My 2017 UMass Garden Calendar is doing its job. Not only does it give me the daily sunrise and sunset times, but it also gives me great horticultural reminders and hints. And, yes, the days are getting longer in this New Year.

We had our first blizzard on January 7 but the past few days have been warm and the snow cover has disappeared. It’s interesting to see that the leaves of the grape hyacinths are up letting us know where the pretty flowers will be making their appearance come spring.

This coming week I plan on cutting some forsythia stems to bring indoors to “force” into blooming. The pretty yellow blossoms are so cheery in the middle of winter.

While outdoors, I can do some shrub pruning; especially dead branches or any that are rubbing against others. I especially want to prune the older branches of our red-twig dogwood since I recently learned that the older the branches, the less colorful they are.

This year I would like to try some new crops in our vegetable garden. The word “crops” gives the wrong impression, as the garden is very small. So maybe I should say I would like to try some new varieties. In the flower gardens, I would like to try growing some primroses again and maybe even some blue poppies. Previous attempts were all failures.

As far as predictions, one thing I know for sure. I will make many mistakes this year. I always do! I’ll look on them as opportunities to learn.