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Garden · May 27, 2022

Garden Prep Guide for Beginners: Get Ready to Grow

There’s nothing better than harvesting homegrown food and flowers. Even better is getting multiple successions of plants from your garden. If only there were an easier way to start your growing season off early enough for succession harvesting…

You’re in luck! There are all sorts of ways to get a head start on the growing season and to get the best germination rate among your seedlings. Even if you aren’t looking to succession harvest, you can use these tips to grow your seeds to seedlings before it’s time to get planting.

The first thing you want to do before planting anything is to make sense of your space to grow in.

The best way to ensure your garden is weed-free is to tear out everything that isn’t a winter ground cover as soon as the soil is workable. Then it will be easier to keep track of the weeds that pop up from week to week without having to fight established root systems next to your new plants.

If you are planting in containers, be sure that all organic material is pulled and that your soil is well-fertilized. This will keep your plants happy as they don’t have to compete with weeds for resources.

Aeration:

Aerating the soil in a garden is key for healthy root growth and is particularly helpful with growing root vegetables like potatoes and carrots. Once every couple of years we will pull out the rototiller but most years we just overturn the soil in each of the raised beds. This breaks up the soil and turns it over as a rototiller would, so stays aerated for a while.

Growing groundcover plants in the off-season can help keep down weeds and continue the growing cycle with roots breaking up the soil. Having ground cover has helped immensely in balancing our soil, though it cannot prevent weeds completely.

You can get a head start on weeding by turning your soil as soon as it is workable. It is still necessary to weed the garden as warmer weather takes over, but turning over the soil has always helped to break up what has settled over winter. I have also noticed that the beds we don’t disturb will have more weeds later on in the season.

Composting:

Adding compost to your garden space is a natural alternative to using potent commercial fertilizers. A spinning composter is helpful for families looking to get started with composting their food waste. If you are looking to compost your yard waste too, a compost pile may be better for large quantities of green matter.

Adding compost is not necessary for every garden bed every year that you choose to grow. Some plants are heavier ‘feeders’ than others, meaning they use more of the nutrients in the soil they are growing in. Potatoes, tomatoes, and sunflowers. Replenishing the nutrients once part-way through the growing season and once during the off-season to help with groundcover plants.

Compost can be turned over throughout the soil or buried in a layer under the topsoil. Once your compost begins resembling soil, you can transfer it to your garden and clean out your composter.

When the soil is properly aerated and you know it is nutrient-dense, you can begin planting.

Consider how hardy your plants are and if they will require full sun, part shade, or full shade. If you are looking to start growing your seedlings earlier in the season but do not have space indoors, try this hassle-free hack to sowing seeds while there’s still frost on the ground.

Looking for more content to grow your green thumb?

Follow along with my garden bed prep and how I plan my garden under the Gardening highlight on Instagram. This gets updated each year, so be sure to check it out before the new growing season begins! If you’re visiting at the beginning of the season, the TUO Pinterest page might do you more good. Here you can find tons of photos of my garden as it progresses through the seasons via the Garden Inspiration board.

Posted By: byshannonamos@gmail.com · In: Garden

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Comments

  1. נערות ליווי israel-lady.co.il says

    August 1, 2022 at 9:52 pm

    I wanted to thank you for this excellent read!! I definitely loved every little bit of it. I have got you book-marked to look at new stuff you post

    Reply
    • byshannonamos@gmail.com says

      August 4, 2022 at 1:29 am

      I’m happy to hear you enjoyed the post! Feel free to share any gardening topics you look forward to reading more about.

      Reply

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Who remembers these journals? They were the very f Who remembers these journals? They were the very first product I ever made with my TUO photography on it and I still have a couple leftover 💕 I of course kept one for myself and have since filled it almost halfway full of journal entries straight from the heart

What would you use this journal for?
Alright y’all, who’s ready for my Italian herb Alright y’all, who’s ready for my Italian herb cracker recipe?! 🙋🏻‍♀️ I made these for our trip to Deep Creek as we always stop by @fireflymarketdeepcreek and they made the perfect base for all the different flavors we got 🤤

I’m in the final stages of getting this posted, so keep an eye out!
I’ve been considering an update to last year’s I’ve been considering an update to last year’s post on fall earring inspiration… these definitely need to make it on there!
There’s always something to admire in the space There’s always something to admire in the space around us. This little guy was happy buzzing around (quite loudly) while I washed my car and I couldn’t help but watch him for a while. If you’re lucky, you can catch them leaping from one flower to the next, letting their wings dance around in the wind rather than putting them to work.
In case you didn’t know, the Untamed Optimist is In case you didn’t know, the Untamed Optimist is 7 years old as of August 2023 and I couldn’t be more proud of where it’s come in all these years. I know it’s been pushed to the back burner recently as my other business has picked up, but I can’t wait to make more TUO content for you in the coming weeks ☺️ thank you for sticking with me all this time, and get ready for new posts by #theuntamedoptimist coming soon!

I’m definitely sharing my Italian herb cracker recipe with you cause it was just too damn good not to, and I’ve got a few new ideas brewing for my local readers 😉 you’ll have to stay tuned for that one though!
There’s something so special about the wildflowe There’s something so special about the wildflowers that pop up around our garden spaces. The ones that are planted by the birds and cultivated by only Mother Nature’s touch.

Some might consider them weeds, but I know they serve a purpose. Take a moment to appreciate the ‘weeds’ in your yard today.
Our Hostas are blooming and I’m feeling grateful Our Hostas are blooming and I’m feeling grateful for the long lasting blooms we get this time of year. I made a point to scatter the Hostas around the garden beds earlier this season in an effort to do two things:

Toward the end of last summer, the hostas had completely outgrown their space and weren’t living up to their potential. Dividing them filled the otherwise empty spaces in our beds whilst allowing each individual plant to grow bigger to fill it in.

While the largest section of Hostas wasn’t quite as showy as last year, our garden is already fuller and will only fill in more as the years go on. Turns out, plants and people aren’t so different if you think about it 🤔
It’s important to be present in each moment as i It’s important to be present in each moment as it comes. I try to remember this as often as I can and my garden is often the best reminder.

Each bloom changes day by day. The colors and conditions are always a sight to see and I don’t think I’ll ever not look forward to it. Nothing beats an evening stroll during harvest season.

Ask yourself, how do you ground yourself in the present? There are more opportunities than you may expect.
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