Category Archives: Plant
New USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map
The USDA has just come out with a new Plant Hardiness Zone Map. This map was last updated in 1990, and now about half the cities are in a warmer zone than before. Some see this as a reflection of global warming. What does this mean for you? How will the new USDA map effect vegetable gardening? In my opinion, it won’t. According to the USDA website: The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. The map is based on the … Continue reading
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Spring Gardening Checklist
So you’ve created your garden plan (I hope!) and it’s time to prepare your garden for planting. Here’s a list of items TO DO and the tools you may need to get the job done. 1. Remove anything used to “winterize” your garden. You may or may not have covered your gardens, or done something else to help them endure the winter weather. Take everything down and store it away. 2. Turn the soil If you live in an area that gets a lot of snow or rain, it’s likely all that water has compacted your garden soil. Use a … Continue reading
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Share Your Garden Plan
Every spring I get lots of emails asking for feedback on garden plans. It’s something I enjoy doing, and I especially love to be able to post it for all to see. I want to be able to help more people, so I’m going to stop trying to do all the work myself, and let you give each other feedback and suggestions. To qualify, you must have a garden plan, a copy of your garden plan in picture format (.jpg .png .bmp) and photos of your garden. The photos can be from last year, or just pictures of your empty garden … Continue reading
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Starting Seeds Indoors–Is it worth it?
If you’ve never done it before, you might be asking yourself “Why would I start seeds indoors?” and “Will I save money starting seeds indoors?” Why Start Seeds Indoors? In other words, why can’t I just buy seeds, and plant them in the garden? The simplest reason why to start seeds indoors is because most* of us live in a climate that does not have ideal growing conditions for every kind of vegetable. I’ll use two examples: Tomatoes and Broccoli. Tomatoes require an extremely long time to grow from seed to harvest. They are a very tender vegetable that won’t … Continue reading
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Fall Planting Schedule!
Drum roll please . . . after much blood, sweat, and tears, I am proud to announce my new Fall Planting Schedule!!! The newsletter sign up now has room to indicate both your spring and fall colors (which are Maroon, Goldenrod, Olive, Navy, Purple, and Brown). As part of this round of improvements, I have simplified the process of determining your color and added two new colors to the Spring Planting Schedule (White and Pink). Here is a list of vegetables included in the Fall Planting Schedule: Beets Broccoli Bush Beans Cabbage Carrots Cauliflower Collards Endive Kale Kohlrabi Lettuce Mustard … Continue reading
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Gardening Patterns
Spring-Summer-Fall The most typical gardening pattern for North America is the Spring-Summer-Fall (S-S-F) gardening season. These gardeners have a spring frost date (the average date of the last spring frost) and a fall frost date (the average date of the first fall frost), and have to fit in all the gardening in between! S-S-F gardeners plant Hardy vegetables in the spring, followed by Semi-Hardy. After the frost date, they plant Tender and, a few weeks later, Very Tender plants. Soon the temperatures are too warm for the Hardy and Semi-Hardy plants, and they must be harvested or go to seed. … Continue reading
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Types of Plants–Very Tender, Tender, Semi-Hardy and Hardy
Plants can be divided into several types depending on how well they tolerate cold, freezing temperatures, and frost. Very Tender These types of plants cannot tolerate any frost or cold temperatures at all. They need to be planted when the weather is warm, after all danger of frost has passed. All of these Very Tender plants have long growing seasons (they take a long time to go from seed to harvest), so you want to wait until the weather is warm enough for them, but you can’t wait too long or you will not have a chance to harvest before … Continue reading
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Organizing Your Seeds
This is a picture I took in front of my happy place–the seed aisle. I love shopping for seeds. The packages are so colorful, offering hope of beautiful and delicious home grown vegetables. I could spend hours (and sometimes do!) debating between varieties of cucumbers, green beans, and tomatoes. Before you head to the store to buy anything, organize your seeds–then take your list, leave any kids at home, and have an enjoyable and productive trip to the seed aisle! Step 1: Review your garden plan. Step 2: Gather all your seeds. Square foot gardening uses so few seeds that … Continue reading
Creating A (Square Foot) Garden Plan
Whether you are doing a traditional or square foot garden, having a plan helps everything run more smoothly. Here is a simple outline for creating your square foot garden plan. I love using Excel, but you can use graph paper or just plain old paper! Step 1: Draw an outline of your garden. I’m going to use the example of my 4′x8′ garden bed. Step 2: Add landmarks and features North, South, East, West Fences, paths Step 3: Choose what to grow Go here to see a list of vegetables and how many should be planted in each square. Write … Continue reading
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Starting Seeds Indoors
Starting seeds indoors can be a fun way to garden while the weather is still cold and dreary. If you are a beginner, skip this step and just buy your plants! Supplies: Your garden plan Pots Potting soil Scissors Bucket Seeds Pencil Labels and permanent marker Storage containers with lids Grow lights Heat lamp Timer that turns lights on and off Be sure your pots and potting soil are sterilized so you don’t spread disease to your new plants. Refer to your garden plan to determine how many plants I you need to start. I’ve had great success with starting … Continue reading
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