Getting Started Growing Your Own Vegetable and Herb Seedlings

Seedlings are the baby plants you see at the nurseries, ready to be transplanted into your garden. But you might want to grow your own instead. While there are many benefits of starting your own vegetable and herb plants from seeds, there is one BIG reason why you might consider purchasing instead. Here’s the most important considerations for growing seedlings at home.

Benefits to growing your own:

You know exactly how the seedlings were grown. Ensure your plants are grown organically without any toxic chemicals entering your garden. When purchasing ask whether plants have been treated.
You ensure your plants immunity is high for a healthy life. Temperatures and conditions are important to baby plants, and stress at a young age can cause transplant shock or a weak plant that doesn’t yield well. Sometimes you bring home a seedling, plant it, and it dies. And you’re not sure if it’s something you did. But it could just be a plant that wasn’t cared for properly.
You have complete control of when you put plants in the ground. When purchasing transplants, you are relying on what’s available at the stores. And what you want is not always there when you need it. Growing your own means you can plan ahead for your most abundant harvest.
You have access to hundreds of varieties of vegetables. There are so many varieties of mustard greens and tomatoes on the planet that nobody could even tell you how many there are. And that’s true of most vegetables. Choose exciting varieties for flavor, yield, what grows well in your climate.
You save money. Once you get the hang of growing HEALTHY plants and you have all the supplies, you will save money. However, the first few years, planting your own can actually be more expensive than buying transplants. This is the one BIG reason you may want to purchase instead.

Three garden supplies essential to growing your own seedlings

You’ll need 1) growing medium (not soil), 2) containers to put it in, and 3) grow lamps if you’re growing indoors. We’ll focus on containers in this article. But real quick, our favorite growing medium is Fox Farm Ocean Forest, It’s got everything your plants need in one bag, from earthworm castings, bat guano, sea-going fish & crab meal to forest humus and moss. This mix will not disappoint! Click here to get it on Amazon. And here is a bulk order option.

This article is too short to include recipes for making your own mix. A couple key ingredients to include are perlite, vermiculite, peat moss or Canna Coconut Coir and Wiggle Worm – Worm Castings. For small gardens choose the 4.5-pound size. For larger gardens choose the bulk 30-pound option.

This is not a complete list, just some of our favorites to get you started.

Reusable Containers for Starting Vegetable and Herb Seeds

Generally, plastic trays are flimsy and end up in the landfill after just one or two uses. However, one farm is changing all that and helping to redefine our relationship to the Earth. Bootstrap Farmer offers durable trays with a one year warranty against warping and breakage… that’s amazing! Clean trays between use to prevent disease spread.

These are the best, longest lasting trays on the market. And they have different cell sizes available. Get cells for smaller varieties like lettuces here and get larger six cells for your larger transplants like tomatoes and cucumbers here.

Containers You Plant Right in the Ground

Avoiding plastic altogether?, Consider Fertilpots over at Arbico Organics which compost right into your soil. Plant the whole thing in your garden and avoid any transplant shock from handling the plant. Unlike many similar compostable products, they are OMRI listed meaning the ingredients have been tracked as organic. Fertilpots are breathable and help prevent roots from getting root bound, too. However, the downside is that you have to keep buying more.

“Soil Blocking” Eliminates the Need for Containers

Soil blocking is a process where you press your growing medium together into squares that hold together without the need for containers. Once you have the right equipment for this process, you never have to buy containers ever again. However, you do have a higher initial investment to get started.

There are benefits to this method: no cleaning trays, conserving growing medium, and providing optimal root health. The details of how to soil block effectively is the topic of another post. NOTE: You’ll need to mix your own special growing medium (not one that you can buy at a big box store), and a bit of time to get used to the process.

Soil blockers are for anyone who wants to get away from plastic, has a little extra time and money, wants the healthiest seedlings and plans to garden long term.

20 Cell Soil Blockers come in a hand held and stand up versions. The stand up soil blocker is much easier on your wrists, shoulders and back. 4” Soil Blockers are the largest blocker available and are perfect for your larger transplants like tomatoes, gourds, cucumbers, eggplant, etc.

How do you make your garden decisions?

Ultimately, there are many garden choices you will make. Some questions to consider: What do you really have time for? What feels like the best environmental choice for you? And what amount of investment feels good right now? Whatever suits you and your lifestyle is the right choice for you. And that goes for making decisions about seed starting at home, too.

Check out our NEW Garden Freedom Series Micro Course for more information and instruction on successful seed starting. In this course, you’ll find resources for setting clear goals that reflect your values and make gardening everything you need and want it to be…

NOTE: This article contains affiliate links and Grow Your Own Vegetables, LLC may be compensated when you click and purchase through the links above. By purchasing through these links, you’re supporting our mission to help green the planet and create food stable communities across the globe. We only recommend products we LOVE and that help growers on their quest for a fresh food lifestyle.

Cutting Boards for Fresh Food Safety

Food safety practices are important… especially when you start preserving and storing food. You’ve probably heard about sterilizing jars, and cleaning kitchen utensils properly. These are common practices to keep the bad microbes out of our food. But quite often, the one tool that’s overlooked is your cutting board.

When chopping fresh produce, it’s vital to have a cutting board that won’t create biofilms and harbor the kind of bacteria you don’t want to ingest. If you’re preserving your food for later – whether blanching, freezing, canning, drying or fermenting – it’s even more important. Having a good quality cutting board is the foundation for keeping you and your loved ones safe.

Simply put, a good cutting board is the one place you don’t want to skimp on. But what is the safest cutting board?

Plastic, Glass, or Wood?

Many people think that plastic cutting boards are safer than wood. Even the USDA’s Food News for Consumers has recommended plastic over wood cutting boards.

However, more recent studies reveal that plastic is not as safe as we think. According to the study, glass is the superior choice, followed by wood. Glass has a smooth surface, so no gaps to harbor bacteria. The problem with glass cutting boards is that the hard surface is hard on knives and might cause food-slippage accidents. Be careful!

Wood however, does not cause slipping the way glass does and is easier on your knives. Wood also has an antibacterial effect not found in glass or plastic boards that scientists are still trying to understand. What’s more, wood doesn’t require harsh sanitizing the way plastic boards do. Once a plastic surface has been cut into, the grooves can harbor all kinds of bacteria and require sanitizing with harsh chemicals. But as time goes on and more grooves appear, sanitizing your plastic cutting board may become less and less effective.

Sterilizing your wood cutting boards is easy and doesn’t require harsh chemicals. What’s fascinating about this study is that the scientists researching expected to find plastic cutting boards to be safer. Their intention was to discover how to clean wood to increase its safety. So they were quite surprised to discover that wood – specifically well maintained, close-grained hardwood cutting boards – were less prone to contamination.

PRO TIP: Historically, butchers used salt to keep the ‘bad’ smell away. Perhaps they also knew that using the salt kept people healthy, but there’s no record of that. Regardless, they had the right idea. Rinse your cutting board with warm water, sprinkle your cutting board with salt and rub the salt into the board using a lemon cut in half (flesh side down). Let sit for five minutes, rinse and let air dry in a place with good circulation.

What kind of wood is best for your Cutting Board?

According to the study, hardwoods are best. When you think of hardwood, you might think oak, mahogany, or maple. It’s true that these woods are harder than pine, chestnut, cherry, and even walnut. But they aren’t the BEST hardwoods for prepping your ferments, preserves and fresh food. It’s hard to imagine, but these woods are soft in comparison to other hardwoods. One quick look at a Janka chart will reveal just how soft in comparison these woods really are.

The Janka Scale Reveals the Best Wood Choice for Cutting Boards

Wood is measured by its hardness using a process called the Janka scale. This test measures the amount of force required to embed a 0.444″ steel ball into the wood to half of the diameter of the particular wood. Woods with higher ratings are harder than woods with lower ratings.

So for example, Genuine Mahogany measures 800 and English Brown Oak rates at 1360. The scale goes all the way up to 4380! While you don’t need the hardest wood on the planet to safely cut your vegetables for ferments and preserves, it’s a good idea to find something that has at least a 2500 rating. Even though maple is the industry standard (1,450 on the Janka scale), a harder wood will be more scratch and impact resistant, leaving you with a safer cutting board.

Check out this amazing cutting board, the Stella Falone Reversible Cutting Board made of solid West African Crelicam Ebony Wood. Not only is it made from a hardwood measuring at a whopping 3080 on the Janka Scale, but it’s made by a company that harvests ethically, replants what they harvest, and pays stable living wages to workers.

If you’re looking for a more affordable option, these mixed wood cutting boards made with Purpleheart Wood (2520 Janka Scale) are also good options. Here’s a pretty one that could double as a fancy food tray at your next party. It’s a Ziruma Teak and Purpleheart Wood Cheese Board and it’s cured with Organic Beeswax, too.

The Downside of Supremely Hardwood Cutting Boards

Yes it’s true, there’s a downside. The hardwood cutting boards ranked higher on the Janka scale will dull your knives a little faster. But it’s a small price to pay for better protection for your health and well being. Simply choose good quality knives, and sharpen your knives more often.

Ultimately, the cutting board with the least potential for bacterial contamination is glass… but the safest cutting board? Hands down, properly cared for hardwood cutting boards are safer with no slippage plus antibacterial properties. Plus, these beautiful cutting boards can also be a fancy food tray for your parties. Enjoy!

AK, N., CLIVER, D. and KASPAR, C. (1993). Decontamination of Plastic and Wooden Cutting Boards for Kitchen Use. [online] Available at: https://meridian.allenpress.com/jfp/article/57/1/23/195718/Decontamination-of-Plastic-and-Wooden-Cutting [Accessed 7 Mar. 2020].

Delicious Microgreens Recipes!

Welcome to our collection of delicious microgreen recipes! Microgreens are a great way to add freshness, nutrition and flavor to your meals, and with this guide you’ll learn how to incorporate them into various dishes. From a charcuterie board to a nourishing soup and summertime salad, we’ve created these recipes that are easy to prepare and packed with nutrition.

Charcuterie Boards!

These medley boards are an incredibly fun way of eating and an effective way to experiment with contrasting lots of different flavors and textures! With a charcuterie board, you are providing an array of flavors that you can combine in various creative and satisfying ways. You want your board to include the flavors sweet, sour, salty, spicy, bitter, and umami, which will allow you to create nearly endless combinations of flavors and experiences through your board!

For your charcuterie board, fresh or dried fruits, berries, and jams can present sweetness. Sour can be available through pickles, citrus, and vinegars. Cheeses, roasted and salted nuts, and brine-fermented ingredients such as capers or cornichons can provide salt. Bitter is present in ingredients such as microgreens (kale, broccoli, and radish to name a few), olives, or raw and pickled peppers. A spicy microgreen such as radish, jams with ginger, and peppers will give you the option of spice while eating through your charcuterie board! Sliced meats, cheeses, caramelized onions, and dips such as hummus will lend to the savory foundation. Umami is translated from Japanese as a “pleasant, savory taste”, usually being a savory flavor that has a unique depth to its flavor. Umami includes ingredients such as a blue/roquefort cheese, aged or ripened cheese, miso, black garlic, and ferments such as fish sauce or soy sauce.

These ideas are a loose framework of recommendations to help get you started. We can’t emphasize enough how much room there is for experimentation when you’re creating a charcuterie board. It is a powerful way to explore different flavor combinations, so we encourage you to be adventurous on this one!

Roasted Butternut Squash and Poblano Pepper Soup with Olive Oil and Microgreens.

To download or print, access this recipe here.

The crisp flavor and texture of the microgreens balances the rich, roasted flavor of this soup. The pairing of the richness and crisp, refreshing flavor provide a good base of flavors which is rounded out by a squeeze of lime and a drizzle of olive oil.

Melon and Sweet Pepper Salad with Microgreens and Hazelnuts

Microgreens compliment this sweet and slightly savory summer salad because of their refreshingly crisp flavor and texture!

Download or print this recipe here.

Melon and Sweet Pepper Salad with Microgreens and Hazelnuts

We hope you enjoy experimenting with the many flavors and benefits of microgreens. Bon Appétit!

Want to grow your own microgreens at home?

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🌱 Learn alongside seasoned microgreens growers
🌱 Get expert advice from our in-house microgreens expert, Crystal.

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Share how YOU like to enjoy microgreens!

Benefits of Microgreens & Ways to Enjoy Them

Benefits of Microgreens:

There are many foods that we have come to know as superfoods that can often be difficult to access, such as maca, MCT coconut oil, and spirulina. Depending on where and how you live, these can be very difficult to grow, process, and store.

When buying foods like these, they often have a higher price point as well, which presents its own set of challenges. To me, these are some of the factors that make microgreens the absolutely incredible superfood that they are! Microgreens can be produced very simply in your own home, and there are growing numbers and sizes of retailers who provide seed in bulk specifically for this purpose! While you do still need the space to grow in and a short list of materials to start producing your own microgreens, the setup required is quite straightforward. Once you are established, it becomes what is probably the most efficient superfood to produce yourself!

The benefits of access are the beginning of the “super” quality of microgreens. This still leaves the wondrous world of their vast nutritional content! Beyond the high antioxidant content found in microgreens, they are also found to have significantly higher levels of nutrients, such as vitamin E and vitamin C, than the mature versions of the plant. In an article from NPR, author Eliza Barclay shares about a study conducted by Gene Lester, who is the National Program Leader of Nutrition and Food Safety/Quality for the USDA, alongside colleagues from the University of Maryland, College Park, which was published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry. The focus was on analyzing the nutrients in microgreens. They included 25 varieties of microgreens in their sample pool of species while looking at four groups of vitamins and other phytochemicals. What they found means a lot for our understanding of and relationship to microgreens! Their findings showed, ¨leaves from almost all of the microgreens [tested] had four to six times more nutrients than the mature leaves of the same plant.¨ Variation was found from species to species, just as is found in mature species.

Coming from a culinary foundation, it always excites me to use an ingredient with such an acute flavor, unique texture, and high amounts of various nutrients. The search for ingredients which bring a special texture or flavor that both stands out and incorporates well is an unending search. Microgreens meet all these criteria, and they do it in a way where they also provide great variation for you to experiment with and choose from. If you would like to make your dish stand out with flavors reminiscent of traditional Italian recipes, a bitter, slightly-spicy microgreen like radish or mustard goes a long way! Something herbaceous? Basil, fennel, or cilantro! Something refreshing? Peas, celery, cabbage, or parsley fit that in my book. Something with a sweeter, rounded flavor? Beets, arugula, or sunflower!

Uses for Microgreens:

In my six years or so working in restaurants, I watched a number of ingredients skyrocket in reputation in our culture. Foods that many of us had not even heard about a handful of years ago are now popping up all around us from small, local cafes to NPR articles to Michelin star restaurants. These quick rises can often leave us with the basic question of what these foods are, let alone what makes them stand out or how to acquire or prepare them.

This stardom can lead to an unfortunate and unnecessary disconnect from these ingredients; however, we plan to address this by helping people connect with these ingredients! We are excited to share how accessible it can be to use microgreens in a variety of dishes in your own home. Microgreens certainly deserve the fame that has gotten them into Michelin restaurants, and by the same rationale, they deserve to be in your home diet as well!

Microgreens can sometimes be confused with sprouts, but the distinguishers between the two are that microgreens must be grown in a solid medium (soil or soil-free mediums) and usually take somewhere between 7 and 14 days to be ready, whereas sprouts are simply sprouted in water and typically take just two or three days. Microgreens are understood to be higher in fiber, more nutritious, and safer in general than sprouts, as sprouts can sometimes develop harmful bacteria in their humid environment.

As mentioned earlier, microgreens provide a distinct, refreshing flavor and texture in cooked dishes or complimentary in salads or cool dishes. Because of all of these attributes, there is a fairly wide diversity of dishes that I like to use microgreens in. They seem to contribute the most to a dish when they are added at the end to preserve their flavor and crunchy texture. Some of the dishes that I enjoy including microgreens with cheese or charcuterie boards, pasta (mixed in after removing from the heat to keep the microgreens fresh), tomato toast, tacos, on top of curry, or with eggs in the morning. Sometimes cutting microgreens down smaller, sometimes leaving them whole!

I hope you feel more acquainted with microgreens after this! Their benefits and simplicity are the biggest takeaway within this. Don’t be afraid to try adding them to your favorite dish! Whether that be pizza, Tom Kha, nachos, hummus, or sushi!

Brandon Beins
Culinary Educator and Human, Plant, & Soil Health Advocate

“My food journey began in high school when culinary classes brought me into the world of creating food. I continued on to culinary school before completing a two year apprenticeship with a local sushi chef. This apprenticeship was really where

I learned to care for ingredients; how to prepare them in a way that shows them respect. In order to really take care of your ingredients you need to start with the soil. I haven’t had many memorable meals that were prepared with unhealthy produce from depleted soils,and most of the memorable meals from my life were simple meals made from ingredients that had themselves been nourished lovingly and prepared the same way. I believe high quality food can be prepared by anyone, and it starts with the soil.”

More Recipes to Enjoy Your Harvest!
Pizza Sandwiches
3 Fast and Easy Zucchini Recipes + How to Quick Pickle
Delicious Microgreens Recipes

3 Keys to Successful Indoor Seed Starting

Growing your own healthy plants from seed can be tricky. Even expert growers have trouble keeping their seedlings alive and well. Luckily, three simple keys are all you need to focus on.

Discover how to start your plants off right so they thrive. Be sure to stick around to the end for a Bonus Key!

Masterclass on YouTube:

Vegetables & Herb Plants 101: Plant Biology and Lifecycle

Do you have a successful seed story? Please share!

Vegetable & Herb Gardening in Different Growing Climates

Getting to know your local growing climate is one of the first steps to growing a thriving vegetable garden. But there’s a big difference between learning about your climate and feeling limited by your climate.

Your growing climate matters. It determines what veggie varieties you’re going to grow and when you plant and harvest them.You’ve probably heard that vegetables and herbs thrive in an “ideal” temperature range of 50-85 F (10-30 C). But how many places on Earth consistently stay in that ideal range? Not many!

You don’t have to live in ideal conditions to grow lots of food all year long.

There’s no denying great growing conditions help. But once you understand the language of plants and what they want, you can grow vegetables anywhere at any time of year. You just have to get a little creative!

“There are as many creative ways to grow your own vegetables as there are places on this earth” -Stacey Murphy

In this two minute video, Stacey shows you what’s possible if you want to grow food at an unusual time of the year OR in a less than ideal growing climate.

Masterclass on YouTube:

Vegetables & Herb Plants 101: Plant Biology and Lifecycle

What grows best in your climate? Share your creative gardening tips with us!

Meet Martha: Experience More Joy From Your Garden

Big news!

We are just days away from releasing the the Joyful Garden Docuseries. 😉

But first, a fun story from Martha from our Grow Your Own Vegetables community.

She’s retired (with kids) and living in Ontario.

Enjoy meeting Martha as she shares gardening with kids and her experience with a community garden.

“My little granddaughter, even when she was two, she knew where the carrots were and she would go out there and just pull one up and eat it. And they are so much nicer tasting. She has her own little special plot and she grows tomatoes and cucumbers and things she wants to grow. Things taste better and you can just walk out the door and get what you want out of the garden.”

Listening to her story, you’ll experience even more joy for gardening. (I kind of felt like we were two little kids talking about playing outside in the dirt 😜)

Please share in the comments below:
How your garden brings you joy.

Meet Susan and her Life-Changing Garden – Ready for a long HEALTHY life

Susan is a dietician who knows that nutrition is absolutely fundamental to a healthy life. So Susan started gardening right at home… And eventually bought a whole farm to expand what she could grow!

With the new location, Susan and her husband are running into some typical challenges, experiencing new pests and wondering how they can work with their climate better.

Susan shares “To me the soil is the gut of the earth. Just like our guts, it needs to be very diverse in microbes, same thing as us. And the healthier I get the soil, the healthier the plants will be, and the healthier I will be.”

Watch the conversation here for some climate tips (and garden advice from a Dietician!).

Tell us in the comments below:
An ah-ha that inspired you during this video!

Why Water Retention is Important for Our Vegetable Gardening

Water is the life support system of this earth. It’s what makes everything possible. Watch the video below and learn why it is important to us and future generations of vegetable gardeners.

The Earth’s surface is 75% water, similar to our bodies. Some of our organs, like our lungs, are up to 90% water. Without water, we can’t even breathe. Without water, we can’t live.

Our plants are much the same: water is vital. It’s important that we make sure that there is water around for years and years to come. Water retention is about holding water in our landscape systems so that future generations can benefit from those systems and be able to grow food.

The oceans are 97% of the earth’s water. The remaining 3% is fresh water. That means that there’s a very small fraction of water that’s available for us to use to water our vegetable gardens. Of that 3% fresh water, much of it is in a frozen state, in glaciers and ice caps, and some of it is in the groundwater.

There is this little teeny bit, this 1%, that’s accessible surface fresh water. A small part of that is what is available as a means to naturally irrigate our crops. Since a very small percentage of water is actually available to us, we want to conserve as much as possible and be very aware of our water usage.

Now, let’s link water retention and its importance to global warming and climate change. With global warming, we’ve been seeing high temperatures all across the globe in the last couple of years. What’s happening is that the earth is sweating as a response. Basically, when water is in its ice state or in its liquid state, it starts to melt and then it starts to evaporate into the air. That’s what the earth is doing, It’s trying to cool itself off. That’s what we do when we try to cool ourselves off; we sweat. As a response to all of the sweating, more and more water is in the vapor state.

And what does that lead to? It leads to larger storm events like hurricanes. There’s much more vapor in the air creating cloud formations; different currents of vapor create different storm conditions, like tornadoes, etc.

What does this mean for us as vegetable growers? In the future, there will be some changes when we’re gardening. It might not happen all at once, but it’s important for us to understand. Many crops are going to benefit from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations because that’s how they photosynthesize, They will benefit from low levels of warming in areas where it’s cooler. But where temperatures are already high, more warming is going to negatively impact growth and yields. We know that plants stop growing and stop yielding when they start to get above 86 °F (30 °C) hat’s one way in which our gardening is going to shift, these extreme weather events will likely reduce crop yields.

Another negative impact is that weeds, diseases, insects and pests love warmth. These are all increasing with warmer weather. The biggest thing you might notice, and maybe you’ve already noticed where you are located, is that your growing zone may change and your soil may change as a result of changing weather.

These are things to have our eye on. They aren’t going to change overnight, but being able to conserve water and retain as much moisture as we can in our soil will reduce the amount of climate change that is happening. This is our contribution.

Watch Stacey’s Masterclass Trainings FREE on YouTube:

Vegetables & Herb Plants 101: Plant Biology and Lifecycle
Masterclass: 10 Garden Hacks for Small Plot Gardening

Have you noticed shifting weather in your area?
Share how it has impacted your gardening!

How to Measure How Much Sunlight Your Garden Space Gets

Watch the video below and learn how to observe key temperatures in your area and map the sunlight and shadows in your garden space for success!

All plants have ideal growing temperatures. Outside those optimum temperature ranges, plants become less productive, and growth grinds to a halt. Too far outside the zone, plants die. It’s crucial to know what temperatures your plants need and when those temperatures happen in your area!

Your vegetable plants need 6-8 hours of sunlight minimum to thrive. Measuring hours of sunlight and mapping your shadows BEFORE you dig or build your garden beds will ensure your plants’ success.

Download our complimentary shadow mapping template

Once you understand your climate, you can let Mother Nature do the work. She’ll even let you take the credit!

Watch Stacey’s Masterclass Trainings FREE on YouTube:

Vegetables & Herb Plants 101: Plant Biology and Lifecycle
Masterclass: 10 Garden Hacks for Small Plot Gardening

Share what shadow mapping has taught you about your garden space!

How One Ugly Carrot Started the Grow Your Own Vegetables Movement

One ugly carrot changed Stacey Murphy’s life forever. Watch the video or read Stacey’s story below to learn how the seed for Grow Your Own Vegetables first sprouted!

Stacey’s Story:

Years ago, I was working overtime as an architect in New York City. I was working on exciting projects like churches, libraries, and community centers. I had worked my whole life to get where I was, and you would think that I would be ecstatic.

But every day, I was feeling a little bit more disconnected from everything. I felt like a tourist in my own life, like I didn’t belong. And I especially felt disconnected from my food and my body.

I was trying to stay as healthy as I could. But to be honest, I was a little depressed and low energy. Maybe you can relate.

I was grabbing quick, convenient food all the time and rushing right back to my busy day. It was “healthy” food, but it was still convenience food, and I was just grabbing and going without thinking.

On the weekends, I would go to the farmer’s market. I would load up on organic, fresh food. It would keep me happy for a day or two…until I went back to work and forgot about it again.

Then on a crisp day in October, 2008, I bought carrots from one of the local farmers. The carrots were in a bag, and they were covered with a bunch of soil. Who does that? Who sells your food mixed in with a bunch of dirt? It’s so weird, right? Well, this farmer did. He told me that the carrots would stay fresh in the fridge longer and that they would taste sweeter.

The crazy thing is, he was totally right.

These ugly, dirty carrots were a miracle in my mouth. And at that moment, I had a flashback to growing up in my mom’s garden. I was so lucky. She had a gorgeous garden, and I remember discovering carrots underground, digging them up, and pulling them out. Just, “Wow, look at this,” and I ate the carrots before they were even washed. They had little flecks of crunchy soil on them.

How sweet and delicious those carrots from the garden were! As I sampled these carrots in this bag covered in dirt, I remembered my mom’s garden, and I knew that I had to get my hands dirty and start growing some food again.

To this day, I have to tell you, my mom says her memories of her garden are much different than my memories of her garden. She says that my memories are better. She still has this sort of garden shame around what it all looked like, and she was busy being tormented by tomato hornworm caterpillars.

But I saw something different. In my experience as a little kid, her garden was my own private science discovery show. It was full of mysteries to solve. It was where I learned to appreciate the finer things in life. I discovered the exact moment to pick peas for maximum sweetness. I chased butterflies, and I watched new seeds magically emerge from the ground into full-blown plants dripping with fruit. I watched and learned intently, and I asked lots of questions, like all curious kids do.

Years later, there I was, holding this bag of soil and carrots. And I had so many questions for this farmer. I felt so much curiosity about these beautiful-tasting carrots. It was a delightful rediscovery of the feeling of digging up your own carrots.

Suddenly, I felt connected, I felt healthy, and I felt whole again in ways that I hadn’t a long time. And that’s when I knew I was going to grow my own vegetables and herbs. My whole lens on life shifted, and I could never go back to the way life used to be because I had this big realization.

What I realized in that moment is that a garden, it’s not a thing. It’s a lifestyle. But even more than your garden being a lifestyle, it’s a feeling.

It’s not about what you’re actually growing. It’s not about your yield. It’s about who you’re becoming. And that day with the carrots, I suddenly remembered that I was this wild child and a part of nature. I loved the thrill of discovery in the garden. I remembered how great it felt to run barefoot. I wanted that feeling back. I wanted my own private science discovery channel again. I wanted to play in the dirt. I wanted to learn from my favorite teachers: the sun, the soil, the plants, and the insects. Simply making the decision to grow my own food, I already felt connected to the feelings of health, vitality, and most of all, peace.

Watch Stacey’s Masterclass Trainings FREE on YouTube:

10 Tips to Growing Tomatoes… and More of Them!
Vegetables & Herb Plants 101: Plant Biology and Lifecycle
Masterclass: 10 Garden Hacks for Small Plot Gardening
Spirit Gardening Masterclass
Adding Flowers in Your Vegetable Garden

Do you have a favorite vegetable story? Share with us below!

One Crop Rotation Rule to Prevent Diseases in Your Garden

Plan your plants to prevent disease in your garden!

When you’re thinking about what to plant where this year, you should be thinking bigger picture…what crop rotations each year will help you prevent the kinds of diseases that wipe out all your hard work and your harvest.

To help you create a plant plan that works for you, Stacey created this video about how to use crop rotation to prevent 3 of the most common “big nasty diseases” you might see pop up in your garden:

If you would like more in-depth instruction on planning your garden for success, check out our Crop Planning course. It’s a sure fire way to feel more in control of your garden every time you plant.