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Garden Advice

10 Beginner Crops

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“To grow your own food gives you a sort of power, and it gives people dignity. You know exactly what you’re eating because you grew it. It’s good, it’s nourishing and you did this for yourself, your family, and your community.” ~Karen Washington

Gardening is a great way to connect with nature and food. It’s good for your body and good for your soul. We hope many of you join us on this journey this season. Here are a few of our favorite beginner crops to get started with.

Basil

Basil is one of our favorite herbs for beginners because it’s easy to grow and delicious. Basil can be started indoors in flats for an earlier harvest, or you can direct seed it once the danger of frost has passed and the soil has warmed. It’s a great companion plant for tomatoes and you can harvest it over a long period. Pruning your basil plants will encourage them to put on more growth.

Shop all of our basil varieties.

Bush Beans

Bush beans are one of the easiest vegetable crops to grow. You can get a decent harvest even in a tiny garden, and sowing a few every three weeks can keep you in a fresh supply of beans throughout the summer. 

Try our Tricolor Bean Mix to get three colors of organic bush snap beans in one packet! The packet includes Provider, Gold Rush, and Royalty Purple Pod.

Visit our Bush Beans Growing Guide for more information or see all our bush beans.

Cherry Tomatoes

Tomatoes are always a favorite in the garden, and cherries are some of the easiest to grow. Cherry tomatoes can be grown in containers or the field. They’re disease resistant, quick to mature, and produce over a long period. You can find cherry tomato varieties in red, pink, yellow, purple, or bi-colored.

Shop all of our cherry tomatoes, or check out our Tomato Growing Guide for more helpful advice.

Cosmos

If you have a small garden, it can be easy to pass over flowers, but we love adding a small patch or two! Flowers help attract beneficial insects, support wildlife, and look beautiful in the garden or as cut flowers.

Cosmos are easy to grow and an excellent choice for beginner flower gardens. They’re a fast-growing annual that will tolerate partial shade, poor soil, and drought once established. If you keep cosmos deadheaded, they produce blooms over a long season. Additionally, some cosmos, C. sulphureus, have edible petals that will add color to summer salads. 

Add a few bright spots to your garden with our selection of cosmos.

Cucumbers

Cucumbers are another crowd favorite that’s an excellent choice for beginners. They’re generally easy to grow and even just a few plants will produce a large harvest. There are two basic types of cucumbers, slicing and pickling. Pickling cucumbers tend to be shorter and fatter and have been bred to hold up better when pickled. However, both pickling cucumbers and slicers can be eaten fresh or pickled. 

You can start cucumbers indoors, but it’s also okay to direct sow them one to two weeks after your last frost. If you’re dealing with a small garden, try growing your cucumbers vertically on a trellis to save space.

For more information, visit our Cucumber Growing Guide or shop all our varieties.

Lettuce

Lettuce is a great cool weather, beginner-friendly crop for spring or fall gardens. We carry a few different types of lettuce, including Romaine, Loose-Leaf, Bibb (Butterhead), and Crisphead and Batavian. 

Romaine forms upright elongated heads and is moderately tolerant of heat and shade. Loose-Leaf doesn’t form heads and is forgiving of poor soils, heat tolerant, and probably the easiest to grow. Bibb forms small loose heads and has soft textured leaves. Crisphead is harder to grow well but is a popular choice. It forms tight heads with crisp leaves and needs a long cool season.

You can sow lettuce in flats indoors and transplant it out or direct sow. If you direct sow, it is typically best to sow a bit thickly and thin seedlings as they grow. You can make a salad of baby greens with the lettuce you thin. 

For more lettuce-growing advice, visit our Lettuce Growing Guide or check out all our varieties.

Peas

Peas are another fast-maturing cool weather beginner crop. Snap peas, snow peas, and shelling (English) peas are all easy to grow and well-suited to spring’s cool temperatures. Direct sow your peas as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring. Be sure to grow them along a trellis or fence.

For more information, read our Pea Growing Guide or shop all peas.

Radishes

Spring salad radishes are one of the first crops we can harvest each year. Like peas, you can sow them as soon as the soil can be worked. They germinate and grow with incredible speed. Some varieties, like Cherry Belle, are ready to harvest in as little as 24 days!

Visit our Radish Growing Guide or shop radishes.

Summer Squash & Zucchini

If you know a gardener, you’ve probably been offered some free summer squash or zucchini before. The productivity of summer squash and zucchini is nearly unmatched. Just a few plants will grow tons of produce; both are outstanding beginner crops. 

Summer squash and zucchini can be direct sown after the danger of frost has passed and the soil has warmed. For tasty, tender squash, harvest them when they’re small. 

Learn more about these crops with our Squash Growing Guide, or shop our summer squash and zucchini.

Zinnias

A standard for cut flower gardens, zinnias are easy to grow, productive, and come in a wide range of colors. These annuals can be sown indoors for extra early blooms of direct sown after your last frost. They’re ideal for cut flowers because the plants will continue to produce when you cut some. Keeping them deadheaded can help extend their season. 

Shop all of our zinnias.

 

Every gardener will experience challenges; it’s part of the joy of growing! These beginner crops can help ensure you have success with vegetables, flowers, and herbs in your first season, even if you don’t think you have a green thumb. 

Garden Advice

How to Prepare Garden Beds

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The weather is starting to feel like spring! While we’re not quite there yet, it is an excellent time to start preparing beds. Before long, we’ll be transplanting cold hardy crops like onions, broccoli, cabbages, and cauliflower and direct sowing peas, parsnips, spring greens, and more. Whether starting from scratch or taking care of an existing garden, follow this guide to prepare garden beds for planting season.

Plan and Mark Out the Bed

New Beds

If you’re starting a new bed, it’s a good idea to start with a plan. You’ll need to consider the dimensions before gathering materials for raised beds. For beds in the ground, I like to use wood or old tent stakes and string to create a layout. This can be especially to ensure you leave enough room for pathways between beds.

Existing Beds

When preparing existing beds, it’s a good time to think about what was planted there last year and what will work well there this year. Proper crop rotation is vital to a healthy garden.

Remove the Vegetation

This is the first step major step in preparing a bed for planting. It’s best to remove the vegetation and complete the following steps when the bed is moist but not wet. Working with soggy soil is more difficult and can lead to compaction. 

New Beds

If you have access to a rototiller, simply tilling in the sod is a common choice. You’ll probably want to till early and then again as new growth comes up. This will help with weed issues down the road. 

If you don’t have a rototiller or don’t want to use one, a common choice for larger beds is to solarize the soil. Stretch clear plastic, like the kind for hoop houses, over the garden bed as tightly as possible and weigh it down. After a few weeks, depending on the weather, this will kill the vegetation. It’s tough, but you can also remove sod by hand with a shovel if necessary.

If you’re building a raised bed, hugelkultur mound, or lasagna garden, you can put down a layer of cardboard that will kill the grass.

Existing Beds

This process should be easier in existing beds. If you’ve planted cover crops into your beds, you can use a scythe or mower to kill them or till them into the soil, depending on the cover crop variety. Many gardens use their cover crop residue as mulch and plant directly into it.

If your beds are weedy, you have different options depending on the size of the beds and weed growth. For smaller beds or those with minimal weed growth, you may want to grow through with a stirrup hoe or similar tool and kill the weeds by hand.  You can also solarize the bed like I mentioned for new beds above or lay down cardboard or newspaper to smother the weeds.

Loosen the Soil

If you’ve just tilled your garden, this step may be unnecessary. However, loosening the soil in no-till gardens or existing beds is a good idea. I like to use a broad fork. Broad forking the soil essentially lifts it without turning it over. It doesn’t destroy beneficial bacteria or fungi like tilling, but it creates space for water and air in the soil and a softer bed for roots to grow into. 

Another option is double digging. This process is hard work, but many gardeners swear by it. To double dig, you remove the layer of topsoil and set it aside. Then break up the layer of subsoil and mix it with organic matter. Finally, you replace the layer of topsoil. Though it’s hard work, all you need is a spade, and it creates great fertile, well-draining soil. Fine Gardening has a more in-depth piece on double-digging available here. 

Amend the Soil

Before planting, you’ll also want to amend your soil as needed. I recommend adding 2 to 3 inches of finished compost to new and existing beds before planting. It adds fertility and improves drainage. 

Ideally, you’ll also have had a soil test done and will know whether your soil needs other amendments. If your soil is too acidic, you may need to add lime or amend for specific nutrients.

Set Up Your Watering System

It’s also important to consider how you will keep your garden watered before planting. Drip irrigation is an increasingly popular choice, even for home gardeners, because it’s highly efficient and less labor intensive. If you’re going to set up a watering system, it’s often easiest to do so before planting. Lay out your drip irrigation or sprinklers and set up timers for a low-maintenance watering plan.

Mulching and Keeping Beds Weed Free

It may seem odd to mulch before planting, but it can save you from weeding later. Add 3 to 4 inches of mulch to your beds to prevent weeds from germinating. Transplants can easily be planted through the mulch, or you can rake it aside to direct seed rows and pull it back once plants get established.

Spring will be here soon! Follow this guide to prepare your garden beds for planting. Stay tuned and follow us on social media for a future post on transplanting or check out our older posts covering the basics of when and how to start seedlings indoors. 

Garden Advice

10 Ways to Start Organic Gardening Now

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We’ve had so many people joining the ranks of organic gardeners in the past couple of years. Folks are becoming interested in where their food comes from, stretching their budgets, becoming concerned for the environment, or just trying to make the tastiest meals. Unfortunately, not everyone concludes that they’d like to start a garden during the spring. When I first read about organic gardening and local food, it was fall, and it was tough to feel like I had to wait all winter to start on this new venture. Thankfully, if you’ve just decided to start organic gardening, you don’t have to wait. Here are 10 ways you can start an organic gardening right now.

Start a Compost Pile

Compost is one of the best ways to build healthy soil, and you can start a compost pile any time of year. Add fall leaves, kitchen scraps, grass clippings, egg shells, and more to your pile. Check out our post, Black Gold, for complete instructions.

Plant Cover Crops

Cover crops are another great way to build up your soil in preparation for a new garden. While it’s too late to plant most vegetable crops, you can still sow a few fall cover crops. Learn more about how and what to grow with our post, Cover Crops for Beginners.

Build a Raised Bed

Raised beds can be easier to manage for new gardeners and allow you to grow food in areas with poor or even no soil. Getting one set up this fall will save you stress in the spring!

Start a Lasagna Garden or Hugelkultur Mound

Another type of garden you can start is a lasagna garden or hugelkultur mound. Both methods allow you to build up your soil and create beds without tilling. Lasagna gardens are made of just a couple of layers. First, you lay down cardboard to kill the grass, followed by a layer of organic material, usually hay, but leaves, grass clippings, and straw can also be incorporated. Then you cover this with several inches of finished compost or manure. The manure will need to break down longer before you can plant.

Hugelkultur mounds are similar but have an additional layer. You begin by laying down woody material such as sticks, branches, or even logs. The larger and fresher the material, the longer it will take to break down. Then you add a layer of nitrogen-rich material like grass clippings or manure to help encourage the woody material to decay. Follow this with a layer of soil and a layer of mulch. Check out our post, How to Build a Hugelkultur Garden Bed, for more information.

Organic Garden (start organic gardening)Get a Soil Test

A soil test is a great place to start for any new gardener and will help you avoid many issues. Healthy plants start with healthy soil, and a test will tell you critical information, like if your soil is too acidic or missing vital nutrients like phosphorus. 

Do Your Research

There’s a lot of information about organic gardening, and while you’ll still make some mistakes, it can be beneficial to learn as much as possible before starting a garden. Some of our favorite resources include:

Plant Garlic & Onions

I said there weren’t many vegetable crops to plant his time of year, but there are a couple! Fall is when we plant our garlic and onions. You can start garlic, multiplier onions, and shallots from sets. Start bulb onions from seed in a cold frame or hoop house to ensure they get plenty of time to bulb up before next summer gets too hot.

Plant Fall Flowers

You can also plant many flowers during the fall. Fall bulbs like tulips, daffodils, crocuses, and oriental lilies are popular choices. You can also sow cold hardy seeds like coneflowers, sweet peas, violas, and Larkspur. Our post, Spring Flowers: Fall Sowing, discusses overwintering flowers.

Begin Collecting Supplies

While you can start an organic garden with almost nothing, a few tools make it much more manageable. Watch yard sales or thrift shops for basic tools like a shovel, watering can, garden fork, and trowel. You can also watch fall sales on hoses and irrigation supplies.

You can also try to score free organic matter for your garden and compost pile. Ask friends and neighbors to save grass clippings or leaves for you. Be sure that these aren’t from lawns sprayed with herbicides!

Plan your seed list early and order early to ensure you get the varieties you want. Thankfully there are many great small seed companies you can support; we have a few of our favorites listed on the website if you are looking for something we don’t carry. 

Check Your Hardiness Zone

Especially if you plan to add perennials to your garden, you’ll want to check on your hardiness zone. You can use this information to purchase perennials like fruit trees that will thrive in your area. 

Don’t wait until spring to start organic gardening. There are many ways to get started this fall that will help you have a productive summer!