New Year’s gardening resolutions often begin with: Stay on top of weeding. This year, you may try experimenting with alternative gardens — square foot gardens, plastic bag gardens — that virtually vanish weeds from a vegetable patch.

Here are some other suggestions to try.

  • Grow only what you’ll eat, instead of planting seven kinds of lettuce and letting it spoil in the vegetable crisper.
  • Hang gardening tools on the potting bench every day, rather than letting them rust in the rain.
  • Prune, feed, and spray roses all summer, not just at the beginning of the season.
  • Dig up summer bulbs and store them for winter, instead of letting them rot, and then buying new ones.
  • Do what it takes — compost, stake, feed — to grow a decent tomato.
  • Don’t give gardening advice to your neighbor unless he asks, then keep quiet when he ultimately does it his own way.

What plans do you have for your garden this year?