How to Start Your First Garden: 2 Easy things to do now in January for your 2021 spring garden
It might seem early but if you’re thinking on starting a garden this spring/summer season, now is the time to start planning.
I’m going to suggest two things to do now to give yourself the option to garden this season without making the commitment just yet.
One of the many corners of plants that filled our homestead last year.
For more photos of the kitchen garden and exactly what we planted you can read here
You don’t need to be an expert to start your own backyard garden that can provide inexpensive and accessible fruits and vegetables or beautiful flowers for your family.
Theodora checking her strawberries. I had planned on making homemade jam but she checked the boxes every morning for a snack and if they weren’t to her liking she fed them to our pup, Tuck.
How to Start your First Garden this spring-January Steps:
FIND local or national seed providers you can order your seeds from. Generally speaking, the more local, the better, as plants are more likely to be successful in your area as they have been tried and tested.
4 Seed Companies in Canada -Halifax Seed Company (east coast) -Veseys Seeds (national, east coast) -Annapolis Seeds (east coast) -Us! Tuckamore Homestead (national, east coast) we have one seed we sell right now and it’s our pumpkin seed! Read about our Great Pumpkin Growing Tradition we host every year here. If you’d like to grow your own pumpkin for this fall, now is the time to order your seeds.
2. ORDER a seed catalog from the company if they have one or browse their online catalog for ideas. They will often send you their recent catalog that will have seeds you can order now that will ship to you closer to planting time in the spring. The catalogs will also give snippets of plant info such as how much sun the plant needs during the day, hardiness zone, etc., and those various terms will be a good place to start. What is hardiness zone? What is your hardiness zone? Find out here.
3. BONUS: if your catalog arrives quickly or you have a printer handy and want to print out some of the online site photos, start mapping out your dream garden for fun. You don’t need to commit to this dream garden but it’s a rewarding activity that allows you to start to map out what is to be planted when (spring, summer, or fall), and what will bloom during different the months.
I use our printable calendar to garden plan for the year.
I print out the twelve months and post them up onto our walls in the office for easy viewing. As a bee keeping, I like to see what flowers will be blooming when; can I space my garden flowers out so that something is continuously blooming for them?
That’s it! Find seed companies, order a catalog/browse online, start thinking of what you want. What will you actually eat? What flowers do you enjoy?
If you are comfortable enough, order some seeds now as they do sometimes sell out quickly! There have also been shipping delays due to COVID-19; we usually start planting seeds indoors in March.
Our 2020 Giant Pumpkin! It was so fun to grow our own and to host a little friendly competition with friends and family. We hosted a fall harvest party to celebrate, roast some marshmallows, and see who had the biggest pumpkin of the lot!
It’s January but the promise of fresh summer blooms is just around the corner. I’ll be posting more step by step gardening posts these coming months with short steps to keep you moving toward that spring garden!
Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by today, hope to see you again soon,
-Samantha