2010 Garden Planning is WELL underway.

it's cold. really cold. but I think any temperature below 50 degrees isn't really venturing out in, unless there's enough snow for sledding and making snow people.

But it's still past time to start thinking about the vegetable garden. And I'm so excited. This time last year I was very pregnant with Son and the last thing on my mind was the garden, so Husband took it on almost single handedly. This year I have a toddler who loves to dig in the garden to "help too" and a baby who loves crawling around in the grass. I'm ready to garden.

We're expanding the garden this year by 50%.

Last year was a real learning experience and we've adapted accordingly to try to make this garden more fruitful.

And Daughter has her own pair of gardening gloves I found on clearance at the end of summer last year.

We are RED-EE.

Last week I sat down at the dining room table with my notepad titled "2010 Garden" and began planning. What were we going to plant? How much of it did we have room for? What needed to be started in the house and later transplanted? Where was I going to put the seeds I started in the house to protect them from the cat? When did things need to be taken outside? Did I have enough cages? Where is my hand shovel?

I love thinking and planning. seriously. When I was finished I handed the notepad to Husband all proud and said, "Here, look at our garden plan."

"Looks good. What do we have left to get?"

not much surprisingly. I'd picked up some seeds here and there at the end of the summer plus we had some leftover from last year's garden.

Plus, after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle I was pretty geeked up about incorporating more heirloom seeds into the garden. Enter the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company I'm giddy. Check this website out. There are some really great looking seeds!

{it's true. cloth diapers, homemade baby food, homemade laundry detergent, crochet and gardening get me giddy now. geez. but it's true. I love it. That and running.}

anyway. So what are we planting?

Eggplant

Tomato

Banana Pepper

Bell Pepper

Squash

Red Onions

Yellow Onions

White Onions

Red Potatoes

Yellow Potatoes

Garlic

Lettuce

Spinach

Arugula

Swiss Char

Strawberries

and our blue berry and black berry bushes have already been planted and are patiently waiting for spring.

I'm also going to try to grow pumpkins. At first I was worried about them being sterile since the seeds are from our store bought pumpkins from last Halloween, then I remembered that Husband accidentally threw some of the leftover seeds in the compost and they grew well. I'm hoping for similar success outside the composter!

I thought about okra [which we eat a good bit of during the summer]

corn [which I love but Husband really doesn't care for either way] and

green beans [more for nostalgia reasons than our want/need for green beans]

but in the end, I picked the things we eat the most. i.e. what we buy most in the grocery store.