Or is it the Seven Pillars of Horticultural Wisdom, or the Ten All-time Top Garden Tips?

As everyone's resolutions remind us, we love attaching a number to advice, a number smaller than the one I regard as most realistic: The Twenty Three Thousand, Four Hundred and Sixty Two Things It's Important to Remember Before Getting Out of Bed.

So be warned; I haven't really honed it down to only seven; these are just the first seven essentials that came to mind when I decided to do this. And not in order, either.

The compost bins at Stonecrop Gardens in Cold Spring, New York.

* Make Compost
* Use Compost
* Plant Crops in Wide Beds
* Mulch
* Feed the Soil, Not the Plants
* Share Something
* Be There

Make Compost

Short version: Mother Nature never throws anything away.

Longer version: Composting is the rare silk purse from sow's ear, something for nothing win-win. You start out with kitchen, yard and garden debris and wind up with two benefits: 1) a great soil amendment and 2) many green points for avoiding the landfill.

It's easy to fall into thinking that compost's last name is bin, and that careful layering and turning are part of the deal. But piling shredded leaves in a corner counts too. So does "trench composting," handy for those with little garden space, and so does bringing your kitchen scraps to a place (try the nearest community garden) that will compost them if you can't. I have a friend in Manhattan, for instance, who brings her coffee grounds, orange peels and such to the Lower East Side Ecology Center at Union Square Greenmarket.

While watching the last moments of '08 slip by -
Tossing back cocktails, forlorn and cockeyed.
At the stroke of twelve, hugging all with delight -
Men in tuxedos, and leggy ladies in dresses skintight.

We find our way home, somewhat assembled -- quasi,
After self-medicating from our host's ample supply.
We crawl under the sheets, to avoid the daylight,
Recollecting the night's actions with bleary hindsight.

But by making resolutions while a barfly,
We're bound to set standards so high we can't try.
So in future, make decisions in sober daylight.
Instead of dim-witted -- they'll be dynamite.
~Michael DeJong

Expectations get lowered, trousers get lowered, interest rates have been lowered, with meds our blood pressure and anxiety levels get lowered, the drinking age in some states has been lowered, and our pensions and 401Ks have also been lowered.

But on New Year's Eve -- like clockwork -- millions of people still insist on freezing in lowered temperatures huddled in massive crowds in New York City's Times Square as they watch in amazement as the gigantic crystal ball -- too -- is lowered.

But it's not just in the hustle and bustle of big cities that things get lowered in celebration of the New Year. Take for instance Bethlehem, Pennsylvania's 25-pound fiberglass illuminated Peep; or Easton, Maryland's grotesquely enormous imitation of a steamed red crab; or Lebanon, Pennsylvania's seven-and-a-half-foot "fit-to-be-eaten" bologna; or Mount Olive, North Carolina's three-foot tall shimmering pickle; or New Orleans' paper mache gumbo pot; or Plymouth, Wisconsin's super huge, yet thankfully artificial, hunk-o-cheese; or Port Clinton, Ohio's 20-foot 600-pound fiberglass walleye; or Raleigh, North Carolina's 1,250-pound copper acorn; and let's not forget Key West, Florida's local Drag Queen in her glittering six-foot tall, red, high-heeled shoe. Everywhere, it seems, things get lowered to ring in the New Year.

Descending "stuff" aside, many people look to the New Year as an uplifting fresh start. But for most of us, what it really becomes is a fresh start to old habits. (You know how it goes -- in one year and out the other?) This year, instead of New Years Eve being a fresh start to last year's bad habits how about it becoming a fresh start to freshness?

As many of you already know -- New Years Eve or not -- baking soda sparkles like a freshly fallen first snow. (Somewhat appropriate considering that here in the eastern portion of the United States, it's winter.) White, powdery and soft to the touch, odorless and inert upon inspection, baking soda most commonly loiters in the fridge behind leftovers, lunchmeat and lettuce. Not just great as a refrigerator deodorizer, it's remarkably useful when sprinkled, scattered, spread, strewn, or kept in your closet, kitty litter, crisper or carport. (And you're probably wondering to yourself "Hmmm? What's this got to do with New Years Eve?")

For every occasion -- Christmas, Hanukah or otherwise -- my partner Richard and I have a code for gift giving. Whatever it is, it has to be consumable, edible, drinkable, burnable (Okay, I know what you're thinking, but no. I'm talking about candles or incense.), or time sensitive things like tickets to the theater or movie passes.

During the Holidays, gifts, of course, are important to many -- especially kids. When I was a rug-rat, my mom used to make tons of stuff for us each Christmas. During the year she'd knit and crochet sweaters, goofy hats, horrible scarves and oversized mittens from thread she rescued from outdated knitwear that she'd unravel. (Funny how our hats always seemed to be the ones first offered up for the neighborhood snowmen.)

The things she would knit weren't always the best fitting or the prettiest, but in that moment -- on Christmas Eve when the lights of the tree sparkled, with the scent of her handmade candles everywhere, unwrapping gifts to the quiet hum of carols -- we knew that she had made them, stitch by stitch, night after night. The fact is, my mother was a frugal Dutch immigrant who had survived World War II as a teenager, scraping by with her family through the occupation, and she learned how to make magic out of nothing. (Shine-ola!) Nothing went to waste, everything was re-used, and making things by hand was just what ya' did.

She sewed things, too. There were ill-fitting pants (Imagine this...pink and green seer-sucker hip-huggers with fringe. Ooo-la-laaa! ...I wish I still had them!), the occasional coat, for my sister a dress without buttons (she ran out of time) and one year, from a bolt of fabric she found in a clearance bin, she created matching florescent orange Nehru shirts for my sister Mags, my older brother, John, and me. (Presented in our "glowing" holiday finery, I'm certain that the ladies from church thought that we had joined up with the local Hare Krishnas.)

But when mom baked it was easy to forgive all of her fashion transgressions. She made endless batches of homemade oatmeal bars, lemon squares, pecan sandies, chocolate chip cookies (salvaging the chocolate from our Halloween booty), and our favorite -- British toffee. She'd also decorate canisters rescued during the year with smartly applied compositions cut from the previous year's Christmas cards, ribbons and paper, before filling them and delivering them to our schoolteachers, Sunday School instructors, Scout leaders, band directors, and just about anyone else she had on her list.