Garden and Life Planning

Garden Planning

It is time to plan out the garden for 2013. Such a fun, hopeful activity! In the garden already are strawberries, rhubarb, onions and garlic (this is the first year I am growing garlic, they seem to be very happy so far, even in snow).

The early garden will be planted in March. As of now, it will include:

Sugar snap peas
Carrots
Swiss Chard
Spinach
Lettuce
Parsnips (a new plant for me to try)
Leeks

The summer garden (to be planted in May) definites are:

Heirloom Tomatoes – 8 – 10 plants, 5 or 6 varieties depending upon what I can get a hold of
Eggplant – 3 – 5 plants, including white and japanese
Jalapeno Pepper – 1 plant
Okra
String Beans
Sweet Potato
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Butternut Squash
Parsley
Basil

I always end up with some volunteer surprises and being drawn in by some new plant at the seed store (how I ended up with kohlrabi last year), so my best planning ends up going by the wayside, at least a little.

Life Planning

I am writing this here so that I cannot back out…

I will be turning 50 in the fall and have decided that I will mark my last year in my 40’s with training to run a marathon. Until this past year I have hated running. I would do anything other than run – bike 100 miles, ski the Canadian Ski Marathon, rollerblade, kayak or even climb cliffs (and I am afraid of heights) – anything except run! But last year a friend convinced me that I could run a 5K if I trained correctly. I thought she was nuts, but Ha! it worked, now I feel like I just start warming up at 2 miles. I even have gone from a 10 minute mile to an 8’20” mile. Another friend gave me a training program for a marathon that seems reasonable, it is designed to avoid injury (it is a Jeff Galloway program). So, I will try it out. I have registered for the Amsterdam marathon in October (hey, why not? the trip will be an early 50th birthday present to myself), so I will start training in March. I need to switch back to running shoes from barefoot running; I found these Brooks shoes that seem to give me the same stride as barefoot. So, I will try and I will keep you posted. Wish me luck!