I was alerted recently to the fact that I tend to use that phrase a little bit too often. Well…here’s my excuse: ’tis always the season for something in the garden!

On this, the first day of November, we’re still in the midst of fall garden cleanup and winterizing. Yes⎯this means that if you haven’t gotten ‘er done yet, there’s still time to do the necessary physical work that will help your garden survive the winter and thrive in spring. What’s nice is that the sooner you get that side of things done, the more time you have to plan your garden for next year.

On that note, although I haven’t written a proper blog post in months and months (I have been writing for All Things Real Estate and putting out our monthly newsletter, mostly on time, but that’s the extent of the writing I’ve had time for!), I intend to get some planning blog entries up here in the next few weeks. So stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, the inspiration for this seasonal re-entry into the blogosphere is as follows.

Not only do our rainy falls and winters offer a window of opportunity for thinking about our own garden spaces; they allow us to look up and out and think big thoughts about the larger context within which we’re doing what we’re doing out there in our back and front yards, on our balconies and patios, and through our community garden spaces.

In our corner of the world, nothing represents big thinking like emergency preparedness. In the wake of “Superstorm Sandy,” it’s impossible not to think about the potential weather-related calamities that could be in store for us here in the Northwest. And here, we’re also thinking about the Big One, too, and assorted other phenomena that could affect us in ways that we probably can’t even anticipate (and, of course, a lot of ways that we can easily predict).

Edible gardens are one key component of resilient communities, we believe, and this weekend, we are excited to be teaching a class called “Prepping the Garden and Gardening ‘Prepared’” at ResilienceNW, a community disaster preparedness conference here in Portland. Many of our classes cost as much as the whole conference does ($20), so we encourage anyone who’s able to make it to the conference to do so⎯it’s a heck of a deal. And if you’re not able to make it, please check back here for some more thoughts on resilience after the weekend…after which we’ll be talkin’ garden planning…and beyond.