How to Make 2024 Your Best Year in the Garden

Let's grow more in 2024. Are you with me? I. You know, there's not that many words that rhyme with four, so I figured we gotta go with more. You know what I'm saying? I'm gonna show you how you can grow more in your 2024 garden than you ever have before. And don't worry, I've got the step by step to make that happen. So I'm challenging myself to grow more of my own food, to replace more of my groceries in the new year. And you can do this, too. So I have got a step by step for you in this episode. This one is going to be packed with all the details that I usually reserve only for my live workshops and for my students inside of Kitchen Garden Academy. So you've got a very, very special and informative episode ready for you right here, right now. So you want to grab a piece of paper, pen, pencil, and we've got some special resources for you to make this plan@gardenary.com podcast. So we have the 2024 Gardenary planting calendar. You're going to want to grab that as you listen to this episode or right after you're done listening. This is a customizable calendar where all you got to do is put in two dates, and then I do all the rest of the hard work for you. I'll get to show you all the dates that you need to know when to plant what, no matter where you live. So if you're like, I get the planting part, but I don't get the timing part, I got you. And that's inside our planting calendar. So check that out@gardenary.com podcast. Hopefully, if you're listening to this at the beginning of 2024, then that's going to be on our homepage@gardenary.com as well. All right, my book is falling off here, and I'm going to read from it in just a second. So I got my pages marked. Okay. So we're going to talk about the method, the step by step to grow more of your own food in 2024. We should all be doing this. And why should we be doing this? Well, number one, because of the fact that it's just so fun. We were made as human beings to watch plants grow from seed and become our food. This is how we developed as the human race, as the human species. We developed and grew and became who we are now as a thriving species, or somewhat thriving. Our most thriving happened when we learned how to grow our own food. It's going to Taste so good, it's so good for your body, but it also is just so good for you mentally, emotionally, spiritually. It's just. It should be part of the human experience. And so I'm going to try to convince you that it's not that hard to do so. I've already tapped into this with my little spiel about the human race. But the way you're going to grow more in 2024, the first way you're going to make this happen has nothing to do with the plants. It has zero to do with your garden. It has zero to do with your methodology. It has everything to do with. With your head. And that's why we're going to start with our why. If you have been around me for any amount of time, you know, I really like Simon Sinek's book and TED Talk. Start with why. And he says, you got to do just this. So instead of thinking about the what, instead of thinking about the how, you have to think about the why. And why is that? Because as human beings, we hate change. We hate habits, we hate doing things that we don't feel like doing. We dread doing new things. We dread making decisions. And so if we really want to see change, which growing more is certainly a change for the better, then we have to motivate ourselves. And the way we motivate ourselves is with a why. So, first things first, you got to pick your why. What is the reason you want to grow more in 2024? I'll tell you mine, but you might want to take a few seconds. You could even pause this audio and think about it for a second. Like, why does this matter? Why is this important? You know, I was watching this thing called Instagram. I don't know if you've heard of it. I'm always looking for new video ideas. And there's this audio trending right now, and it's pretty like, ugh, hit you in the heart. And he's like, you know, if you think about it, the average lifespan is 75 years. And then he just drives it home. He's like, you get 75 springs and 75 summers and 75 autumns. And then of course, he just like, you know, he's like, stop wasting your time on trivial things. And I was just watching that this morning, and I was thinking, yeah, and we miss it if we miss the garden. Like, the way for me to fully experience spring and fully experience summer, yes, it's with the vacations and the special events and things, but it's so significant. It's made so much more significant when I get to watch each of those seasons happen in real time in the dirt with the plants. So that could be a why for you just to slow down time and to really soak in what really occurs each and every one of those seasons, and to not take for granted that you may only have 75 of those. And so missing this one is a big deal. You know, if you've only got 75, like, if you only handed me $75 and I had to give you back one, that's going to hurt a little bit, you know, and so that could be one. I'll tell you my why. I really have two whys. I would say why I want to do more this year, why I want to grow more in the garden. The first is I want to be as healthy as I possibly can. I just turned 45, and so for me, I'm hoping that I get more than 75 years. I'm hoping for 90. And so in my mind, I'm like, okay, I'm truly midlife now. Like, I'm truly halfway. And I started this thing when I turned 44, and I call it Project 45, which now I'm 45, so I guess I'll just keep it for another year. But the idea was, like, what are the things I can do in this year that will make the latter half of my life stronger, healthier, better? And I started just kind of working through habits and changes that I could put into place that would serve my future self. And one of those is being as healthy as I possibly can. And I know and you know that the garden is a huge part of that. I mean, we've talked about that here on the Grow youw Self podcast. But, I mean, I was thinking of a statement the other day. I was like, the most underrated way to get healthy in 2024 is starting a garden, right? Like, people are going to try to tell you, you got to go to the gym and you got to eat better. You need to have more meditation time and clear your head, and you need to take more time for yourself and rest and de stress. And it's like, yeah, you can do all those things in their own individual way, or you could just have a garden. Because when you have a garden, you're going to eat more veggies and you're going to move your body and you're going to be outside and you're going to meditate and you're going to clear your head. You're going to learn new things. I mean, it literally ticks all the boxes of getting healthy. And it all can happen just right there in that one space right in your backyard. So that's my big, big why is to be as healthy as possible. And then my second why is to inspire as much as possible. And I recently, when I celebrated my 45th birthday, I was looking at this, this idea of like, what do I want to be when I grow up? And there was this, this video that I saw and I was like, what do you want to be when you like this other video on that was trending and the audio, what do you want to be when you grow up? And people fill this in and they're like wild and crazy and whatever. Everybody had their word. And I thought, what is my word? What's a word that gets me up in the morning, that makes me want to stay up and work? What's a word that pushes me? And my word is inspiring? And I realized looking back over the years, and especially what's kept me going with my business and as a mom is inspiring. That's a mission of mine, is I want to show what's possible, to push the limits, to see things differently, so that I can get other people on board, so that I can motivate people to take action in their own lives. And that's a huge part for me. To grow more in 2024 is to inspire you, to show you what's possible and to get you out of your rut, to. To stop you from doom scrolling and to get you outside into a garden in a space of your own. So those are my two whys. To be as healthy as possible and to inspire as much as possible. So what about you? What is your why? To grow more in 2024. Right now, at the start of the year, you might think, Nicole, I don't need a why. It's just a habit. It's not that deep, as my 13 year old would say. It's not that deep, Nicole. And maybe not, but I can tell you, having gone through so many seasons in the garden, I so. Well, in January I have all the organizational skills and everything's lined up and ready to go. And by March and April, it's a hot mess. And I've completely forgotten about all the goals I set out in January, Molly and I were just talking about sprouts because I just did a short episode on sprouts and she and I were conversing about the fact and admitting that we both stopped doing our sprouts in the middle of the year. Even Though back in January, February, we were both like, yes, sprouts. We are team sprout. And we both know it's easy. We both know it's delicious. We both know it's nutritious. And we both quit. And why do we quit? Because we got tired and busy and doing other things. And that's where the why comes in. So coming up with your why is like. It's like a plumb line. It's like those. You know, it like, brings you back to center. That was one of my classes in college that rocked my world, you know? Does the center hold? It was so. So deep and very disturbing. But yours can. Beit can be so simple. It doesn't have to be something hard. It can be something you write down, something you put in a journal, something you write down every day or even just place in your garden. It could be something environmental. You want to take care of the birds or the bees or feed the butterflies. It could be something productive of how much you want to produce or what you'd like to replace from the grocery store. It could be something economical. How much money you want to save this year, how much money you want to find growing in your own backyard. It can be relational. It can be about, you know, connecting with your children, with your mom, with your neighbor, with your spouse, with your partner, some kind of relationship that you want to make happen in your garden space. It can be aesthetic. It can be that you want more color, you want more flowers. You want something that is the most beautiful place for your eyes to land during the day. It can be anything you want it to be. But it needs to be something that will motivate you, something that will get you out there when you're busy, when you're tired, when it's July or August or September, and your New Year's resolutions are really, really far behind you. All right, that's step number one. Know your why. And you're really at least 50% of the way there, because now you've got the thing we all need, which is motivation, energy. Everything comes down to motivation and energy. Now, we're going to set three goals for the year. Just three. Now, if you're like me, you might be able to come up with about 3,000. I never lack for goals, okay? So my problem is execution. And I read this wonderful book. I reference it a lot. It's called the 12 Week Year. He talks about breaking the year into 12 weeks, obviously, and seeing every quarter as, like, a year in its entirety. Shortening up the year allows you to feel the results and the urgency of time, and also allows you to kind of complete the cycle faster. Because he argues that 52 weeks is, like, way too long to wait for a goal to come true. So if you break it into quarters, it can happen so much faster. You'll see the results of your actions so much faster, and then you can iterate and make it better the next time around. So for the garden, if we just pick three goals, and this is what he talks about, each 12 weeks you pick three goals. But even for the whole year, if we pick three goals, then that can keep us on focus and help us remember what's necessary. Because if you are like me, you have shiny object syndrome, you know, and so you see so and so on Instagram or YouTube, who's suddenly growing their own ginger or, you know, has five buckets of potatoes, or they're going to have a loofah gourd garden, or they're going to have a thousand tulips or 3000 crocus in their yard. And every new video adds to the overwhelm and the list of responsibilities you have in your garden. And suddenly you just don't do anything because you have way too many goals. So you're just going to pick three. I highly recommend that at least one of these is about eating, because we are kitchen gardeners. And food, I mean, food is the focus. And so pick one goal for eating, one goal for production, and then two others, you know, that will move you and motivate you and help you keep going. These are going to be my three, but if you don't want to hear mine before you set yours, you can hit pause and plan out yours first. So my number one, no surprise, but it's to eat a green I grew every single day of the year. So whether this be microgreens and sprouts in the winter, some arugula and spring mix in the summer, kale, Swiss chard, mustards, any kind of green through the summer. My goal is to have a green that I grew in my tummy every single day of this year. I have a plan. I know how I can make this happen. It's mostly with the plans from steps one, two, and three in my book. Leaves, roots, and fruit. And that's a production goal for me. So am I going to get cucumbers and tomatoes and beans and all that? Yes, of course. Hopefully, yes. But I want to be sure that I have the greens every single day. My next goal is to grow more from seed. So last year I really stretched myself with this. And I started all my tomatoes from seed. I started almost all my peppers from seed and my herbs as well. So I learned a lot of things about seed starting last year and pushing myself. And this year, my goal is to grow everything from seed in the garden, with the exception of a few flowers, because I know a few. I'm already too late to do so. That's one of my goals, is to grow more from seed, learn more from that. Seeds and compost. This is kind of two goals in one. I kind of cheated, but really get on board with my compost game. I have a Jorah composter, and I have a lot of room to compost in the woods behind my house. And so I want to push the limits and see how much compost I can create in a short amount of time. So third goal is flowers, flowers and more flowers. This was a goal for me this year, and I fell short of the goal. And so I'm making a plan now to add lots more flowers to each season of my garden. I want to have at least a bouquet, some kind of thing I can cut every single day, starting in April all the way until October. So flowers, flowers and more flowers. That's part of my native plant garden space. But I want a lot more color. This year, my native plant space was just too much green and grasses and not enough flowers. So let there be flowers. You know what I'm saying? Okay, your three goals. Pick those. And again, you want to write these down? All right. Now that we've got our motivation, we've got our why, and then we've got our what. What is the focus for me, it's flowers, it's greens, it's seeds and compost. That's my what. Now we're going to get to the when, and this is critical. I remember reading the book when by Daniel Pink. Have you checked it out? It's so powerful. It talks about how, when we do something. The timing of something can be as critical and as important as the what and the how and the why. And I have definitely found that to be true in the garden. I'm sure you have as well. To kick off the win, I want to read you a section from my book Kitchen Garden Revival. This is from the Plan chapter. It's chapter number five, all about getting you ready to plan your garden. So it's perfect for right now. So it says, getting to know your climate. Before we set up our plant categories, let's take a minute to get to know your climate a little bit better, though. You may have lived in your current space for a few months, years, or your whole life. You may have never noticed each month as you're about to. That's what we're going to do. Picture your kitchen garden as a guest house for plants. Each guest has particular needs and wants this much space to spread out, this much time to stay, and needs the temperature to be just so. Plant guests can be, like my kids, picky. By learning your climate's temperature, rainfall, and sunlight measurements for each month, you're going to know best which guests can stay each month and for how long. Consider this step as the booking calendar for your garden, deciding which plants are welcome to stay and which ones just might not be made for your house. Lots of gardening experts are going to tell you to learn your zone before planting, but honestly, garden zones are much too general to inform you of what's technically possible in the unique space you've created. I've gardened in so many different climates, and what the books say I can do in a particular zone and what I experience in my garden are often two very different things. Plus, gardening zones specify a first and last frost date as the most significant times of the year, leading people like you to believe that they can only grow between those two days, when, in truth, the only information that the frost date reveals is when the cool season ends and the warm season begins. There's so much more to the kitchen garden than zones and frost dates. And this is why, over the years, I developed my kitchen garden seasons system. That's what we're about to do together. The best way to know what's possible in your unique garden is to know your garden seasons. And the best way to know your seasons is to understand the general weather for each month of the year. This exercise is so much more detailed than a zone number and will be way more specific and helpful to your unique location. Sound good? Sound like a plan? Let's do this. Okay, so you're going to grab your piece of paper, you've got your why, you got your three goals, and now we're going to figure out the when. So you need to know two dates to start, and that's going to be your. You're going to pick months here, not actual dates. All right? So you need to know the month in general when your last frost is going to happen. Okay, so the last frost, you just need that month. For me, it's April in Nashville. In Chicago, it was May. In Houston, the last thread of frost didn't always happen was February. All right, so Houston was February. Nashville's April. Chicago is May. When is your last frost date month? You just need the month. Got it. Next, you want to have the first frost date month. So this is when there's the first threat of frost happening. So in my Houston garden, I think it was December. I know it was December because we had snow one year. So December was the first frost date month in. In Houston. In Nashville, it's very late October, and in Chicago, it's early October. So both October, one late, one early, but still October. So what is your last. No, your first frost date date. Two month. Okay, so you need those two months. And then from those two months, we're going to build out the entirety of the month of the year, every single month of the year right now. Okay, so we're going to start with our last frost date. So whether that's February for you, March for you, April for you, May for you, June for you, hopefully June if you're in North America, I mean, Northern hemisphere, I'm hoping June is as late as it gets. Otherwise, yikes. I think it is. I think June is like Alaska or something. So. So, yeah, so that's your last frost date. So that is the beginning of your warm season. All right. So the month of your last frost date, that's when your warm season starts. Then the month of your first frost date, that's when your warm season ends. Got it. So warm season starts the month of your first frost of your last frost date, and it ends on the first. It's kind of flipped. Right? So the last is the first of the warm season, and the first frost date is the last of the warm season. Now in the middle there, it's going to be different depending on where you live and garden. So if you're in a cool area like Chicago, that's all going to be just the warm season. It's not going to be going super hot. If you're in a milder place like I am here in Nashville, you might have one month somewhere in the middle where it gets a little too hot for the warm season plants to be happy. That's what happens here in Nashville around July. And if you're in a really warm place, like I was in Houston throughout the center of that warm season, like June to August, it's what we call the hot season. And it's hot for a while. For a hot second, it is hot. It is unbearable in some ways, but it is very, very hot. Okay, so not everybody has a hot season, but everyone has a warm season. So we figured out when the warm season is now, you know, if you've got a hot season, that's where the temps are going to be over 90 regularly, every single day. And then we're going to have the cool season. So the cool season generally is going to be the three months before your warm season starts. So the three months ahead of that last frost date, that's a cool season. And then the three months after your first frost date, that's also a cool season. Now, just like we have the differences from Houston to Nashville to Chicago with the warmth, we have that same with the cold. So if you're in, if you're in Houston, you're just going to hang out in the cool season from, you know, that whole period after your warm season stops, you're going to just be in the cool season for quite a long time. You're really not going to go into the cold season at all. You're going to have just a little bit of frost, but no biggie. If you're in Nashville, you're also mostly going to be just in the cool season. There may be one month, maybe like January would be termed a cold season. That's where the high is rarely above freezing. So far I haven't experienced that in Nashville and I hope I don't then if you go further north. So if you're in the cold area like Chicago, then you are going to hit the cold season right around December and you'll stay there till February. You got about three months inside the cold season. So do you see how cool this is, how it kind of opens you up to how you see the whole year? So in Houston, this is what it's going to look like through the year. All right, wintertime, January, beginning of the year, you're in the cool season. In the a couple months later, March to April, you're in the warm season. The summer is hot season. The fall goes back to warm season and then you start the cool season over again. All right, so in Houston, we're going cool, warm, hot, warm, cool. You see it? This is what I call the arc of the seasons. Cool, warm, hot, warm, cool. Now let's go to Nashville. Nashville at the beginning of the year, maybe, maybe as in cold, but not really. They're going to go cool to warm. One little eee in the hot, back to warm, back to cool. So in essence, Nashville is almost like just a two season place. It's cool, warm and then cool again. It has a little peak into the heat and it has a little drop into the cold. But for the Most part, it's just cool and warm. Then you move to the Chicago area and it's going to start the year off in cold, then go to cool, then go to warm, back to cool, and then back to cold. Right. So Chicago goes cold, cool, warm, cool, cold, cool, warm, cool, cold. So basically Houston, no cold season. Chicago, no hot season, and then Nashville, pretty mild. So cool and warm are basically the two extremities with a couple of exceptions right there in the middle. All right, so now that you see your whole year in its seasons, now we want to talk about what to do each and every month of that year when you're in the season. So for each season, I like to see it as a five month process. Now you're thinking, Nicole, I don't have five months of summer, I don't have five months of spring. And I get it, I get it. I'm not saying you do, but we have an overlap. So each season is going to have three months that are like the heart of the season. And we're speaking mostly of the cool and the warm seasons. Those are really our best times for growing. Hot season can be grown in as well, but we're mostly focusing on cool and warm and then a little bit in the hot. All right, so each of the seasons, they're going to have like the heart of their growth period. And that's going to be month 2, 3, 3 and 4. But we're also going to to look at the the season one month before that and then one month after. So this is what the five month season looks like. All right, the first month is called prep, prepare. Okay, so you're not actually in the season yet. This is going to happen the month before that season starts. So if it's really cold in Chicago, it is really cold in Chicago, it' in February and the weather is going to finally start going over freezing in March. That's when your cool season starts. So February is your prep, your prep month. That's the month that you get ready for the upcoming season in Nashville, when I know the threat of frost is going to pass in April. Then March is my prep season. It's my prep month for the warm season. All right, so first month is prep. The three in the middle are easy to remember. Plant, tend, harvest. So month one, your focus is on planting. Month two, your focus is on tending. And month three, your focus is on harvesting. Now, in every single one of these months, you're doing every single one of these things, but you have one main focus, right? It's kind of like, I am a lot of things, right? I wear a lot of hats, I'm a writer, I'm a video maker, I'm a business owner, I'm a mom, I'm a wife. So I have a lot of responsibilities. But at any given one time, I'm honed in on just one main task, right? So like, I'll be in my mom mode and my main focus is doing mom stuff. Right now I'm in my recording mode. And so the same is true with the garden for each of these months where you have a lot of things that you're doing in the garden, planting, tending, harvesting, but you have one main thing that you're really in that era. Okay, so in month one, you're in the planting era, month two, tending, and month three is harvesting. Then the fifth month is the clearing month. So this is when you're continuing to harvest, you're continuing to get everything you can off of that plant and then you're slowly making way to get that out of the garden to move on to the next season. Okay, so five month process, prep, plant, tend, harvest and clear. Every season should have about five months of work that we do for them. So the cool season will have these five months. The warm season will have these five months. And then when you bump back down and do the cool season again, five months again. And then if you have a really long cold season, you may have this as well. Now you may be thinking, but Nicole, I don't have 20 months in my year. Exactly. So these seasons are going to overlap one another. So when you're in the fifth month of one season, you're in either the first or the second month of actually, you're in the second month of the next season. So I'm going to lay this out for you. What it would look like in a year, looking at each and every month. So I did take notes for myself so that I can make sure I don't screw this one up. Okay, so we're going to start with January. Let's say that you planted some cold weather, some cold season plants. Things like garlic is in the ground in your garden. Let's say you have tulips planted and hyacinths. Let's say you've got some rhubarb and some asparagus out there. Let's say you have some herb plants that you're tending indoors. You overwintered some peppers. Whatever you set up to survive the cold season in January, you are tending those things. All right, so you planted them. We'll get to December in a second. But they were planted earlier, they're planted last year, and now this month you're focusing on tending them. We move on to February, and in this month, you're going to be harvesting any of those things. So let's say you had herbs you brought indoors, you have some peppers you're overwintering. Let's say you are growing microgreens indoors or sprouts, or you have an indoor greens garden. You're going to be harvesting from those plants that you were focusing on when it was freezing cold outside. In the same month, when you're harvesting your cold season plants, you're prepping for the cool season. So you're starting to get ready for the season where you're going to grow greens and root crops and peas and fava beans, and you're prepping all those things in February. So you're harvesting from the cold season and prepping for the cool season. Now we're in the month of March, so you are now in your planting time for the cool season. So you're going to take all those plants that you prepped indoors and put them out into the garden in March so they can start growing and thriving in that spring sun. At the same time that you're planting these out in the garden, believe it or not, you're prepping for the warm season because that's going to be hitting in about 60 days. So indoors, you're prepping for the warm season. Outside, you're planting for the cool season. Now we're going to move to April, the fourth month of the year. You're going to take care of all those plants you just put into the garden. It's the tending time for the cool season. So you're cutting on them, you're pruning them, you're clearing them, you're watching out for pests, you're making sure that these plants can thrive and grow to their full, fullest potential. Now, during this time that you're tending, you're going to be planting your warm season plants as soon as the threat of frost has passed. So when you hit that last frost date, you're now going to be finding these little pockets and places inside of your garden to be able to fit in these warm season plants. Now we're moving into the fifth month of the year, and this is when you're finally going to harvest your cool season plants. Now, have you harvested from these before this? Of course, you've been harvesting a lot in March and in April from these cool season plants. But May, the fifth month, is when it really comes to fruition. This is when everything is just rolling out of the garden. The garden is exploding with loads and loads and loads of harvest. So you're enjoying all of your cool season. Meanwhile, every time you're harvesting, you're actually making more room for your warm season plants. And in this month, while you're harvesting your cool season plants, you're tending to your warm season plants that just went into the garden the previous month. So now they're the ones getting the attention to get pruned, to get fertilized, to get protected from pests, to get supported on the trellis. They're getting your attention in this fifth month. Are you following the sixth month, we are now going to clear out the cool season plants. So as it warms up, as you get further and further away from your last frost, then the temperatures are no longer going to be conducive for that cool season plant. So you've harvested all that you can. Now you're going to harvest your last few picks and then clear those plants out of the garden. And this is when you let the warm season plants completely spread out and take over. So they're going to fill out the garden. They've now got plenty of room to do their thing, and you're going to start to harvest from them in this month as well. So pretty crazy and cool to see how the track you go for the warm season is really just one month behind the cool season. At least that's how it is for me here in Nashville. All right, now we move to July. So right at this point, we're in this right past the summer solstice. The days have gotten as long as they're possibly going to get, and now we're starting to head back toward darker days and cooler days. So in July, the focus is primarily on harvesting your warm season plants. Now, some are going to be taking longer than others, but there should be something to harvest from these plants each and every day of this season. And while you're harvesting these warm season plants, it's going to be hard to believe, but you're actually going to be starting your cool season plants indoors. What? Yes. You're getting ready to start the cool season all over again. And you're starting those plants indoors just like you did way back in February. All right, so you're starting, you're prepping for the cool season indoors, and then in August again, you're still harvesting your warm season plants. Now, I gave two months for harvest for the warm season, because these plants are long standing in the garden, and a lot of these do give you output and fruit for at least two months of the year. So you're harvesting from these, and now you're planting out your cool season plants. So just like you had that transition from cool to warm, we now have the transition back from warm to cool. So each time you harvest from a plant or pull from a plant, you're making room for the next season's plants to go in. So you start planting in your greens and your celery and your parsley and dill and cilantro. You start making room for radishes and carrots. Those all go in and around the warm season plants that you're harvesting from. Now, we are in September. This is the ninth month of the year. Now it's time to clear out those warm season plants. So every time you harvest, you're taking as much as you can from those plants. And then as soon as they hit the time where it's past their optimal season of growing, you're going to pull them from the garden. Why? So that you can make room for those cool season plants. Because now the month that you're in for your cool season is tending. So you're making sure you're pruning, you're clearing, you're making sure there's no pest on the leaves, defending them, trellising those peas along all your supports. You're just making sure that these cool season plants have all the chance in the world to thrive, pulling out the old, the warm season plants and starting to tend the cool. Now we're in October, the tenth month of the year, and it is time to harvest those cool season plants. So the greens, the root crops, the fruit crops like peas and fava beans and snow peas, those are all coming out of the garden in a very big way because you're heading toward your first frost of the year. So the days are getting shorter, the days are getting cooler, and you're making the most of every moment as you head toward the coldest part of the year. We hit November and it's time to clear your cool season plants, at least the ones that aren't going to survive through the coldest part of the year or ones that are just spent and kind of done. And then you start prepping for whatever it is you want to do in the cold season for where you live. So if you wanted to plant garlic outside in your beds, if you have perennials that you want to plant, if you want to do asparagus or rhubarb, if you want to plant some perennial fruit trees or bushes, or if you want to move things indoors. So if you want to pull up some of your herb plants to overwinter indoors, pull up some of your pepper plants. Whatever it is that you are going to do to endure the cool sea cold season, you're going to start prepping for that in November. You clear the cool out of the garden, prep for the cold. Then we're in December. And this is when you're just tending those simple things that you have planted and set up for the cold season. So if you put garlic out in the garden, you're just making sure it's doing okay, settled in nice for the winter, not exposed to the cold, that there's nothing, you know, popping up out of the soil. If you're growing spinach under cover, if you've got a cold frame or a greenhouse, whatever it is that you're doing through the cold season, you're just taking care of those things in December. Fast forward and we are back to January, the start of the year, when it's time to tend those things that you planted and to start harvesting from them in future February. And that is the entirety of the year. Now, this was January to December. This is an example of what would work for growing in Nashville. So this is the exact formula, this is the exact step by step I'll focus on in order to grow more in 2024. And as you can see, there is literally something to plant or tend and definitely something to harvest every single month of the year. Even in a place where we have a true winter, where we have a high chance of frost and snow all the way from October, not snow, but frost. We have a chance of frost all the way from the end of October to the middle of April. So even with all that time where there's going to be frost on the ground, there is so much to be growing and to be planting each and every season of the year. Now, this is what can happen in Nashville. But you're going to take these months and this, this step by step, and you're going to apply it for your own area. So as long as you know your last frost month and your first frost month, then you can take this exact formula and apply it for yourself, remembering that your last frost month signifies the start of the warm season and your first frost month signifies the end of the warm season, and that the cool season is going to be three months before the warm season starts and three months after the warm season ends. Once you Know those months. Then you're just going to apply my five month method to each and every season. Prep, plant, tend, harvest, and clear. And hopefully you saw, as I worked through the details of each of those months in the year, how these seasons overlap with one another. So as you're planting for one season, you're clearing the last one. As you're tending for one season, you're prepping for the next one. As you're harvesting from one season, you're planting or tending for the following one. And even as you're harvesting from one season, you're tending the next season's plants right alongside it. This is how we grow more. Not just in 2024, but for many years to come. The answer to getting more out of your space, to having more food that you grew with your own hands in your very own garden, is timing. It's using the optimal season for each and every plant and never letting the garden be bare. This is the process that I learned first by setting up gardens for so many of our clients in Houston. So when I started my company, Rooted Garden, back in 2015, I previously had gardened here in Nashville, and we would just garden for the summer, just from June to August. But when I moved to Houston, I realized that June and August were actually like the worst times. Maybe not the worst, but they were the hardest times to garden in Houston. The temperatures were really high, the humidity was very high, and the rain was very unpredictable. And so I thought, wow, if I've only got June to August to garden here in Houston, I'm going to be kind of sad. And so I started experimenting with growing for more months of the year, planting earlier and earlier in the year and later and later into the fall. And what I found was that there was actually so much more potential for growing each and every month of the year, and that the summer was just a very small sliver of possibility, and that there was so many more days I could be growing in Houston. So I took that mindset, and when we moved to Chicago, I applied it there. And even though my neighbors, everybody said, don't plant a thing until after Mother's Day, I was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I didn't even listen. I just put into practice the thing that I had done in Houston, and I tried to plant and grow something in the garden every single month. And I'm so proud to say that in those years I was growing in Chicago, my garden had something to harvest from it from February all the way until December. So January was really the only month of the year when the garden was bare. And that was only because I chose not to do cold frames or frost cloths on the garden. If I had pushed it that way, I still would have had things to harvest from the garden, even in January. So now I get to take all that I learned from Houston and Chicago and bring it here to Nashville and full circle back where I started over, I guess, 11 or 12 years ago. And now I'm like, there's no stopping me. I can grow something every single month of the year, even in Nashville, even in a place where, you know, five or six months of the year are covered in frost or have a chance of frost. There is so much potential to grow. If I can grow that much in Chicago, I can grow that much more here in Nashville. So I know that we got into the nitty gritty in this class in this episode. Usually I like to teach it as a class with a lot of visual, but I wanted to be sure I made this accessible to you so that you can get it in the easiest format possible. But don't worry, we've got lots of visuals for you online on the gardenary site@gardenary.com podcast and we have that handy, dandy, customizable gardenary planting calendar that's going to allow you to put in two dates. The last frost date, the first frost date, and then I'll do all the work for you. So if today, the five months didn't come across super perfectly clear, that calendar is going to clear it up for you right away and help you see how this can actually work in the everyday in your own garden. So my goal is to make 2024 the year that I grow the most I've ever grown. I want to eat greens every single day. I want to grow more plants from seed, and I want to have color. Lots and lots and lots of color. So I cannot wait to hear the goals that you've set for yourself, and I cannot wait to hear the reason why you want to grow more in 2024 as well. So come check me out online on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube, wherever you like to to hang out and tell us your why and your three goals for your 2024 grow more garden as well. Together, I know we can encourage each other to keep going when it gets hot, when it gets cold, when things don't work out. If we have our why and our goal settled right now, there is nothing that can stop us from growing so much more in 2024. I can't wait to see what you do in this new year and I can't wait to share what I grow too. I thanks so much for watching and for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. I will see you in the next episode. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. You can keep listening anywhere you love getting your podcast delivered on Apple podcasts, on Spotify, iHeartRadio, you name it, we are there for you. And if you want to read the notes and get our free resources to help you grow more, you can go to gardenary.com podcast.