5 Easy Ways to Break Free of a Gardening Rut

Spring gardening catalogs arrive since Thanksgiving. So what if holiday decorations aren't boxed away, wind chill feels like -2°F, and you're nursing a New Year's hangover? Any gardener with a pulse is thinking spring and fantasizing about this year's garden.

If you do things the same way every year, now's the time — before seeds start or soil turns — to try something different. These suggestions are manageable; no backhoes, blueprints, or fat checkbooks required. Before setting your garden plan in stone, consider switches for a more rewarding, less stressful gardening life.

1. Throw Unusual-Colored Vegetables Into the Mix

Cauliflower is white, eggplants purple, corn yellow — right? Not always. Some vegetables come in unexpected colors. Growing familiar veggies in different colors is fun and lets you see them anew — and they taste as good. Try purple, orange, or neon-green cauliflower. Romanesco cauliflower (shown) surprises with color and a tight spiral head like a seashell. Purple cauliflower's intense color is almost vase-worthy.

Also consider:

• Yellow 'Amarillo' carrots
• 'Crescent Moon' (white) or 'Rosa Bianca' eggplants
• 'Ruby Queen' corn
• 'Chocolate Beauty' sweet peppers

Find seeds at Johnny's Selected Seeds, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and W. Atlee Burpee & Co.

2. Try a New Tool

Gardeners develop long-term tool relationships — a generational shovel, a weeder whose handle conformed to your hand. But technology makes tools lighter, more efficient, or less stressful. For seed starting, trade your single dibble for adjustable-hole versions (like the Garda Dibble shown). Or try ergonomic shovels or hand tools with soft plastic grips.

3. Plant a Tree

Planting a tree, especially a native species, is a horticultural mitzvah — a good deed improving the ecosystem for decades. Make a real difference by choosing a native species disappearing due to habitat destruction (not unfavorable conditions). Find the right tree at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's native plant database.

Browse plants native to your region.

4. Learn a New Technique

Cover crops like white clover suppress weeds, control erosion, enrich soil. Vermicomposting — with worms — exchanges kitchen waste for nutrient-dense compost. Sheet mulching uses newspaper, leaves, and garden waste to smother grass without tilling. If you haven't tried these, you don't know how they might benefit your garden. Research now to hit the ground running when it thaws.

5. Add Something That Makes You Laugh or Delights You

Old adage: the only person who never sat on his garden bench is the gardener. There's always so much to do, especially in spring, that by summer the garden feels like a chore. Before that hits, find, create, or buy something for your garden that brings joy whenever you see it.

Whatever you choose, it needn't be big or expensive. It must simply remind you why you love your garden!