Winter Garden Planning for Summer Garden Success
- gwynnemiddleton
- Jan 23
- 3 min read
Sunny and cold one day and short-sleeves temperatures the next, I’m familiar enough with the Front Range weather now to know that I’m months from garden planting season.
But I also know it’s a great time to start dreaming about the wide variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flower seeds I want to sow when the outdoor growing’s good in Colorado. Here are some ideas to consider this month as you think through your 2025 garden plans.
Request Print Seed Catalogs, and Explore Online Seed Company Inventory.
Most seed companies mail annual catalogues in November or December for the next year’s growing season and simultaneously publish their catalogs online for a fast ordering process. With limited time to visit brick and mortar garden shops for leisurely garden planning, I’m grateful for the ability to decide on seed selection at home and tend to request paper catalogs for reading, planning, and marking up before visiting a seed company’s website to place orders. If you prefer a paperless consumer process, you can usually peruse most seed companies’ extensive inventory online and circumvent paper waste guilt.
I've successfully grown food from a wide variety of conventional, organic, and organic/heirloom/rare seeds purchased at hardware stores, local garden shops, and via the internet. It’s true that non-GMO organic and heirloom/rare seeds do cost more than conventional seeds like those mostly on offer at companies like Burpee, but since we grow food on such a small scale, I prefer to buy organic and heirloom/rare seeds when I can because I like supporting organic agricultural practices.
If you’re excited about eating fruit and vegetable varieties that are hard to find at most grocery stores, heirloom and rare seeds are the way to go to broaden your palate. For folks interested in great companies with ample seed options, I've had Colorado gardening success with seeds purchased from Colorado-based Botanical Interests and Missouri-based Baker Creek Rare Seeds. We also often pick up last-minute Botanical Interests seeds from Tagawa Gardens and Sprouts Grocery.
Before Making Impulse Buys, Reflect on Garden Goals.
After you receive your seed catalogs, spend some time thinking through what you’d like to grow and why. Since I also experiment with recipes and write about made-from-scratch food, I'm always interested in experimenting with new ingredients. This time of year, I think about the kind of fresh produce I’d like to cook with and preserve for late fall, winter, and spring meals. I’ve also become fascinated with fermented foods, particularly sauces and condiments, and with canning. Every winter, I start thinking about additional fruits and vegetables I can grow in the garden and use in fermenting and canning recipes. Now is also a great time to consider where to grow food on your property and what types of fruit and vegetables will grow best in those locations. I live in a city with a small backyard. Like anyone who has ever tried to grow food in Denver soil, you'll have much less frustration if you grow your food in raised beds and large containers. We have three rectangular raised beds, one large square raised bed, one smaller partly shaded rectangular plot with amended soil in our yard, and a keyhole-shaped large raised bed. We also have several wooden barrel planters, ten 1o-gallon buckets for container growing, three galvanized troughs, and a variety of large pots.
Pick Seeds That Love Your Growing Region.
If you're new to gardening and don't want to mess with climate control modifications like cold frames and consistent row covers, pick seed varieties with the shortest date to maturity. In Colorado, that means you'll be able to plant after our last frost date (late May or early June) and still reap a good harvest before cold weather makes it appearance in September.
Make a Garden Plan That Allows You to Adapt or Accept Defeat With Grace and Humor.
Finally, while imagining all that you want to accomplish with your garden this year, keep perspective. Try not to be too hard on yourself if all that you dream of growing and preserving this year doesn’t work out as planned. I have a full-time job, a kid, and a few side projects outside of gardening and have a tendency to always plan for more than I can realistically accomplish.
With gardening, as with other parts of my life, I’ve learned that things rarely work out as planned. Annoying, I know, but I’ve also started making peace with this truth and am embracing that these twists and turns and seeming failures often offer opportunities I wouldn’t have envisioned otherwise.
This month, dream a little garden dream, and consider test driving a new year’s resolution akin to my own: Be kind to yourself, and stay open to what the world can teach you.
Happy New Year.
