Hello garden gals and guys!!!! Yes, it’s been almost a year since my last blog post. As I look at this picture, I get so much joy thinking of how many hundreds of pounds of food I grew that year.

You may be asking me why I took a  year off from growing food. Well, I intended to garden last year. I started seeds and my little seedlings were doing well. But you also may recall that last spring was very wet and also unusually cold. Those two factors killed my seedlings (even though they were in the greenhouse in mid-May when it should have been warm enough for them to survive).

I woke up one morning and went out to check on my seedlings. They were all dead. We had an unusual cold snap overnight and they didn’t survive. I was so frustrated and so hurt. I had started so many heirlooms from seed. I watched them grow in my laundry room. I put them out in the greenhouse at the same time as I did in years past. And they died.

I didn’t want to buy seedlings from my local nursery. I just had to take a break. Everyone kept asking me “why aren’t you growing this year?” or “you’re not doing any YouTube videos this year?” It hurt every time I had to explain what was going on.

But that made me realize two things: I truly do love growing my own food and what I do is important to more than just me. I’m glad that people noticed when I stopped growing because it means I am making a difference on some level in this world.

Thank you to everyone that watches my videos and reads my blog posts. I am sad to report that one of my faithful blog readers passed away from cancer. He was like a brother to me and it will be really weird not to see him comment on my posts. I will be growing some peppers this year in his honor.

So, now that you know what has been going on with me, get ready to resume reading blog posts and watching YouTube videos! I do need fresh ideas for garden videos, so if you have anything in mind feel free to leave a comment below or send me an email.

That’s all for now garden gals and guys! The Diva Gardener is back! I’m off to peruse my seed catalogs to figure out what I want to grow this year and simultaneously watch my goal of not going overboard growing things go completely out the window! 🙂

Until next time….

Happy gardening!!