Hello! And Happy New Year!

What wacky, wicked, winter weather we’ve been blessed with so far! Remember that old pink energizer bunny that keeps going, and going, and going? Well, welcome to the energizer winter that keeps snowing, and snowing, and snowing!

If it doesn’t stop snowing soon, we’re going to be stuck in our cabins with massive cases of cabin fever. They may not even find us until spring! Hey - spring? Now doesn’t that sound like a wonderful word?

You know - it’s still the beginning of a New Year when everyone makes long lists of really great New Year’s resolutions. You know - it’s still the beginning of a New Year when 99 44/100% of all those people have broken everyone of those New Year’s resolutions that we made up a couple of days ago. So as long as it’s still the beginning of a New Year, let’s come up with a few gardening New Year’s resolutions.

Resolution 1 - Let’s eat healthier by planting more veggies into our food gardens. If we plant lettuce for our summer salads, let’s try some new different stuff for those salads this year. Let’s plant spinach, or Swiss chard, or kale, or collards for those summer salads. All of these have way more nutrition in them - more vitamins and minerals in them than in just plain old lettuce.

Keep in mind, the darker green or orange a vegetable variety is, the more vitamin A in it.

Why just plain old lettuce? Try robust romaine that not only comes in deep, dark, nutritious green, but also in red or bronze. Try loose-leaf lettuce that comes in all shades of the rainbow. There are varieties like buttercrunch, Batavian, Bibb, and butterhead, Cos, crisphead, and oakleaf. Try other greens besides lettuce - like amaranth, arugula, chervil, chicory, cress, endive, and mustard.

Resolution 2 -Experiment! Be daring! Try new varieties! Just like with the greens, there are probably things out there that you’ve never tasted before – never grown before.

Do keep growing all your good, old, tried and true family favorites, but do try something strange or new - either a different kind of vegetable that you’ve never attempted to grow before, or a new variety or flavor of your favorite veggie. Have you ever tried to grow grape tomatoes, or yellow tomatoes, or yellow cherry tomatoes, or striped zebra tomatoes, or hollow stuffing tomatoes?

Or if you love growing flowers every year, this time try edible ones like Bachelor buttons, calendula, dianthus, marigolds, nasturtiums, or Johnny-Jump-Ups. Have your flowers and eat them too! Try it; you’ll like it, Mikey!

Resolution 3 - Start garden gabbing with your neighbors, friends, relatives. Find out if there is a particular veggie that they are great at growing. Maybe they go crazy with carrots, or ga-ga over garlic, or do totally terrific tomatoes, enormous eggplants, perfect pepper or pumpkins. Maybe you grow the very best basil, beets, and broccoli.

Decide who does what better or best, then make plans to trade off, or barter, or share with those neighbors, friends and relatives.

Resolution 4 - Seed catalogs! If you’ve got them, go through them. Check out those newly invented varieties or those newly re-discovered, old heirloom varieties. Check out and compare the differences among all those different seed catalogs. Compare seed prices for those seed packets. Compare the seed quantities in those packets. Compare shipping and handling costs to deliver those seed packets. If you don’t get any seed catalogs - then my condolences! You don’t know what you are missing! So -

Resolution 5 - Get some, or a few more, or a lot more new seed catalogs. Call for them; lots of those seed companies have free 1-800 numbers. E-mail for them; most of them are on the Internet. These seed catalog companies even have on line catalogs. Or send snail mail for them; that good old 42-cent stamp goes a long way. And you know, a 26-cent postcard stamp goes just as far to get some of those seed catalogs.

Resolution 6 - Hey, there is no resolution 6 for you. Just for me! My resolution 6 - know when to quit! So that’s it for this week!

Give Cornell Cooperative Extension a call at 376-5270 if you need any seed company names and addresses.
In the meantime -

Remember – Eat Smart New York!
And – Bye – talk to you soon!
Dolores DeSalvo