There is good reason that gardening catalogs go out in January. With the excitement and obligations of the holidays behind us, and in my case leaving in their wake lingering illness, spring, summer, and the joys of the outdoors never feel more appealing. Additionally, at the beginning of the year I always do some reading about plant-based and/or Mediterranean diets to inspire my cooking. Recently, my passion has been for Lidia Bastianich, who has an approach to cooking and eating I find so appealing and reasonable. Her love of vegetables, beans, whole grains (and non-whole grains) and fish speak to me. And celebrates olive oil and wine…

But I also appreciate the persepective of people with entirely whole foods, plant-based approaches, and I find reading about the benefits of a diet of whole plant foods reminds me to make most of my diet plants and to branch out from the plants I typically eat. This year, I have been reading How Not to Die by Michael Greger, in which he outlines all the benefits of different plant foods. His “Daily Dozen” is a list of plant foods that he recommends you eat every day (in many cases multiple serving a day), including greens, cruciferous vegetables, beans, whole grains, berries, flax seed, and spices. Learning the real-body effects that eating foods like berries, broccoli, and turmeric can have on our cells is powerful already; looking at the list and recognizing how much of those foods we would ideally eat to maximize those benefits is also powerful…it makes you realize that there is little room for anything else.

But as a gardener, even a fairly poor gardener, and a halfhearted student of Ayurveda, I feel with total certainty that there is nothing better to eat in the world than something that has just come out of the earth. (As an avid residential clammer, I would say pulled out of the silt or wrested from the jetty is a close second.) And my interest is in eating those foods in whatever way showcases them best, even if it involves refined sugars, flour, butter, cream, or anything else that doesn’t maximize health.

And my dreams turn to strawberry rhubard pie. This past year, we got a first “crop” of rhubarb from the beleaguered plant I planted several years ago in our yard. We also had strawberries which I saved from our chickens the previous year by planting them in our community garden bed, where they soon took over more or less completely. Of course, I harvested all the rhubarb I possibly could, and every strawberry, and was far short of what I needed for a pie, so I made the rest up with a pound or so of strawberries from the store. I’m not even a sweet eater, but what, I ask you, could be better than that?

I don’t think a word as strong as “plan” can fairly describe my thoughts about my garden in the months running up to actually attempting to start it in the spring. I’m really dreaming, not planning. But my dreaming always reflects what I think I’ve learned from the previous season and new experiments I want to try. For our hydroponic Tower Garden, I am, for the first time, going to forgo tomatoes…sacrilege! I mean, tomatoes are the greatest food ever, but they take up so much space you can grow little else once they start to establish. Also, the wind storms of Gloucester ruined the support cage necessary to buttress them. This year, we will focus on lettuces and bok choi, which do very well on the Tower garden, and I’m going to try (again) swiss chard and, for the first time, fennel (another candidate for best food ever). I’ve finally realized that tall plants like that should go on the top so they won’t cover any other growing slots.

In the yard, we’ll be focusing on herbs and pollinator flowers, since we have issues with rabbits, but I also want to try to grow winter squash. I may try honeynut, since I read that it is more delicious and more nutrient dense than butternut. BUT, I also read that the key to delicious squash is letting it ripen on the vine before you pick it, and that’s an issue with the bunnies, who are very clever, and seem to know exactly when I’ve said to myself, “I’m going to harvest tomorrow.” And summer squash, of course, because I steadfastly love it despite its blandness.

In the community garden, I will have to make up the tomatoes that will not be in the Tower Garden. I may try spinach first thing in the spring, and I would love to grow some daikon radishes. As ever, carrots for Freya, this year some red and purple, and cucumbers, again, selecting better for eating out of hand than I did last year. I live in hope that Freya will broaden her palate through the garden or any means.

And I can’t help but feel that if I get to be in the sun, I will grow (and heal) too. I just read last night that if we get sun while we have chlorophyll in our bodies (from eating green plants), that chlorophyll can continue to be active in our bodies and we get that much more out of it. Apparently, when we stand in the sun, it’s bright enough inside of our skulls to read.