Spring is a time of renewal. All the birds return and sing beautiful songs as they gather their nesting materials. The trees wake up from winter to display their new flowers and leaves in wonderful shades of pink, white and green. And the daffodils, tulips, crocuses, and hyacinths begin to pop up to truly signify the dawn of a new growing season.

Spring is full of promises. A warm spring breeze promising more days of sunshine and laughter to come. A light rain shower washing away the darkness of winter and promising the brightness of spring. And robins, who suddenly appear by the dozens in search of the first worms and bugs to pop their heads out of the freshly thawed soil.

Spring is a time of planning...and planting. As the first warm and sunny days of the year arrive, it signals the time to begin planning your garden. What will you grow? Will you plant only flowers this year? How about fruits and vegetables?

Planning Your Garden

There are a lot of things to consider when planning your annual garden.

• First, what foods did you plant last year, how did they do, and how can you improve this year's garden with the knowledge from last year?

We planted zucchini and yellow squash last year and neither did well. We are going to try again this year, but plan to plant more of each plant closer to each other so that flower pollination occurs more frequently. We had so many flowers die last year, but we will learn and do better this year.

• Next, what foods do you want to add to your garden this year? How will those foods do in your climate? Do you have enough space / direct sunlight to grow these additional foods?

We plan to grow peas this year. In order to do this, we need to purchase a trellis for the plant to grow up. We also need to learn more about how to nurture this plant, how much each plant will produce, and if there are any concerns over the types of plants to grow near it.

• Another thing to consider is how you will obtain your plants. Do you plan to grow them from seeds or do you want to purchase the plants as older seedlings?

This year, we will be planting our garden using seeds. In previous years, we have purchased the plants as older seedlings and while they were healthy, the selection of plants available to us were limited. We also paid a few dollars per plant last year. With the size of the garden we wish to grow this year, it would cost a small fortune to buy plants for our garden. With seeds at less than a dollar a package, we will grow MANY plants for the price of one at our local garden center.

• The final step is determining how many plants of each item you want, where you plan to grow them, and which plants should be put next to each other.

We were inspired by the WWII Victory Gardens and decided to grow a much larger quantity this year than last year. Therefore, we are researching container gardening as an option to expand the size of our garden. We also plan to build a raised bed garden for vegetables that need more space than containers can provide.

Preserving Your Garden

Once this first phase of spring has passed, it will be time to begin the next phase - planning on how you will use your garden. We will all be enjoying fresh fruits and vegetables grown at home this year, but will you produce enough to be able to preserve some of this food through home canning or freezing?

Spring is full of renewal, promise, and planting. Spring is also full of hope. Hope for a productive garden and an abundance that would be a home canner's dream!