Table of contents:
- Why to grow š¦šš§āš¼
- What to grow š»š„š š·
- Purchasing
- How to grow šŖ“š
- Learning š©āš«
- My YouTube gardening favorites (skewed towards flowers) š„
- Further tips š
- Watering š§
- Supporting your plants š„¢
- Protecting your plantsĀ š”
- Protecting yourself (against the sun and heat) āļø
- Protecting yourself (against biting insects) š¦
- Cleaning your fingernails š
- Comfort š§
- Ready for more? š©āš¾
Why to grow š¦šš§āš¼
If you haven't already tried growing things, I think itās worth an attempt.
š±Ā There's something pretty magical about planting a seed and having it turn into a living thing. (Iāve often wondered whether it could be therapeutic for would-be-parents and it also has some of the delights of those little mystery animal sponges that come out of capsules when you soak them in warm water. I also think that caring for something/tending to something is a powerful force for good in the world, with positive internal and external effects.)
Then there are the normal reasons:
- creating habitat for beneficial insects like bees and butterflies
- growing food you canāt get at the grocery store or that wouldnāt taste as good from the grocery store
- creating beauty in the landscape (or kitchen tables) around your home/school/work/neighborhood
š I also think that veggies, cut flowers, baby plants, and seeds are all wonderful things to share with friends and neighbors. Theyāre somehow especially touching due to the amount of care invested in your plants. If I ever give you a melon from my garden, I hope you feel the specialness of that gift. And know that if you share bulbs or tubers or cuttings from your favorites, I will always think of you when I tend to those plants šŖ“ (a lifetime ago a friend made me a tiny succulent garden in a beautiful glass bowl and I treasured the gesture long after the plants had died).
What to grow š»š„š š·
I particularly like growing plants that are edible (bonus points if they're things I can pop in my mouth while gardening, e.g. cherry tomatoes or snap peas). Plants that totally overproduce like zucchini, or herbs that you can just trim now and again.
But even regrowing my scallions in water glasses on the windowsills for my next batch of Fermented Kimchi: easy, healthy, delicious is pretty delightful.
Pictured here on the right is the vine that produced the best melons Iāve maybe ever tasted. If youāre only going to grow one variety, grow āSarahās Choiceā (itās a cantaloupe). I also think the best (and most prolific) cherry tomato might be āsun goldā but Iām not as confident that I know the cherry tomato landscape well enough. Iām also trying āblack cherryā and the magical GMO purple tomato (gifted by a friend) this year.
See also Advice: Consider adopting a bin of composting worms to live under your sink.
If youāre interested in starting plants from seed (which I recommend for the proximity to that first miraculous appearance of life š±) Johnnyās Selected Seeds is a reputable and thoughtful research-based provider (with detailed germination info on each packet) ā even Martha Stewartās garden is sown with Johnnyās seeds (though fair warning: while the seed packets have lots of useful information, there are no pictures).
Hereās a guide to when to plant.
Some plants overwinter (āperennialsā often die back to the ground and regrow from the crown of their root system) so you donāt have to plant them anew each spring. Here you can check your areaās āhardiness zoneā which will help you understand which perennial plants should be able to survive the winter in your location:
NPR made a cool explainer when the zones were updated recently:
A lot of edibles (and cut flowers) are annuals, so knowing your last and first frost date tells you how long your growing season is. Some plants mature quickly, some take so long that you may need to give them a head-start indoors so that they will produce before theyāre killed by the first frost. (Some cold hardy annuals can be sown in the fall and will basically hibernate all winter but have a jump-start when it warms up in the springānot just a timing advantage, but youāll get bigger, healthier plants that developed under their preferred conditions.)
Donāt forget about perennial trees and shrubs and even flowers or veggies (like asparagus). Older generations in my family planted carefully selected fruit trees in the 1970s and ā80s and ā90s and somehow Iām still harvesting them all these years later. šĀ
š·A surprising gardening hack is planting bulbs/corms/tubers. Itās like a huge weird seed that already has all the energy it needs to bloom. You can treat them as annuals, pulling up the bulbs for longest stem length, or you can leave the foliage in the ground to photosynthesize and store energy for next yearās show before going dormant. Some come back (and multiply) year after year, some are less reliable. Crocus, tulips, daffodils, lilies, dahlias, gladiolus, etc.
Purchasing
Seeds and bulbs often have enormous bulk discounts, but, somewhat ironically, Costco has the best deals on reasonable quantities Iāve ever seen from a reputable grower. At longfield garden, a two pack of dahlia tubers runs $17-20. But at Costco you can get a longfield garden 8 pack (4 each of two varieties) for $15.
(For spring planted bulbs, look for them before Valentineās Day.)
80 liatris, 4 hardy geraniums, 80 fresias, 14 lilies, 10 phlox for cutting, 6 bleeding hearts, 4 begonias, etc. all $15 each.
Costco also typically has an amazing deal on large resin planters. $15 for 22ā diameter. The only options that come close are either black nursery pots or require hunting at places like TJ Maxx, Ross, Home Goods, etc. in the spring/early summer.
How to grow šŖ“š
If you donāt have a yard, you can still grow things in containers.
Learning š©āš«
šĀ If youāre just starting out with vegetables, I think Iād recommend checking out āThe Vegetable Gardenerās Bible.ā I have it along with a few others from the library, but this one is the best ājust starting outā one; as an example, when talking about raised beds, he assumes that youāll be slicing out some of your lawn, whereas other books (that are more aimed at āmarket gardenersā?) think you might be interested in constructing a mobile chicken coop that you can move 100ft every week to evenly fertilize before the planting season š Ā The other advantage is that he dedicates a couple pages to each likely vegetable or herb you might be interested in growing, giving facts like germination and preferred growing temperatures, trellising, pest management, harvesting, recommended varieties, etc.
For flowers, I recommend Cut Flower Garden from Erin Benzakein at/of Floret, and In Bloom from Clare Nolan. For someone slightly further along in their flower journey, I like A Year Full of Flowers from Sarah Raven (strong UK vibes)āTheyāre all very giftable books with beautiful pictures. Note: the only book Iāve found that contains many pictures of baby seedlings (which can be important if you want to weed without accidentally pulling self-seeded plants, plants disturbed by animals, or just poorly labeled plants) is The Cut Flower Handbook by cool flowers queen Lisa Mason Ziegler.
šļøĀ Keep in mind that there are things to do in the garden basically all year, so the perfect time to start is right now!
For veggies, thereās also an adorable Irish TV show called Grow Cook Eat (streaming on Amazon Prime and YouTube):
And for more general gardening (or just gardening vicariously via the comfort of your couch): Gardenerās World (a British show sometimes streaming on Amazon Prime), and a recently revised tome by Monty Don: The Complete Gardener.
And of course YouTube is a wonderful resource. Though I think there are better places for the basics.* Once youāre thinking about things like āwhat to plant in zone 6b in Augustā or tips on scaling up, I think YouTube makes sense. But even if itās not directly useful, it can be inspiring! (Though use caution wrt whatās realistic for youāyou might get hooked on a YouTuber in a totally different climate or with a totally different budget.)
*Johnnyās is perhaps an exception. Some of their instructional content is delivered in video format, e.g. pinching flower seedlings or choosing flowers to dry (though even those might not necessarily be important for folks just starting out).
My YouTube gardening favorites (skewed towards flowers) š„
- Garden Answer (daily ride-along type content; wholesome, zero stress ā orders of magnitude more popular than any other landscape gardening youtuber)
- The Impatient Gardener (no bulls*** midwesterner with technical chops)
- Northlawn Flower Farm (very mellow and positive)
- Cranery Gardens (whimsical? newbie with an attitude that I begrudgingly(?) find delightful)
- Floret Flower Farm (more highly produced)
- Blossom & Branch (educational, more into sustainability)
and for specific things:
- Olga Carmondy (my favorite rosarian š¹)
- Sheās a Mad Gardener (I love how much preparation she doesādefinitely like sheās giving a mini presentation)
- The Perennial Garden (the Danish(?) guyās calm yet enthusiastic love for the plants is lovely)
- Claudia grows a lot of dahlias and zinnias and does great comparison videos (sheās a combo of landscape + cut flowers)
- Sarah is a farmer florist in the UK, though I think sheās having more success with YouTube than farming at this point, so sheās doing more educational content like interviewing flower farmers.
For ornamental gardening/landscaping, hereās a (very informal) list of other peopleās favorites.
Jim Putnam is generally the most recommended for landscape and general gardening advice:
Iāve bookmarked it to check out the channels that are new to me, both on the list and in the comments.
For growing food, there are a few YouTubers who have content and learnings that are fine (theyāre all kinda learning and sharing as they go), but their style isnāt my favorite (too much like theyāre yelling and overconfident all the time?)
Jared at Vegetable Academy is the best, but doesnāt produce a ton of content (I think he has courses though).
Soil health is key for everything you do, but tending to it requires a whole different set of learning. But maybe the most broad advice I can give is to always have things growing in your soil, or covering/protecting your soil, in order to support Life. The folks at SARE have a guide to cover crops that Iāve found really useful. And Blossom & Branch centers this more than most.
Farmers are innovators. Itās like the startup community but without the ego and ambition, and people are reliably trying to solve their own problems (which is generally the hallmark of a good startup). E.g. this brilliant low tunnel design for extending your growing season without a bunch of hassle:
Or this object that automatically opens vents on your cold frame or greenhouse as it heats up, no electricity required.
And if growing your own vegetables isnāt for you, try joining your local CSA for getting local veggies (or bouquets!) at their peak with less work, while supporting a more diversified food system. If youāre not ready for the commitment, at least try checking out your local farmers market.
Further tips šĀ
Watering š§
Install an automated drip system as soon as youāve settled on your layout. The pieces fit together like legos (you can start with a kit from a hardware store to make sure you have the correct pressure, filters, and backflow prevention) and there are now hose timers that connect to wifi for easy adjustments.
Your plants will appreciate the consistency, theyāll do better without dealing with wet foliage, youāll waste less water, but most importantly, you can leave your plants home alone, and they wonāt suffer.
See also The best drip irrigation tool is a mug
For hand watering, I love my watering canāI found it in the color I wanted at my local garden center (and I have subsequently acquired a smaller 2 liter version for inside watering).
See also Property Management & Maintenance - š¦Ā Irrigation (watering)
Supporting your plants š„¢
Tall or floppy plants will need staking, and itās always best to get support in place before itās needed. Both because itās too late once plants have fallen and because you donāt want to go stabbing around the ground one the roots have grown.
Indeterminate tomatoes produce all summer, but theyāre a vine and would prefer to have vertical support instead of sprawling on the ground. If you have a row of them, t-posts + Florida weave works well as long as youāre around to tie up the new growth. If you only grow a few plants, I highly recommend investing in a very sturdy tall cage system. I have these ones; they have interchangeable parts so I can borrow extra supports from a tomato that doesnāt need the height and donate to a tomato that needs more hoops.
You can also use stakes in an X pattern to hold back flopping plants from walkways. (I use j-hook rebar which I originally got to anchor the ends of the netting or frost cloth I place over hoops.)
Youāll probably want various products for tying plants.
Wire: Soft wire can help you tie plants to structure or even other plants. (I also tried a thick soft one in a deeper (nicer) green, but it cracked after one season of use. The same brand makes a thin one; it worked for light duty (e.g. winding up a column for sweet peas or hyacinth beans to cling to), but broke when I tried to use it to harness a honeysuckle.) The rule is basically: the tie needs to be softer than the plant. So cucumber vines need something more flexible than young trees. But you still need to leave room for growth, and potentially movement.
Flexible tape: not sticky tape, usually stretchy plastic that you tie.
Wraps: the easiest is a product made by velcro, but you can get a similar effect at higher volume with a tape gun.
Protecting your plantsĀ š”
They are at their most vulnerable when they are very young. Be sure to harden off seedlings (slowly acclimating them to the harsh outside world over the course of a week) and consider using row-cover for another week+ to protect from harsh environmental factors as well as many hungry plant predators: mice, insects, rabbits, squirrels, or grazing birds like quail. You can also use makeshift covers, e.g. plastic strawberry baskets from the grocery store, mesh potluck food tents; Iāve even used cocktail and tea strainers overnight.
Once your plants are full-grown, they will still face issues: deer, rabbits, squirrels, and even birds that are drawn to the tender new shoots of things like snap peas. And once your plants are producing buds and fruits, theyāll be even more in-demand, often from hungry animals, but depending on your climate, maybe just thirsty animals: rats, raccoons, even more birds, chipmunks, squirrels, and the predators from early-life as well: mice, rabbits, insects, etc.
When protecting plants, remember that some will need pollinating, so for something like strawberries, you may want to use bird netting, whereas for something like cabbage or lettuce (where you donāt want or need a flower), you can use a mesh or fabric row cover.
But keep in mind that by using a barrier, you are altering the ecosystem. If you end up with aphids under your row cover, you wonāt be able to naturally fight those aphids with lady bugs and other natural predators.
Among other things, this should increase your diligence when it comes to inspecting plants for issues (I have brought aphids in from nursery plants more often than I would like to admit) and also increase the importance of crop rotation (because pests will often overwinter near their host plants).
The best protection Iāve found from grazing birds and squirrels is a kite shaped like a predatory bird. It works wonders as long as thereās a breeze (which is not an issue for my current garden) and the neighbors all love it (which I would not have predicted in advance).
Note: I got mine with a 6m pole, and Iām glad I paid to get the extra 2m of length.
I also got myself a camera that I can (and do) basically put anywhere I want.
Without it, I wouldnāt know what was preying on my seedlings in the middle of the night, and I wouldnāt have had as many delightful nature videos to send to my friends. š
In peak season, Iāve been known to sneak outside at the first motion notification to see how much of a scare I can give a thieving squirrel. š Ā
(At this point I have an unfair advantage in the form of my
)
For this particular camera model: it doesnāt have any ongoing fees, though it doesnāt store anything in the cloud, so if it were stolen, I wouldnāt be able to get footage of the incident unless the perpetrator connected it to wifi without erasing it firstābut for my situation thereās no risk of the perps running off with it. šæļøĀ
I now have a very low powered electric fence running a few inches above the ground on the area of the fence that had the highest traffic. (Itās enough to startle them but not harm them.) I just needed this solar unit (which I found cheap on eBay), a 2ā piece of rebar to use as a stake, a spool of wire, and screws to run along the exterior of my fence posts that I can wrap the wire around.
Protecting yourself (against the sun and heat) āļøĀ
Sun protection becomes a much bigger deal when youāre out in the elements regularly, whether youāre actively working in the garden or just going out to check on your plants.
- The best defense is to only go out in the early morning or evening when the UV index is low (most weather apps will track this for you).
- The next best is to create your own shade for your skin, whether thatās a patio umbrella on casters or a wide-brimmed hat and long pants and a long-sleeved shirt.
I have a recommendation for The Best Sunscreen (for people who hate sunscreen) as well as a hat company that lets you wear your hair up, but I find that the biggest issue with gardening is how difficult it is to protect my hands.
I wear gloves when I can, but some tasks are easiest with bare hands, and even if I start out with sunscreen on them, Iām going to end up washing it off in short order. So Iāve found that the safest thing is for me to wear a sunshirt with thumb holes like in my Advice: If you're thin with long arms, look for sleeves with thumb holes ā because the fabric covers a significant part of my hands and wrists that otherwise get the worst of the sunās rays. (Iāve been laughing recently at how wrong Iāve been in thinking that the tan lines for a farmerās tan are on your upper armsāat least for this farmer, my wrists mark the spot with the highest color and weathering contrast š)
Over the years Iāve also found that my lower back is vulnerable to the sun, especially if Iām out in the fields where I might be crouching a lotāitās like a human sunset back there with layered burns š. Iāve tried a number of things, but the most reliable solution is overalls. I used to wear Carhartt, but have been wearing my āultralight ripstopā Freshley overalls from Dovetail Workwear this summer (and for a lot of the year I favor my āthermalā Freshley overalls even when itās not particularly cold because theyāre so cozy); my Carhartts wouldnāt have worked for me if they didnāt have tall sizes, so you may have to try Zappos or elsewhere to test a couple to find something that works for you (and keep in mind whether you want to wear them solo or if you want to layer them over your regular pants). Two other options for helping with burns from crouching: 1. Try a kneeling pad or The best step-stool (thatās also great for gardening) to sit on. Working on your knees, whether you sit back on your heels or stay more upright can be easier on your body than maintaining a low squat, and sitting can be even better (see the next section on āComfortā below). 2. Try wearing higher-waisted boxer briefs (which I recommend to everyone as an alternative to traditional womenās underwear) and/or higher-waisted bike shorts or pants, along with a shirt that is long and doesnāt cling/ride up, especially once you start getting sweaty.
Speaking of sweating, donāt forget to hydrate. It can be dangerous to replace sweat with too much pure water, so I recommend supplementing with electrolytes. I use 40,000 Volts from Trace Minerals, but it tastes gross, so I just add it to Juice Spritzers. I also use Celtic grey salt when Iām cooking (my blood pressure generally runs low, so I donāt need to watch my salt intake). (A friend recently recommended Normalyte.)
Protecting yourself (against biting insects) š¦Ā
If youāre out at dusk and dawn, itās likely that mosquitos will be too. š£ And I have a couple tips there as well Mosquito shirt and Mosquito bite relief: a tiny heater
I donāt live in tick country, but itās worth keeping that in mind: Tick bite avoidance & tick removal
Cleaning your fingernails š Ā
Even if youāre diligent about wearing gloves, if youāre like me, you are probably still going to get dirt under your fingernails and embedded in your cuticles. There are nail brushes, but I find using my electric toothbrush (with an old head) is very effective while also being very gentle on my fingertips (which are often tender after a long day in the garden).
Comfort š§Ā
New favorite gardening object: foldable knee cushion. Significantly more comfortable than the gorilla grips one recommended by wirecutter (that one is dense, almost like a yoga block). This saves my pants as well as my knees.
(Note: I found these on a list of the most āworth itā gardening purchases that this adorable PNW flower farming couple made)
I also use The best step-stool (thatās also great for gardening) as a little seat which is even better for my knees.
Ready for more? š©āš¾
See also: Plant Learnings