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After 3 years of sharing my gardening experiences I regret to say that this will be the last edition of A Gardener’s Notebook. While my gardening will continue, writing projects come and go and this must go to make room for new projects in the New Year.

I will continue to maintain the AGN archive on my web site at: http://www.welchwrite.com/agn/ but the AGN mailing list will be discontinued near the end of January 2001.

Buttoning up

I am buttoning up more than just this column this week. In preparation for yet another business trip to Salt Lake City, I am fixing all those little items I don’t want to leave for the house/garden sitter.

We had some contractors in just before the holidays and they used one of the hoses that make up part of my watering system. When I went to reassemble the system I found that the end of the hose had been cracked and a large leak had developed. I always keep a couple of hose repair kits in the garage for just such an occasion. It only took me about 5 minutes and I had everything put back together. There are always little items like this and an impending trip makes you focus on fixing as many as possible.

Winter is also a perfect time for taking care of projects like this. When I was growing up in the small farm town of New London, Ohio, the cold and dark Winter months were occupied with a myriad of small repairs, replacements and remodels. Once the weather became warm and dry enough to get back into the fields we would have to worry more about getting the crops in than repairs. Repairs meant hours or days lost and the growing season waits for no one.

You should take a few minutes to review those tasks, both large and small, that you weren’t able to address during the gardening season. You want to be ready to get started on those prize-winning tomatoes the minute the frost danger has passed. You might find that these tasks can get you thinking about new garden projects for this season. Consider it a productive form of garden dreaming, like the kind that you probably do over the host of garden catalogs which should be arriving any week now.

I have greatly enjoyed sharing my garden with you, if only virtually. I have especially enjoyed answering your questions and hearing about your gardening experiences. I wish you all well and hope your gardens become everything you hoped and dreamed they would be.

Keep digging!

Douglas