🍾 cheers to a fresh start, free resources, & garden club on sunday @ 7pm
free planning materials, plus an indoor seed starting class!
🌻 Before we begin, welcome to the 200+ new readers that joined us from this TikTok I posted last night! I write here almost-weekly and share my garden progress, inspiration, reflections on life, educational materials, and whatever else I feel like sending around to this cute lil group of growing friends. Happy New Year to you all — here’s a champagne and a burrito. 🥂🌯
Exactly one year ago I joined Substack, having just put in my notice at my Very Great And Successful Adult job — making the terrifying and privileged decision to put myself through a rehabilitation of sorts. If you too are an ex-fundie, oldest sibling, type a, book-not-street-smart, toxic work ethic baby like me, sometimes you need another person to stop your train. And sometimes it doesn’t happen until the train is actively crashing into lots of very important things.
A very very long time ago someone told me, “you can have 5 ten-year careers, or 10 five-year careers.” It has given me endless comfort and de-pressurized the existential panic of, “Is this what I’m doing for the rest of my life???” when it hits at 3am.
I want to thank everyone who has been part of this year in some big or small way for me. Gardens are nice to look at on Instagram and useful emails are lovely to receive, but I am a new person today — and that wouldn’t have happened in a vacuum. It really did happen with you.
I wrote my 3 goals for this year last December, and looking back, I don’t know if I’ve ever been so proud of myself. I made great strides. I shot a thousand fewer arrows at myself than I ever have. 🏹
I also shared this last year, and if you’re jaded by failed New Years Resolutions and Planners, may I encourage you?
lastly, i feel compelled to put into the universe that clean slates are real things, good things, important things. to whomever needs to hear it today: it isn’t silly to want this. plants and gardens get clean slates every year. you can have it too. you can erase something in your life or just give it a good scrub.
take the permission you need to create a clean slate in whatever area you need it this year. 🛀🏼
I know we are all in the midst of either Garden Planning or Feeling Behind About Garden Planning, so to be helpful, I have 5 things to share:
January Garden Club is tomorrow (Sunday) evening at 7pm EST on Zoom. Please join if you want help knowing what you should be doing this upcoming month, or if you have garden planning questions! You can participate or stay on mute the whole time. It’s chill.
I have created a Goals & Reflections worksheet that I invite you to spend 15 minutes with before you plan. Print it, reference it, or type into the digital copy. I am building a Garden Planning Course and this resource will eventually will be $$, but for today, take it and use it! 💪🏼
My Favorite Resources. This is where I shop, locally and online.
My Zone 7 Calendar Cheat Sheet! In January, I will be releasing a dynamic and customizable Google Sheets template that I have spent probably 100 hours building 🤞🏻 for all zones (!!!) — but in the interim, my cheat sheet is great for referencing. It also includes Square Foot Gardening codes and what should be Direct Sown vs Transplanted.
An Indoor Seed Starting Class! Next Sunday, Jan 8 @ 3pm EST. It’s virtual and you can register here. If you can’t make the time, go ahead and register, and the recording + materials will be sent to you. I will be starting my first wave of indoor seeds in mid-January.
To send you into the new year, I give you the worn little piece of paper that’s been shoved into my journals and bathroom mirrors for the last decade.
Be careful what you set your heart upon, for you will surely have it. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Cheers to you and your resilience, and to the soft part of you that the shell continues to guard and to love —
Lauren
I've loved following along. Cheers to the fresh start!