January Thaw

We're currently experiencing a January thaw here in Maine and other parts of the north. Besides providing a warm winter break, the sunny, mild weather is putting me in the mood to garden. Since it's only January, I can't start my seeds yet or head outdoors to prepare my gardens until spring. In the meantime, I'll be making a list of which vegetables to plant in 2013 and how many.

I'll be planting my usual crop of beans, peas, corn and tomatoes - many of which will be eaten fresh and the rest frozen. This year I'm going to try planting some new vegetables, one's I've never grown before, such as eggplant and turnips.

I've already been scouring online seed catalogs checking out the new varieties for 2013 and making a mental list of which seeds I want to order to be written down later. I've also been thinking ahead about rotating my crops and thinking about which vegetables to grow where.

In other news, a number of online gardening catalogs have discontinued their affiliate marketing relationship with Google, so I'll be begrudgingly removing all banners and links from Gibby's Garden over the next few weeks. The companies I speak of include Gurney's (one of my favorites), Breck's and a few others. Please be patient as I do this as these links will no longer work from this site and many others similar to mine.

What will you be doing in preparation for this year's vegetable garden?