But it's spring and the bulbs are up, so we're all feeling the itch and I'm ready to get gardening and blogging again. You can check in here each week for organic gardening tips and lots of info on growing vegetables. I'll have some videos for you soon, too.

Today, I have 3 quick notes:

1. Website Redesign

Even though I just designed this site last fall, I decided to do a redesign to make it more "organic" and friendly. I liked the old look, pictured below, but it was a little too cool and corporate for an organic gardening blog.

2. Survey Results

Here's a quick update on the survey you may have completed on the site in the last few months. In addition to the questions about the title for my organic gardening book, I asked you what information you wanted me to include in the book.

I read every single response and they had a big impact on what went into the book, so thanks very much for the help.

Your answers have helped me decide what to focus on here on this organic gardening blog, too. Here are the areas people wanted to learn about most, so that's what I'll be covering often here:

• organic garden soil management and organic composting
• organic vegetable gardening for beginners and more advanced topics
• organic pest control
• the soil food web

Many people also wanted to-do lists, so I'll be giving you hands-on gardening advice as much as possible. A lot of people said they want the steps to be easy, and of course, I can understand that. We all want things to be easy.

One difference you'll find with me from many organic gardening blogs, however, is that I'm not going to tell you that everything will be easy. It sounds good (and probably sells more gardening books) but it's just not always the case. Not that organic gardening is particularly difficult, but if you are growing vegetables and plants that you want to be healthy, you'll generally have to put in a bit of work up front.

If you're the kind of person who wants to improve your gardening skills and put in the work to produce an unbelievably vibrant and abundant garden, this is the place for you.

The Ottawa Tulip Festival is just around the counter, which means it must be spring

3. Focus On Positive Strategies

As in my book, the lessons on this website apply to both ornamental and fruit/vegetable gardens, but I do tend to use food plants as examples because that is my main goal in the garden - growing exceptionally healthy food. As you probably know, most produce from the grocery store doesn’t have the nutrition it used to. For example, I read somewhere (or maybe it was Arden Andersen who said it at an Acres USA conference) that protein is down in many foods from 20-30% to just 4-5%.

One source says that pesticide use has increased by more than 30 times in the last 50 or so years (I used the more conservative number 10 times in the book), yet we're losing a higher percentage of crops now (along with our topsoil, clean water and clean air).

But you'll find I don't tend to write too much about the above problems on this organic gardening blog - the reason I had "A positive, uplifting approach from a Certified Organic Gardener" up at the top of the old design (haven't found a new place for that yet) is because I like to focus on the things we can actually do about it. I'm not really interested in complaining.

There are plenty of people and organizations focusing on the problems, which is good - we need to fight Monsanto and corruption in the USDA and genetic modification and all of these things. If we all spend most of our time fighting, though, that means we're not spending most of our time teaching others how to grow food and care for the environment and reestablish a connection with the earth.

On this organic gardening blog, you'll learn about these things. You'll find a more detailed, step-by-step organic gardening program in the book, but I plan on providing plenty of cool free content here, and the nice thing about the website is that I can post pictures, as well as links to other useful resources.

So this post admittedly didn't give you any practical applications, but that starts next week. For now, let me know below if there's something missing from my list up that you want me to cover on the blog. I'll most definitely take note. Here's the list again:

• organic soil management/organic composting
• organic vegetable gardening
• organic pest control
• the soil food web