Hello everyone! This year we really stepped up our gardening game (as many others have during the pandemic)! Because we rent, we are container gardening this year, and we are excited for the potential!
This year we chose to do a variety of veggies and a bunch of flowers, most of which we started from seed! We have beans, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, wildflowers, violas, petunias and geraniums going this year!
For the flowers, we chose to largely utilize recycled containers, so when we weren’t needing a huge budget to expand our garden this year. I also made simple macrame planter to hang the smaller flower containers (inspired by this tutorial).
Here’s some tips we have just from these early days:
– Proper drainage is a must for plants to thrive, too much water causes root rot, either excessive watering or rain can cause it – add plenty of drainage holes to any containers to ensure they don’t get root rot!
– You need to feed your plants to help them grow! Try this granule plant food for initial planting (link) and this water soluble food for later feedings (link)
– Pick plants that need the same amount of sun your yard gets, some plants need all day sun, and if you have a shady yard, they won’t grow to their full potential
– Some plants need to be planted early (think February or March) to give a proper yield at the end of summer – check any seeds for their harvest timelines before planting them!
– When you start your seedlings inside, they need to be “hardened” slowly, introducing them to outside for small periods of time at first, lengthening their time outside a bit at a time, before transplanting them and moving them outside permanently! This ensures your plant doesn’t go into shock and die.
– Enjoy! And don’t forget to ask your fellow gardeners for help if any of your plants seem to be having issues!
What are YOU planting this year? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time,
Amanda Diaries 