So you can use me as an example, just because I wasn’t able to do what I had hoped I could do, I was still able to have somewhat of a success with my garden, and I will have more than NOTHING. You just can’t give up. If everything feels overwhelming take BabySteps and do it at your own pace. As long as you are progressing you are achieving success! I won’t have lots of tomatoes and cucumbers to can this year, but I am still planning to buy some peaches and apples so at least I can get a little of my canning itch to be satisfied

How is your garden coming along this year? Share your successes and failures in the comments below! And don’t be ashamed, at least your garden can’t look worse than MINE!

p.s. If you can’t get ANY sort of garden this year, all is not lost. You can still achieve success by getting some fresh veggies from friends or family, or even buying it from the corner stands or a farmer’s market. Julie has a story and recipe to share about that that she will be posting soon as well!

How to Make Your Own Plant Pots – Video

How to Make Your Own Plant Pots – Instructions

1. Take a single full sheet of black and white newspaper (color paper can have chemicals that may leach into your soil so it’s best to avoid it).
2. Fold the paper on its seam. Fold in half one more time. If your paper is larger in size you may have to fold it once more. Make a good crease on folds.
3. Take a glass and place it on its edge halfway onto the newspaper. Wrap the newspaper tightly around the glass and then shove all the edges down inside the glass.
4. Pull the newspaper off of the glass. Take the inside edges that you had previously folded into the glass and unfold them a bit to make the base of the pot. Press them down hard (you can use the base of your glass to really get it sealed down in there.
5. Transplant (or plant) your seeding into the newspaper pot with some good potting soil and place it in a tray and put it into direct sunlight. I use a little indoor greenhouse I found online.
6. When ready to move the plants into your garden simply remove the newspaper and place the plant in your garden.

p.s. The author of our sister site EverydayFoodStorage.NET just announced an awesome giveaway for her new book “I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage”. Who doesn’t like more free stuff? We are so excited for her new book and think it’s a great companion to our Food Storage Made Easy Binders as she can give you even more ways to use your food storage once you start actually going through our BabySteps.
CHECK OUT HER GIVEAWAY TODAY!!!

• Installing my irrigation system (ok my husband is doing this part, he must really love me). Last fall we installed sprinklers in our whole yard but just left one pipe open for my gardens. So we need to install a drip system that will run all through my vegetable gardens. Hitting Home Depot on Saturday!

  

• Refilling my garden beds with compost. If we can get our truck working I will buy a whole truck bed full. This is only about $40 at our landfill. If the truck is out of commission I will probably just buy a few bags from WalMart. Look how empty and sad my garden beds are!

  

• Purchasing my potting materials. My favorite method of starting seeds indoors is to just use the little jiffy pots and put a few seeds in each pot and make as many pots as I want to have plants. It works great and is super cheap and easy. Once the roots start poking through I transfer them into bigger containers filled with potting soil.

  

• Make my Garden Plan. Every year I move plants around, change up what I plant depending on what we actually ate and canned the previous year. So this week I’ve been obsessing over my plans for this year. I think it will be a GREAT gardening year. I’m really excited to plan my garden based on what I need/want for food storage.
• Replenish my seed supplies. Ok this is the funnest part. I love picking new seeds! My only problem is I very rarely use up all of the seeds in a packet in one year. So I typically only have to buy a few refills and the rest I reuse from year to year. They might not get QUITE as high a germination rate but they still work well for me.

  

• Start some of my seeds indoors! I’ve been following the website of my cousin Emily at mysquarefootgarden.net and she has come up with a GREAT color system for knowing the right time to start planting things based on where you live. I am going through her charts this week and figuring out the things that I’m able to start planting indoors already based on my area’s last frost date. It looks like I can start broccoli, parsley, celery, and hot peppers already! I’m so excited to get cracking. I have this cool little indoor greenhouse I love to use to get my plants going inside. I’ll be bringing it up this week to help out with the new seedlings!

  

How are you all doing on your gardens? Don’t forget to head over to our Food Storage Forum if you want to have lots of great conversation about gardens this year