It’s springtime, yay! This blog is not a “gardening blog” but gardening does have a lot to do with self-reliance and it can be an inexpensive way to stockpile your own fruits and veggies that you can preserve. I asked on our Facebook page what people want to see on the blog about gardening this year and got a wide variety of responses.

I’m not a gardening guru by any means, so I will be sharing what I’m doing in my garden (and hopefully Julie will share hers as she gets started this year too!). I will try to direct you to good resources along the way so you can see what I’m doing but also have the help you need for whatever your personal gardening goals and concerns are. And now, on to my gardening update for this week.

What am I doing in my garden this week?

Preparing My Garden Beds

This is not what they look like at the start of spring. Not sharing THAT photo 😉 lol. I left a few tomato pants in last winter that I need to rip out. I’m going to make another trip to the dump and get some more beautiful compost. If you want to learn how to build your own boxes like mine, click here for my hubby’s tutorial.

Planting Outside

I could have planted a little earlier than this, but we all know how hard it is to get organized and actually get started on stuff. I have been using the “Planting by Color” eBook that my cousin Emily created and let me tell you, it makes my gardening life SOOO easy. I just flip through my gardening binder and get to the week it is right now. I look at the list of what I’m able to plant each week (either outside, inside, or transplants) and I’ve already got all of my seed packets tucked into sheet protectors in the right week. I have missed some of the weeks by starting this late but it is so easy to see what I can still plant, because it’s listed on each week. LOVE. So this week I am going to get some peas and onions into the ground, and potatoes are coming up soon!

Starting Seeds Inside

Every year I sort of fail at this, but it’s always fun. If you are just getting started gardening, don’t even worry about starting seeds at all. It’s super easy to just go and buy starter plants when the weather is warm enough to plant them. But my obsessive nature does not want to wait that long to get my garden going, so I always start some seeds inside. I got my seeds pretty early, but if you haven’t bought some yet, Burpee is having a sale (Get $5 Off orders over $30 at Burpee.com when you use code START5A now through 3/21). Some of the things I will be starting are my tomatoes and peppers. YUM! According to my planting schedule it’s probably a little late to start broccoli and kale inside but I might try it anyway just for fun. For a cheap way to start seeds inside check out my tutorial on Making Your Own Plant Pots Out of Newspaper.

Planning My Garden
This SOOOO should have been done already. Why does life have to be so busy? When I get my garden plan done I will post it on facebook so everyone can see it. Crossing my fingers that it will get done this week. It’s not too hard, just a matter of thinking it all through.

Helping Julie Make a Plan

Julie is committed to trying to garden this year (she has strange yard space so it will be experimental). You may remember I got her some gardening goods from our Christmas Recap post. We are going to be going through our cousin Emily’s other eBook “Gardening For Beginners” which I gave Julie for Christmas, and making a whole plan for her to go from nothing to thriving garden this year. I’m excited for her to catch the gardening bug. It’s almost as fun as food storage 😉