Gardening season is upon us. I get excited to see nurseries starting to fill their shelves with products and seeds for this years gardening season.
Since I’ll be delivering a baby in June, this year I’ll be downsizing and I plan on focusing my efforts on my urban homestead.
I’ll be working on creating an intensive and productive backyard. I have plans for a refined vegetable gardening area, espalier fruit trees, and a chicken run/area specifically for meat.
I’ll share my new garden/homestead sketches with you soon.
This week, I’ll be starting my seeds indoors and hopefully have them outside within a few weeks in a makeshift greenhouse made out of recycled windows.
Just thinking about all of this makes me anxious for Spring and to get my hands in the dirt.
In the meantime, I’d like to share my organic gardening series with you again including a seed starting plan. I’ve since started new methods of my own as I’ve grown with more experience and learned what works best for me.
However, it’s a good starting point for newbie gardeners and as I proceed in this years gardening season, I’ll share my new methods with you as well.
Specifically when it comes to seed transplanting and mixing my own soil.
Also, I’ll be sharing on new topics this year to add to the series. Topics such as companion planting, crop covers, and many posts on how to prevent pests and disease in your garden.
Organic Gardening Series and A Free Seed Starting Plan to Download
Part 1: Ordering Seed Catalogs – List of sources for organic and heirloom seeds.
Part 2: Understanding the differences between Heirloom, Hybrid, GMO, and Organic Seeds
Part 3: Planting Zones, Frost Dates, and Planting Calendars – Important dates on when to start your seeds indoors and when you can safely plant outdoors.
Part 4. Understanding Succession Planting – Careful planning will allow us to grow a succession of plants in the same place throughout the season to maximize the production.
Part 5. Spring Time is Near, It’s Time to Start Those Seedlings
Part 6. How to Grow Seeds Indoors Under Supplemental Lighting
Part 7. Tending your seedlings – How to take care of your seedlings once they’ve sprouted.
Part 8. Methods of Urban Gardening (square foot, raised beds, container )
Part 9. Thinning Your Seedlings
Seed Starting Plan
Below is a seed starting plan you can download to keep track of your new seedlings and when to plant them outside.
You can download the pdf file for free by clicking here.
Are you excited for this years gardening season?
Please share your plans with us for this year or new things you plan on trying. It’s always fun to hear what others are doing to spark new ideas 🙂
I love your Seed Starting Plan. I’m using it for sure. I also can’t wait to get outside and get my garden going. This mild winter has been such a tease! 🙂
Even though this year we will be welcoming our first little one into the family, I’m planning our garden anyway! Really glad to have your Companion Planting and Succession Planting guides handy. I’m using sproutrobot.com for my general planting reminders – you can enter your zip code and get personalized weekly reminders sent direct to your inbox.
Happy gardening!
Gracias! I just had a conversation with a young gardener about saving seeds, permaculture, etc. – this is very timely information…she has lots of ground to plant in, I have a balcony and this year, I’m determined to grow something!!! 🙂
Diana, Our seedling setup looks identical, I had to smile. I wanted to pass along the idea of (organic) straw-bale gardening. Our tomatoes grew 12′ tall last year, just an ideal medium for them. We placed arched trellises from one set of bales to another, creating a lovely arbor. The kids had a ball, such easy pickings (and there’s not much in the way of weeding or watering). The squash loved the bales too. Thank you for your wonderful posts. Lisa
Lisa, straw bale gardening sounds great! I’m definitely going to look into that ;D