I initially wrote this calendar in 2005! I always said I’d write a gardening book to make things simple for people. Instead I created this calendar! This is no ordinary calendar. There are no blank squares under the name of the month so you can scribble notes and appointments down.

You also don’t throw this one away at the end of the year! This calendar gathers everything you need to know for gardening for each particular month, into one place! Tired of looking through lots of different gardening books only to be totally confused? This is the calendar for you! This calendar tells you month to month exactly what you need to be doing in your garden, from ordering seeds in January to clean up at the end of the year. No more guess work!

I wrote this calendar 15 years ago for just that reason. I wanted something that I could take to the garden that would tell me what to do! I don’t know Elliot Coleman personally or I would have asked him…or maybe someone at the Rodale Institute...I was tired of dragging multiple books to the garden…so…I wrote this calendar for me. Then others got wind of it and wanted a copy for themselves and now I write for ya’ll also!

This calendar is full of tips! Little tidbits we’ve learned over the years to make things quicker and easier with better results. I’ve made other changes throughout my calendar as we’ve added more years of gardening experience and knowledge! There are some of my family’s favorite recipes, some DIY creations and more!

There is a chart that gives you the life expectancy of most common vegetable seeds.This will help you determine if those seeds you found in the back of the desk drawer are still good. If you aren’t sure, I’ve included instructions on how to do a germination test to determine if you should plant those long forgotten seeds, and how thickly you might want to sow them!

There is a new page listing some of my favorite gardening books by category along with a long list of my favorite food preservation books!

And…what people have requested most over the years…a USDA Hardiness Zone Conversion Chart by Frost Dates!!!!!!

No matter what zone you live in, this chart will show you how to use my calendar! (Except those poor people who live in Zone 1 and have the possibility of a frost 365 days out of 365 days! I was shocked to read that…do you even garden? heck, do you even own shorts?!)

This 12 month calendar has all the wonderful information on how to, what to and when to plant in your garden! There is an area under each month where you can keep your own garden notes too! There is also a copy of my garden journal page on the back - to keep notes on what you planted and when…how did it fare…believe me…you’ll be glad you wrote that down next year as you order your seeds and make plans for your garden!

Happy Gardening!