Happy New Year, friends! I hope you enjoyed your holiday season and found many moments of beauty, quiet, and peace as well as special times with friends and family.
This article, from early January last year, was called “Harvesting in 2021.” It is just as relevant now as it was then, so I’m posting it again in the hopes that it might help you as you plan and dream about 2022.
My next blog post will update you on what I harvested at Glimsen in 2021 and what I’m preparing to plant so I can continue to share beauty with you on the blog in 2022.
Many thanks to you for your support and blessings to you in the New Year.
And now, here’s the post.
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I come from a long line of gardeners—people who tilled and sowed and staked and watered and sweated and swatted billions of bugs. All that work, all for bushel baskets full of home-grown heaven still warm from the earth and the sun. Ahhhh.
But alas, I did not get the gardening gene.
I have two sets of friends who have the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen. When I walk through their gardens, beneath the trees, among the plants, I feel as though I am in another world. I feast my eyes (and my iPhone) long before I feast with my tastebuds. I enjoy the fruits of their labor, their sweat, their vision, their harvest.
And, to be more specific, their olives, veggies, berries, and flowers.
Yet, as green as I am about gardening, even I know that you must plant what you want to harvest.
If you want juicy red tomatoes, you put tomato plants in the ground (and you provide stakes to support them).
If you want potatoes, you push potato seeds into the earth.
If you want wildflowers, you sprinkle seeds wherever you want beauty to sprout.
You prepare the ground by tilling and fertilizing. You put in the seed or plant and water it. The sun shines, the rain soaks, the plant grows.
Every year, you prune the tree to get more olives next time.
Or you cut the bush back to get more blueberries.
If you’re a gardener, you are always planning and thinking ahead. And, if all goes well, all of your work leads to the payoff: harvest.
Goals are like that, too. I didn’t get the goal-setting gene, either. I set them and then forget them.
But people who set goals and not only remember them but actually do them get stuff done. My husband is an expert at this. He’s got long lists of goals he has achieved. I marvel at his vision and his discipline.
I have learned that in order to have a healthy harvest of goals achieved, it helps to set them.
This year, I want a healthy harvest, not of tomatoes and potatoes but of words and images. I want to accomplish some projects that I have dreamed about for a while now. The timing seems right, too. This year, I have more accountability in place as well as some experts to consult when I need help or advice.
My big plan is to have a healthy harvest at the end of the season—at the end of the new year.
And like my gardening friends and family, I plan to share the abundance of that harvest with anyone who wants it. So, my friends, keep reading, and happy harvesting yourselves!
What do you want to harvest in 2022?
Thank you for reading Glimsen, where I write about the beauty around us in nature, the arts, and the unexpected. If you like this post, sign up below to get a free gift of beauty and you’ll also receive my blog posts in your inbox. Add more beauty to your life by signing up today.
