Hi, everybody, and welcome to today's show. This episode is specifically curated from our best of's archive for this very time of year. Right at the start of the new year, many of us are reflecting on the past year's garden and planning ahead towards our best garden ever for the upcoming season. I always take this time right after Christmas to dive into

all of that. And this past week, I have finally taken stock of all of my vegetable seeds and native

perennial and cut flower seeds are next, but I've inventoried, I've organized and consolidated my storage space

and noted which seeds came from where, the age of the seed,

and quantity. So now I am thoroughly equipped to place my seed orders for just what I need,

while guessing at nothing. And it may sound like a little thing, but whether you have a few dozen

packets or many hundreds like I do, and that number always gets bigger every

year. It's such a relief. To finally get a handle on all of that, it's all on a spreadsheet, of course,

and love them or hate them, they really are magical and what they can do once you enter the data.

So that was a lot of what was going on late into the nights here right after

Christmas. And the geeky side of me really kind of enjoyed it. But I plan on talking more about

that at next week's episode, number 399. So I'll save the details for them. But I tell you all of this

because it is part of being a more organized gardener, one who is more

prepared heading into the season because it comes on fast and it doesn't let up once it's

here. So planning has many benefits, including a lot less stress and last minute scrambling.

For this episode today, I want you to hear or relisten to my conversation with Ben Hartman. He's the

author of a great book that we discussed just over a year ago called The Lean Micro Farm, How to

Get Small, Embrace Local, Live Better, and Work Less. But no matter if you were a small space

gardener or grow vegetables or flowers just for you and your family,

or you're thinking about turning your growing passion into a business,

I found Ben's story fascinating.

And the practices that he puts into place to ensure he could make the most of his downsizing has applications for you and everyone else listening to this episode. So here's to a great year ahead,

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