If Valentine’s Day turned your heart to love, wine and chocolate, spring may turn your heart to love, food and planning the best garden you can. If you begin your planning and evaluating on the day after the great heart day, your first deadline is right on time.
Table of Contents
The best organic garden has an excellent plan behind it. If this is your first gardening experience, you’ll need to plan first based on the foods you use most often. If you keep good diet records or have a good sense of your general annual menu, you have enough thumbnail information of your actual eating habits to inform your gardening decisions.
You may be surprised to find you use far more onions than other vegetables, or that the amount of squash you ACTUALLY purchased is much, much less than you’ll get by planting very productive plants. For plants like squash, that produces LOTS of squash, if you won’t eat it all are you willing or able to preserve the unused portion or learn to bake different kinds of bread? If not, then limit the number of plants you put in.
Hopefully you have kept records as to the productivity, usefulness and flavor of the foods you planted last year. Practically speaking, you can have the best horseradish in a hundred miles, but if you grew 2 bushels full of it and only actually used 3 plants, you could save your gardening space by planting something more useful. If you didn’t have enough celery, for example, be sure to plant more. If you wanted poppy seeds for someone’s favorite cake, plant some! Keeping track annually of the plants you had, how you enjoyed them, what, if anything was wasted, will help you make better decisions this year.
This record-keeping helps you determine the seeds you have, the seeds you don’t have, and the seeds you want. The productivity and flavor of the plants you’ve had in the past is also an important thing to think about, maybe you can find better seeds and more flavorful foods this year.
Many new gardeners have discovered there are local businesses and families that would LOVE to purchase your extra produce. Local chefs love local produce because it generally has superior flavor, color and texture to vegetables sent across country or from another continent.
Older neighbors usually love home-grown vegetables, especially organic and heritage vegetables, because it reminds them of the flavors of childhood- and many folks haven’t tasted those good vegetables for decades! If you have something heritage, you may have a good clientele among the local seniors.
Your organic garden is only going to be as good as the seeds you plant. If you have a clear idea of the foods you want to grow, and have examined your saved seed stock, you may discover that you are missing some important seeds.
Organic and heritage seeds are important for many reasons. Can you really grow an organic garden with hybridized, non-organic or GMO seeds? Many people don’t think so, and want to begin their garden with the right seeds, the right soil, the right nutrients.
One of my favorite data sources for locating organic and heritage seeds is a database called OMRI (non-affiliated). They have an extensive and searchable database with many sources, and certified organic sources.
Abundant Life Seeds (non-affiliated) is another source of good heritage seeds, different organic varieties you may never have tried, and a beautiful variety of gorgeous flowers.
Google search these great databases. You’ll likely find others.
Late winter to early spring is a great time to re-evaluate last year’s garden, decide your goals for this year’s new garden, and assess which vegetables you want to have this year. Develop your best resources now, to have your starters and plot ready at the right time.
Seed resources may bring new vegetables, new flavors and high nutrition to your organic garden. Be sure to recommend your favorites to all your gardening friends and offer them for sale to your neighbors and local restaurants. Organic and heritage gardening may be more rewarding than you realize.
Most homeowners have probably spent hours looking at the different types of garden seeders. You may have even come across…
When it comes to vehicle lovers, cleaning their cars on a regular basis is essential to maintaining the paint job's…
Gas chainsaws are the perfect tool for a variety of outdoor tasks, including chopping up logs for firewood, clearing brush…
A home can be a daunting project, one that takes some time and energy to maintain. With hard work, determination,…
Today ginger is grown all over tropical and subtropical regions in Asia, in parts of Africa and South America, and…
Onions are one of the most popular vegetables in the world, and growing onions is a snap in the home…