WNC Arboretum holiday lights display - one of the real stars!

There is just a little over a week left to 2021. It is hard to fathom where it all went. COVID remained with us, of course, complicating all of our lives. Our second year in Hendersonville was as joyous as our first, if not more so. It certainly was busier for me in terms of gardening tasks. Tomato growing was more purposeful than ever, representing the platform for the new on-line course with Joe Lamp’l, Growing Epic Tomatoes. Joe’s visits to my garden, my visit to Joe’s, were all video documented…and great fun! The course launched in the spring, and we are getting ready for a relaunch early in 2022.

As I work my way through fulfillment of a whole lot of seed requests, thoughts of the 2022 garden and gardening efforts are starting to whirl around in my brain. The demands of various communications - email, blogging, Facebook, Instagram and the course platform (Teachable) felt quite onerous, and left me with more feelings of the stress of falling behind than I would have preferred. The garden was too ambitious, too large, too complex, adding to that feeling of constant catching up. That’s not where I want to be at this point of my life, being retired from the corporate world and in an area Sue and I love, with endless hiking possibilities.

Wintergreen Falls in DuPont with Sue, Marlin and Koda a week ago

Some significant changes will occur soon to my communication methods. This blog will be my primary communication means (along with email of course). Since the blog doesn’t notify when new posts arrive, please check back to see what’s new. I hope to free up time to do shorter but more frequent blogs - certainly monthly, but possibly even weekly.

The time to blog more often will come from my departure (again!) from Facebook. I also am starting my step away from Instagram. I don’t go into all of my reasoning on this; suffice to say that it is time for me to simplify and find more time. Since I’ve decided to stop my newsletters as well, freed up time will allow me to focus on future books, such as the long-delayed work on the Dwarf Tomato Breeding project.

It just seems like time to enact the changes I’ve outlined above. Let’s see how it works.

Last thing - I will be seeking input on an emerging issue that I believes needs solving. I will just park a few tidbits about it before I close up this blog entry. Over my years of gardening I’ve amassed a huge collection of seeds, seed catalogs and letters, as well as my gardening journals. I am sure that the same can be said for many others who caught the heirloom and seed saving addiction starting in the mid 1970s with the formation of the Seed Savers Exchange. The issue is this: Once we are done with our gardening efforts, where should we park all of our materials so they are kept alive, and used, and maintained? Have a think about it - I will say more in my next blog.