bottle borrower, going through my neighbors recycling bins. My kids like to say, "Dad thinks he's a hobo and goes through people's garbage."

Worm bin - The good folks at Natures Foot Print Inc were nice enough to send me a worm bin to review. It's a Worm Factory 360 and it's pretty cool looking. I even got a DVD with some nice instructions about raising worms and it says that the best temperature for worms are between 40 & 70. And that just happens to be the temperature of the inside my garage at this time of year. So I'll be buying some Red Wiggler Worms and vermicomposting real soon.

Raised Bed Cages - Between the rabbits, the woodchucks, the chipmunks, the birds, the squirrels it was a constant battle to protect my garden. A fence by itself just can't protect those fruits and vegetables from the daily onslaught of those hungry pests. So I'm going with a new protection scheme this year. I'm going to build hinged wire boxes over the top of my raised beds. The design I'm thinking about will also protect the garden from any freak hailstorms and I'll also be able to cover them with garden fabric for quick and easy hoop houses.

Grow a lot of food - That's my goal every year but it seems that growing your own food has suddenly become in vogue.

Canning - I'd really like to start enjoying tomatoes during the winter. Supermarket tomatoes and even expensive hot house tomatoes just really taste like crap. It's time to start saving the tons of tomatoes that I grow every year and the best way to do that would be to get one of those home canning kits. It's something that I've always wanted to try.

Well those are some of my goals for now. I'll provide more details and photos of these and other projects in the weeks to come. I haven't posted in ages and I'm looking forward to it. Happy Gardening.