Happy Belated New Year !  I hope your holidays were joyous and relaxing.  While not exactly relaxing, our holidays were most definitely joyful!  Sally and I spent a whole week on Orcas Island in Washington State.  We were there to meet the newest member of our family.  Our youngest daughter gave birth to our second grandson.  What a joy to visit with her and welcome Bernard to our ever expanding family.

Did you make any gardening resolutions? Personally, I gave up on resolutions several years ago.  However, I still set goals.  I guess this is kind of like making resolutions.  However, thanks to some weird part of my brain, I seem to have less guilt when I fail to complete a goal than when I fail to accomplish my resolutions.

I have set lots of goals for 2016.  First, I want to figure out how to spend more time in my garden.  I will need to do this since I am doubling the size of my vegetable garden and adding a large butterfly/cut flower garden.  I also planted two 35’ foot rows of blackberries back in the summer and those will need tending.

If your daughter is going to live far, far away, pray that she lives in a beautiful place. This view of Mt. Baker is just steps from daughter’s house.

My next goal is to finish several unfinished landscaping projects.  I have decided that 2016 will be the year that I finally finish the granite walk paths that pass through the three rose arbors and connect all of my gardens together.  The walk paths were on hold so I could run water and electricity out to my vegetable garden.  I am proud to say this project was completed back in November.  While I am looking forward to finishing the walk paths, I am more excited about the six water spigots that I have added that  will allow me to install and use drip irrigation in my ever expanding vegetable garden.

My final goal is to do a better job documenting all of these changes on the blog.  In addition, Patty and I are going to introduce a new feature.  Each month we are going to visit with gardeners around the state and see what works, and what doesn’t, in their gardens.  Each time I visit with a gardener I pick up something that I can apply in my own garden.  I hope you will enjoy our visits and I hope you get some tips that will make you a better gardener too.

I was impressed with the number of vegetable gardens we saw on the island. Seems like everyone had one. This one was truly beautiful

Last year was a great year for the blog (click here if you would like to see the “Year in Review” presentation from WordPress).  The “Weekly Tips” were incredibly well received.   While I am not going to continue this, I will continue to post a weekly tip on my Facebook page.  If you don’t already follow us on Facebook please check it out and give us a like.

Thank you all so much for continuing to follow us.  We are so humbled that you choose to get some of your gardening tips from our little website.  We work hard to provide information that is relevant, useful and (hopefully) entertaining.  If there is anything that you would like to have featured or discussed on the blog do not hesitate to send us an e-mail or leave us a comment.  Happy New Year!