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I tried various methods to make my garden plan/map for the previous post. I tried drawing, but I realized quite quickly I don't have the skills to make an eye pleasing map. Next I tried MS Paint and realized I need gridlines. My plants were doing the wave in the rows. Next up I tried this program and quickly realized it wasn't up to snuff, but trudged on. This garden plan/map is not up to scale so the measurements might be a wee bit off. I quickly realized designing and

Are you a beginner gardener and it seems a bit daunting? In this post I'll go through everything you need to do to have a successful garden. This post I'll be writing about inground gardening. In later posts I'll go into container gardening and raised bed gardening. Step 1 is finding the perfect spot to have the garden, if you have the perfect spot all ready to go skip down to the other steps. You want to make sure your garden gets a lot of sunlight, at least 6 or more h

Spacing vegetables adequately is important due to preventing crowding, diseases, adequate air flow, and support healthy growth. Spacing plants too close together will mean decreased yields. Spacing is also important with container gardening. I often have to tell people putting 3 indeterminate tomato plants in a 24" pot is a very bad idea. Also crowding pots and not allowing air flow means diseases might start happening. Every vegetable plant has it's own requirement. W

Having a plan either in life or in the garden makes things easier. It gets you from point a to point b or point z much easier. It can also minimize surprises, like planting 10 zucchini plants and almost filling your bathroom with zucchinis (for my market garden I only plant 10-15 plants and it's plenty for my markets). So what should you consider when making a garden? Where are you going to plant? Containers, raised beds, or in the ground. Soil. I will go into more deta

How to start seeds indoors. How can you be successful in starting seeds inside.

What equipment do you need to start seeds indoors?

An older post from 2021 detailing how I garden and the challenges I face.

Stratification is simply tricking seeds into growing/germinating, in simple terms. It is creating an artificial winter and than creating an artificial spring. Some seeds need to be cold for a few weeks to months before they will germinate. A way to mimic winter is to put seeds into the fridge and than growing them under grow lights before moving them outside. "The seeds of many native plants have built-in dormancy mechanisms that protect them from germinating before killi

Some seeds need to be started indoors and some can be direct seeded in the garden. If you don't have an indoor plant room or don't care to start seeds indoors LP Farm Store sells a wide range of plants . Direct seed, these seeds go straight into the garden: Beans Beets Carrots Sweet Corn Kohlrabi Parsnips Peas Dill Cilantro Radish Rutabaga Peas Potatoes Swiss Chard Start indoors or buy plants: Sweet and hot peppers Broccoli/Cauliflower Cabbage Celery Eggplant Onions Tomatoe

How do you efficiently store seeds? How do you protect them from the elements?

Some seed packets have a wealth of information on them and some seed packets are bare bones. What does all the wording and numbers on the seed package mean? The year is when the seeds were packaged. 2020 means it was packaged last year. The yellow box contains information on planting. A tip for planting seeds is to plant two times the width, or diameter, of the seed. For super fine seeds like oregano and thyme I cover with just a dusting of soil. Days to maturity is when

This is an older post from 2021 on what seed companies LP Farm Store use to order from.