Organic Gardening with Minimal Time & Effort

2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide

The Grow Your Own Vegetables Elves have been busy recently. They took a break from the garden and gathered all kinds of garden goodies together for our 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide.

This is the third year that the GYOV Elves have worked tirelessly to create this guide for you to help with the holiday shopping for your garden friends and family—and YOURSELF!! 🎁

You can download your 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide HERE!

This year’s guide is better AND bigger than ever and is filled with items that are sure to work for anyone on your list—no matter where they live—no matter their available space.

Years ago, when you said garden, it conjured images of a plow, tiller, or tractor creating rows and rows of turned dirt on an acre or more of land. However, today so many options exist that allow you to garden pretty well ANYWHERE!

2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide highlights some of these options, which make great gift ideas.

Garden Tower 2

With one Garden Tower 2, you only need 4 square feet of available space—indoors or out—to vertically grow up to 50 plants and vegetables! The tower is great for small patios, balconies, or even rooftops outdoors. Indoors, it’s a great fit for that corner in the kitchen that you’ve never known what to put there.

The 43” tower has multiple planting pockets for easy planting and fast harvesting and rotates 360° for optimized sun exposure and growing in tight spaces. Made in the United States from 100% UV stable food-grade high-purity HDPE plastic, the Garden Tower 2 is backed by a 5-year manufacturer warranty.

Almost any vegetable or herb can be grown in the Garden Tower 2. It is the perfect solution for growing lettuces, kale, chard, peppers, and so much more. Recently named the “World’s Most Advanced Container Garden,” it eliminates weeding, electricity, and most water loss associated with conventional gardening.

See page 12 in the 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide for more information about the Garden Tower 2.

The Farmstand Nook

Looking for another option to grow indoors that allows you to grow anywhere you choose—no sunlight required? The Farmstand Nook is your answer.

With the Farmstand Nook, you can grow up to 20 plants of herbs, greens, and more all year long. The sleek compact design includes integrated LED lights (why no sunlight is required), a water pump for self-watering, and a water-resistant floor mat, allowing you to place it anywhere in your home such as within steps of your kitchen stove.

The specifically designed Grow Sleeves and Grow Cups allow for easy maintenance of your plants. Each Grow Cup features a notch to hang Plant ID labels that contain the name of your plant, the ideal harvest date, and an icon indicating the best location to place the plant on your Farmstand Nook for the best results.

An additional bonus feature of the Farmstand Nook is the included Digital Smart Timer, which allows you to automate and remotely update the watering and lighting systems through the Farmstand Nook’s app. This means that you can go on vacation, and your plants will continue to thrive during your absence.

See page 9 in the 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide for more information about the Farmstand Nook.

RailScape Plant Clips

The RailScape Plant Clips quickly and easily turn your railing—inside or out—into a floating vertical garden. They are tool-free and super easy to install. In addition, they are also wind-resistant, forward tilt-proof, and rust-resistant, making these clips a perfect solution to garden on a small balcony.

With two different size options, the RailScape Plant Clips work on metal, wood, or vinyl rail posts. The clips are capable of supporting up to 15 lbs at any elevation (up to 25 lbs at the foot of the railing) and hold pots that are 9-10” in width. Turn any railing in your home into a beautiful healthy vegetable or herb garden with the RailScape Plant Clips.

See page 12 in the 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide for more information about the RailScape Plant Clips.

Vivosun Grow Tents

Do you not have any outdoor space available for gardening but maybe have a free room or garage available indoors? Vivosun Grow Tents are a great solution to be able to still grow fresh vegetables and herbs for your dinner table.

Available in a variety of sizes, the Vivosun Grow Tents allow you to select the size that meets your growing needs and space availability. Their design creates a reliable, stable growing environment that puts you in control of the light, temperature, humidity and soil conditions. With multiple chambers, you can keep your delicate seedlings separate.

See page 8 in the 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide for more information about Grow Tents.

Raised Bed Grow Bags

The Raised Bed Grow Bags from Bootstrap Farmer are perfect for your growing needs. If you live in an area with less-than-quality soil or are renting your place and not allowed to do a traditional garden, these Grow Bags are a cost-effective alternative.

Made from food-safe recycled plastic and felt, the Grow Bags should last three years under normal environmental conditions, making them a great temporary garden solution. The Grow Bags—available in 100-gallon and 200-gallon sizes—have reinforced handles to make transport easy and are designed to prevent heat build-up, drain excess water, and allow soil aeration.

See page 6 in the 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide for more information about the Raised Bed Grow Bags.

Walk-In Greenhouse

Looking for an option to garden all year round? A quality Walk-In Greenhouse allows for a longer growing season, no matter where you live. Tractor Supply offers a high-quality 6’ x 12’ Walk-In Greenhouse for a great price. This item creates an internal environment that provides a productive growing location for any vegetable or herb that you want to grow.

With a durable aluminum, rust-resistant frame, this Walk-In Greenhouse is wind resistant up to 30mph. Polycarbonate panels diffuse sunlight, eliminating the risk of plant burn and shade areas. It includes two large adjustable vents so that you can give the plants inside ventilation for longer growing into the season.

See page 9 in the 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide for more information about the 6′ x 12′ Walk-In Greenhouse.

Athena Rain Barrel

Now that you have found the right solution for you to grow fresh vegetables and herbs indoors or outdoors, you need a great way to provide the water that your plants need. The Athena Rain Barrel is a great way to collect rain in style and have water at the ready when you need it without increasing your utility bill.

This beautifully designed and durable rain barrel is made from resin and withstands harsh temperature changes. The Athena Rain Barrel will not chip or fade, and the quality brass spigot allows easy access to the water contained within the 50 gallon barrel.

With the Athena Rain Barrel, you have water for your growing plants while also helping the environment. The barrel comes with a two year manufacturer warranty.

See page 3 in the 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide for more information about the Athena Rain Barrel.

Handwoven Cotton Macrame Hanging Chair

After setting up your alternative growing solution, it’s time to relax. A Macrame Hanging Chair is a great way to set back and enjoy the fruits—or veggies—of your labor.

The chair is made from handwoven cotton in a pale pretty color that blends with any decor. The base is 26” in diameter and has a weight capacity of 250 lbs.

See page 4 in the 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide for more information about the Macrame Hanging Chair.

These are just a few of the many great gift ideas in the 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide. Don’t wait to download your copy and start shopping for all your garden loving friends and family. Any of the items can be ordered and shipped directly to the receiver, if they don’t live close by.

In addition, you will find all Grow Your Own Vegetables courses in the gift guide on sale through the end of the year. Our garden courses make a great gift for those garden friends and family far away because you simply provide us with their name and email, and we take care of the rest. It’s a gift whose value in near-ending!

It’s definitely holiday 🌿 thyme in the garden!

Download your 2023 Holiday Garden Gift Guide Today!

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.

Season Extension Basics

When we think of gardening, it’s common to conjure up images of summer and all those juicy summer crops we love so much. However, these images prevent us from realizing a year-round garden. The reality is that there are people who live in climates where it’s freezing much of the year but successfully grow during much of that time. It takes a little infrastructure, but you can have fresh food throughout the cold months. Start here with season extension basics.

What is Season Extension?

Simply put, season extension describes methods you can use to extend the season. It’s not limited to winter gardening. A walipini, for example, is an underground greenhouse designed to protect crops from intense heat. For this article, though, we are focusing on season extension methods typically used to grow crops through colder climates.

Different Types of Cold Season Extension

The most common forms of winter protection—besides greenhouses—are cold frames, row cover, low tunnels, and high tunnels. Cold frames are either a raised bed or set in the ground. What makes these spaces a cold frame is the clear lid that angles towards the sun covering the growing area. High tunnels (also referred to as hoop houses), low tunnels, & row covers are half-circle, tunnel-like structures covered with crop protective material.

High tunnels are sized so that multiple beds fit underneath and are usually tall enough to walk through. Low tunnels are tunnel structures that cover a single bed and typically range from two to four feet high. Row cover tunnels are tunnels that cover just a single row in a bed.

Coverings

In greenhouse construction, the clear materials used to cover the greenhouse are typically glass or polycarbonate hard plastics and referred to as glazes. Cold frames are typically raised beds, made of wood, sometimes insulated, and topped with an angled glass or plexi-glass.

For hoop houses of all sizes, the materials used to cover the hoop house area are generally known as coverings. These coverings are either agricultural fabric or flexible plastic and come in different thicknesses. The thicker the covering, the more protection. But thicker does not necessarily mean better. The thicker the covering, the less light your plants receive. So ideally, you want to make sure that your greenhouse is in an area that will get 8-10 hours of sunlight so your plants don’t lose too much sunlight from whatever covering you have on your hoop house.

The type of season extension you’ll need depends on how cold your winter temperatures get. If you have mild winters and you want to grow just cold hardy crops, you might only need a row cover with a light agricultural fabric covering. If you live in a climate with a harsh winter, you might choose a row cover with a thick agricultural fabric and a low tunnel or hoop house with a medium to thick flexible plastic covering. There’s so much more to season extension that you’ll want to know before finalizing your infrastructure plans, but these season extension basics can get you started on your winter garden journey.

Want to discover more about season extension and learn how to grow a winter garden? Check out the Winter Gardening Course.

The Best Growing Trays for Microgreen Success

Microgreens are a great crop for so many growers. Whether you’re looking to supplement your vegetable garden, wanting to add fresh veggies to your plate in the winter months, or growing indoors because you don’t have outside gardening space, microgreens are a fun and easy crop to grow. But finding a good microgreen tray can be challenging.

How to Choose a Good Microgreen Tray

A good microgreen tray should be food safe, have drainage holes, be non-porous, not be biodegradable, and be sustainable. In addition to the list above, it’s really helpful if all your microgreen trays are the exact same size and fit perfectly in your drainage tray below so no space is wasted and you can maximize your harvests.

“Too often I see students growing in trays that aren’t safe to grow food in or trays that don’t support microgreen growth. A good microgreen tray set up can mean the difference between a healthy harvest or a failed batch.” – Crystal Meserole, Commercial Microgreen Grower.

The Micro-Dream Tray

Recommended by commercial microgreen grower, Crystal Meserole, these trays are truly one of a kind! So many of the trays on the market are downright junk and you’ll be lucky if you get two plantings from them. Not these trays! Meet the most amazing microgreen tray on the market.

A perfect size for the home grower, these 5×5 inch trays are listed on their site as ‘Ultra-Durable, Top-Quality BPA Free Plastic Trays…Will last multiple seasons’. This is a serious understatement!

“I bought a batch of 800 of these microgreen trays 5 years ago. After 5 years, I still have most of them in near perfect condition. They’ve been in and out of kitchens, gone through dozens of wash and sanitize cycles, and just as many plantings. These trays are the most superior trays on the market.” – Crystal Meserole

Because these trays are all uniform, you can hone in on the seed amount you need for each planting. No more winging the amount or having to measure different amounts for different sized trays.
While the taller 5×5’s are best for larger rooted greens such as pea, nasturtium, and sunflower shoots, their shallow 5×5 mesh trays are best for small rooted crops like broccoli, kale, amaranth, and more. Don’t let the mesh fool you, these shallow trays are equally durable.

These extra strength 5×5 trays (called 801 inserts in the commercial world) are made of heavy-duty, BPA- free, FDA-grade, polypropylene plastic and guaranteed not to warp or break.

“These trays are so easy to use and clean. I can’t imagine growing my microgreens without them.” – Crystal Meserole

Perfect for Multiple Varieties

Not only are these trays safe and durable, they’re great for anyone wanting variety! Fitting eight 5×5 trays to one 1020 flat, these trays reduce environmental waste, AND save you money.

The design provides better drainage than competing trays, saving you even more with reduced crop loss. As an added bonus, they can be run through most dishwasher cycles with no problem. Say goodbye to flimsy non-sustainable trays for good with Bootstrap Farmers’ superior quality 5×5 Microgreen Trays.

In addition to your 5×5 trays with drainage holes, you’re going to want a flat with no holes to catch water draining out below. Use these for the deeper micro trays and these ones for the shallow mesh trays.

Humidity Domes

Bootstrap farmer also makes a seriously durable dome to fit over the 1020 flats to protect your seeds while they germinate. And the openings in the top allow you to slowly adjust your baby microgreens to your indoor environment.

From safety and durability to maximization of space, Bootstrap Farmer microgreen trays are where it’s at for anyone who wants to grow microgreens as a crop. Whether you’re a home grower or commercial grower, these trays are far superior to anything else we’ve found on the market. See for yourself! Get the 1020 flat and dome starter kit here and the microgreen 5×5’s here.

Share Your Thoughts!

How do you like these microgreen trays?

Exploring Garden Personalities: What Kind of Gardener Are You?

Gardens are like fingerprints—each one unique. For each gardener, their garden reflects their personal gardening values, strengths, and goals. Garden values and strengths are reflected in your garden personality and are at the core of every garden. By understanding your garden personality before you begin your garden each season, you will be able to define the necessary goals needed in order to achieve the success and results you desire. But how do you discover your garden personality?

Garden Personalities: What Are They?

Before you discover your garden personality, you must first understand more about the different garden personalities. Over the years, the gardening experts at Grow Your Own Vegetables have observed that gardeners typically share eight distinct core values. Those eight values are:

Beauty
Education
Enjoyment
Harvest
Health and Wellness
Nature Connection
Physical Activity
Positive Environmental Impact

While most gardeners find all or at least many of these eight values to be important to them, generally, one or two values emerge as the strongest and most important to an individual gardener. Thus, your garden personality—and in turn, the corresponding Garden Hero—is identified.

Beauty: The Garden Artist

Garden Artists appreciate the benefit that is received from the fresh food that their garden provides. However, they value the beauty that the garden brings to their world even more. These gardeners do not necessarily plant foods they want to consume. Instead they plant based upon the look, height, and color of the resulting plants. They consider their garden their masterpiece and want to share the beauty with their friends, family, and community.

Education: The Garden Explorer

As the saying goes, “Never stop learning because life never stops teaching.” This is true of Garden Explorers. They look to their gardens as a source of knowledge and experimentation. Their gardens can be in neat rows or a chaotic mess or anything in between, depending on their ultimate goal. Garden Explorers are generally more interested in the data results from their gardening efforts than the actual food produced.

Enjoyment: The Garden Buddha

Garden Buddhas love everything about their garden, and they love to share their gardens—both in stories and in products. For a Garden Buddha, their garden is about the peace, relaxation, and comfort that they receive from being in it. They typically do not have much in the way of an actual garden plan or design other than a peaceful place to escape the stresses of everyday life.

Harvest: The Garden Chef

Which is more important—how much you grow or how good it tastes? The answer is both, if you are a Garden Chef. They want to maximize their time, space, and results. While Garden Chefs also enjoy gardening, they are more about the results—quantity and quality.

Health and Wellness: The Garden Alchemist

Ludwig Feuerbach, a 19th century philosopher, said, “We are what we eat.” Garden Alchemists follow this same belief. They recognize the health advantages in understanding what they eat and study to understand the full benefits of each food they grow and consume. A Garden Alchemist tends to have a large garden as well as lots of variety within it.

Nature Connection: The Garden Sage

A Garden Sage views his gardens as a source of knowledge, much like a Garden Explorer. However, unlike the Garden Explorer, a Garden Sage is not concerned with experiments and data. Instead for them, it is about personal observation and making a connection to all parts of their garden, including the weeds, bugs, and dirt. Garden Sages allow nature to take its own path in deciding how and where things grow.

Physical Activity: The Garden Ninja

The physical activity of garden work is what Garden Ninjas value. This includes viewing physical activity from both ends of the spectrum. Their focus can be about how to achieve more with less physical exertion or about how to achieve the most physical fitness from their garden work. Both types of Garden Ninjas work to achieve a bountiful harvest.

Positive Environmental Impact: The Garden Activist

While having a garden is part of a green lifestyle for all gardeners, Garden Activists value this part of gardening above all else. They are serious about making an environmental impact through their actions and strive to be an inspiration to those around them. Garden Activists love the fresh nutritious food achieved in their garden harvests, but they also want to ensure that they leave the area around them in a better place for future generations.

Garden Personalities: Which One Are You?

Your garden is an expression of your values, strengths, and goals. Whether you’re a Garden Artist or a Garden Activist, your garden tells a unique story about who you are as a gardener. Embrace your garden personality for it is a reflection of your connection to the natural world and what you hold most dear.

To find out more about the different garden personalities as well as how to discover your individual garden personality, Grow Your Own Vegetables created a handy free downloadable eGuide that outlines how to identify your values and the garden goals that align with those values. You can download your free copy HERE. Your garden personality may change over time or maybe even change every year. Use this eGuide at the beginning of each season to re-evaluate in order to naturally cultivate a mindset of success and to help you continually embrace your inner Garden Hero.

Once you have discovered your garden personality, be sure to check out the merchandise available in the Grow Your Own Vegetables’ Online Shop featuring the different Garden Hero personas.

Microgreen Garden… indoors, fast, & DELICIOUS!

Do you have limited TIME and SPACE but want to grow fresh food? You can still grow! Learn to grow your own microgreens. The healthy fast food with flavors galore!

Check out two of my students who are are busting the myth that you need a lot of time and space to enjoy homegrown food. It’s just not true!

Even if you only have a closet or a few shelves, you can get TONS of fresh, flavorful greens on your plate.

Try the nutty flavor sunflower shoots in your next salad, spice up your soup with purple radish microgreens, or add a sprinkle of fennel atop your favorite meat dish—the flavors are truly endless!

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The best part about growing microgreens? It takes just a few minutes each day! You could have a non-stop supply of fresh greens, if you grow your own microgreens. 😉

A lot of people wonder what you can grow as a microgreen. They’re unsure about what plants can be eaten as a microgreen. An easy general rule of thumb is that if you can eat the leaves of that crop, then you can eat it as a microgreen. There are hundreds of possibilities.

What’s more is that there are endless ways to use microgreens. From adding a bit of tart to your salad with red veined sorrel, dusting your pasta with that fresh micro basil (because we all know dried basil just doesn’t cut it!), or adding a handful of that cilantro kick to your southwestern soup, microgreens are one of the most versatile crops you can grow.

Want to try your hand at growing microgreens?

Get Your Complimentary Guide to Growing 6 Easy-to-Grow Microgreen Varieties

Share how YOU like to use your Microgreens!

Make Gardening a Lifestyle, Not a Chore

It’s common for growers to get into gardening and get bogged down. When the garden isn’t providing you the healthy, vital lifestyle you want and your garden isn’t giving you the healthy harvest you’re looking for, it can often feel like an uphill battle just to get food on your plate! But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can make gardening a lifestyle, NOT a chore.

That’s why we created the 3 Scientifically Proven Strategies for an Abundant Vegetable and Herb Garden Masterclass.

One of the strategies covered in the class is about a process our founder Stacey Murphy uses called the Circle of Awesome. It integrates gardening into your lifestyle a little bit at a time. So instead of scheduling tons of time whenever you can ‘get to it’ to complete garden tasks, you’ll be setting a little bit of time aside more often so that your garden isn’t a project but rather a lifestyle that becomes as effortless and automatic as brushing your teeth.

Stacey asks us to consider what we can do right now to feel healthy and vital. What can you do NOW so you can live more of the green lifestyle you want?

The Key is to Feel GREAT!

The key is to feel great about the journey. That’s hard when your garden isn’t giving you the results you wanted! When we feel good and joyful about what we’re doing, the habit is more likely to stick around.

So what can you do? How do you make Gardening a lifestyle, not a chore?

Even if you can’t find the 15-30 minutes each day to be IN your garden, it can be as simple as setting aside just 15 minutes each week for the discovery process of gardening. Just by doing this, you’re going to be more prepared for garden success than you ever thought possible. This is what expert growers do. You get everything ready through learning and planning. That builds your momentum for success so you feel good about your garden journey.

So what is the Circle of Awesome, and how can it transform your garden journey?

The Circle of Awesome

Once a week, you focus on one of the eight topics in the Circle. You can start anywhere. The eight topics are climate, soil and fertility, composting, planting, watering, pruning and trellising, harvesting, and mindset.

You may notice pests, diseases, and weeds are not on the list. That’s because when you focus on health and prevention, you focus on more of what you want. That’s why mindset is so important, and mindset is on the list.

You can pick anywhere in this circle. Since nature is cyclical, it doesn’t matter where you start. Pick anywhere, and you’re going to focus on that category for that week. Then the next week, go to the next topic.

It sounds overly simplified, but it’s very powerful. When you do this, you’ll discover interesting things about your local conditions and how to garden. It’s a way that you can break down all of the garden overwhelm and do a little bit at a time throughout the year, instead of trying to cram it all in during the height of the growing season.

And congrats! Because right now, reading this blog, you’ve already begun!

Gardening is a Lifestyle

Gardening is a lifestyle. It’s not always going to be outside in the garden with your hands in the dirt. It’s writing down your plan. It’s getting the right resources ready. It’s learning a little at a time. The miracle is that when you do this regularly, you’ll discover that your season is much more abundant.

Discover more about the Circle of Awesome and discover the other two strategies that can help you get the thriving garden you want with the 3 Scientifically Proven Strategies for an Abundant Vegetable and Herb Garden Masterclass.

Register for the Complimentary Masterclass HERE

5 Tricks to Get Higher Garden Yields

No one wants wasted space in the garden. Bare soil not only means less fresh food; it’s not good to leave your soil exposed like that. Luckily, there are a ton of ways to get more fresh food on your plate. Here are 5 tricks to get higher garden yields and keep your plants healthier.

First and Foremost, Create A Crop Plan

If you haven’t created a crop plan, you’re going to be randomly sticking plants in the ground and planting seeds. This chaos might feel okay at the beginning of the season, but as the growing weeks proceed, you’re going to be spending a lot of effort wondering what to plant in that empty space. Crop plans are essential to maximizing your fresh food harvests.

Trick #1 – About Those Sun-Kissed Tomatoes

Single stem your indeterminate tomatoes. Single stemming is a process where you trellis your indeterminate tomato varieties and plant them just one foot apart versus the normal 18-24 inches. You’ll keep the lower branches trimmed leaving just one stem on the plant. When the plant begins to flower, you’ll prune all the way up to the first set of flowers. As you harvest those tomatoes, you’ll prune the leaves just above that cluster. The result is that while you’ll have fewer tomatoes per plant, you can get a higher yield overall because you’re planting the plants closer together. Plus, by pruning off all those leaves, you’re protecting your plants from pests and diseases and increasing air flow.

Trick #2 – Why Wait For Giant Hard-To-Work-With Roots

Harvest roots at smaller stages. The longer you leave a plant in the ground, the more potential that crop has to get a pest or disease. Not only will you lose less food to pests and diseases, but you can plant closer together than typical spacing. Forget planting beets 4-6 inches apart and harvesting them at 60 days when they’re gigantic and hard to work with, getting stains all over the counter. Harvest them at day 35-40 when the roots look more like the size of a radish. Then you can plant them just an inch apart and get more successions in before the season ends.

Trick #3 – Abandon Traditional Spacing

Over plant and thin the in-betweens. Lettuce say 😉 you have a lettuce variety that says to space them 10 inches apart. Instead, place a plant every 5 inches. As they grow in, begin harvesting every other baby lettuce in the row. Now, you’ve had a whole row of half lettuces and still have a whole row of full head lettuce coming in!

Trick #4 – How to Plant Cool Season Crops In Summer

Plant cool season crops behind taller crops in summer. Lettuces are a cool season crop. When the heat arrives, the scorching afternoon sun is just too much for them. However, you can get lettuces later into the season by planting your lettuces on the north side of taller crops, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere and planting them on the south side of taller plants, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere. This way, the lettuces get relief from the strong summer sun.

A great crop to choose for the protector plant are those single stem tomatoes because if your lettuces need more shade, you can leave an extra set of leaves on the tomatoes. But if your lettuces need more light, you can prune off more of the tomato leaves.

Trick #5 – Overlap Your Successions

Overlap your successions. A lot of the time gardeners will plant a row of plants, harvest, then plant another row. But this wastes time. Let’s say you’re growing a small variety of radish. These often mature in about 30 days. So you plant your row, but instead of waiting until you harvested that row, in 15 days, you’ll plant another row about 4 to 6 inches next to the original row. That second row will take about 5 days to germinate and another week or two before it starts needing the roots space. About the time that second round of radish needs more root space, you’ll be harvesting the first row, giving the second more root room.

These are just some of the tricks you can use to pack in more plants and get more fresh food harvests from your garden. But none of these tricks will matter if you don’t properly plan your garden with a crop plan.

If you’ve never created a crop plan before, you can learn how in our Beginner Crop Planning Micro Course.

>>> Click HERE to Learn More About the Beginner Crop Planning Micro Course <<<

Garden Apps Sabotage Your Abundance

To create a successful crop plan, the first thing you need to know is that there are as many ways to crop plan as there are stars in our Universe. But garden apps often don’t allow for changing the spacing of plants. Additionally, crop plans need to be tailored to YOUR garden. Your climate, sunlight, orientation of your garden, and a number of other factors need consideration. Because of this, it’s not ideal to rely on garden apps and programs for your crop plan. Garden planning apps may sabotage your abundance and can be very limiting.

How Garden Apps Sabotage Your Abundance

The apps are programmed by web coders, not garden experts. So a lot of the garden knowledge that gets you the abundant harvest you want isn’t incorporated into the app. Because of this, garden apps can be inefficient.

Lack of Climate Considerations

Garden programs often don’t understand your unique climate and can be limited by systems like the US Hardiness Zone map that are not sufficient enough to create a crop plan that maximizes your garden real estate space. For crop planning, you can’t just use the climate data. You have to use your senses and your observations.

So let’s say, for example, that you put your city or town into the app and it spits out your climate data. That’s all well and good, and it might be close, except what if you live on the north side of the mountain or next to a creek in a valley? The climate for your garden might actually be cooler by as much as 5-10 degrees! This makes a huge difference in gardening.

Incomplete Maps

Another possible issue with these apps is that they sometimes use a garden map as a crop plan. These maps are extremely wasteful of garden space because the map only allows you to build one moment of time in your garden. Garden maps are like a single frame of an entire movie. While the garden maps do help you with crop spacing, they can’t show you your garden through time. So you place lettuce in bed 1 in the spring. Then you harvest it, but your map won’t let you put anything else there so it stays empty the rest of the growing season. What you want is the movie, not a single frame. So a crop plan is essential to maximizing harvest yields.

Inflexible Plant Spacing

The biggest potential issue with garden apps is that they typically use a standard spacing of each crop, but spacing will depend on specific varieties and methods of planting. This confines you to always planting your tomatoes 18-24 inches apart. But if you single stem and plant them just 12 inches apart, you will get fewer tomatoes per plant but can get higher yields overall. However, most garden apps are programmed with set spacing.

Diminishes Harvest Yields

This set spacing also doesn’t allow for interplanting, underplanting, and forget about overlapping succession plantings. So, for example, when expert growers plant radish, they’ll often plant them one inch apart in three inch bands. Then halfway through the maturation of the first round of radish, plant another right next to it. That way, by the time the first round is mature enough to harvest, the second planting right next door is just starting to get big enough to need more root space. The first round is then harvested to leave more space for the second round. As the second round is halfway grown, they’ll repeat the process. This overlapping of succession planting breaks the rules of normal plant spacing found in most garden apps.

Prevents Intercropping and Underplanting

And what about underplanting and intercropping? Plants that have different root depths don’t interfere with each other and can be grown super close together. So, for example, I plant lettuce all around my tomatoes. Tomatoes may need to be spaced 18-24 inches from each other, but lettuce roots are very shallow and don’t grow as deep or wide as tomato root systems so they can be planted almost on top of the tomato.

When it comes to crop planning, garden apps will never be as good as you can be. You have a first hand experience of your local conditions. And where applications are bound by rules, humans are creative. As you gain experience in gardening, you will learn which rules can be bent and which ones can be thrown into the compost pile entirely and utilize your unique creative thinking to maximize your harvest yields. When it comes to successful crop planning, you are more suited for the job than any program or application.

Learn how to build your first crop plan

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!

Breathe Easier with AirDoctor

If you find yourself increasingly concerned about the quality of the air that you and your family are breathing, you are certainly not alone. In recent years, a combination of factors—wildfire smoke, viruses, bacteria, allergens, and air pollution—has heightened awareness about the importance of air quality. Thankfully, there are solutions to address these concerns, and one product we wholeheartedly endorse is the AirDoctor air purifier. You can Breathe Easier with AirDoctor. Grow Your Own Vegetables CEO Denise Beins personally has one in her home.

The Growing Concerns

🔥 Wildfires are on the rise

Wildfires have become more frequent and destructive in recent years. National Geographic reports that changing weather patterns, increased heat, and shifts in plant communities have made wildfires more likely to occur and burn more intensely and extensively than in the past. As a result, many regions are now grappling with the harmful effects of wildfire smoke, which can pose serious health risks.

😶‍🌫️ Airborne chemicals and pollutants

Wildfires not only release smoke but also dangerous chemicals and pollutants. For instance, during the devastating Paradise, California fire, smoke carried harmful levels of lead over 150 miles, putting people’s health at risk. These toxic substances can lead to various health problems, including high blood pressure and developmental issues in children.

🤧 Viruses and bacteria

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of indoor air quality. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emphasizes that air purification can be part of a strategy to reduce the risk of airborne transmission of viruses. Air purifiers, such as the AirDoctor, are particularly valuable in situations where increased ventilation with outdoor air isn’t feasible due to climate conditions or high levels of outdoor air pollution.

🌳 Rising pollen levels

Recent years have seen an increase in pollen levels, primarily due to the overabundance of male trees in landscapes. While male trees are easier to grow, they produce more pollen, leading to prolonged pollen seasons. Allergies to airborne allergens like pollen affect millions of Americans, causing upper respiratory tract symptoms and discomfort.

Breathe Easier with AirDoctor

In response to these growing concerns, the AirDoctor air purifier has emerged as a reliable and effective solution. This innovative device is designed to improve indoor air quality, ensuring that you and your family breathe clean, healthy air. Here’s why AirDoctor is the right choice for your family:

✅ Comprehensive filtration: captures as small as 0.003 microns, effectively removing allergens, dust, and even viruses and bacteria from the air

✅ VOC filtration: removes volatile organic compounds (VOCs), making it effective in reducing the harmful effects of airborne chemicals, including those from wildfires and indoor pollutants.

✅ Quiet and energy-efficient: operates quietly and efficiently, ensuring that it doesn’t disrupt your daily activities while consuming minimal energy

✅ Easy to use: designed with a user-friendly interface and simple controls, meaning it is easy to set up and operate

✅ Trusted by experts: recognized by experts in the field of air purification and public health

The AirDoctor is available in four different sizes to meet your specific needs from the AirDoctor 1000 for small bedrooms and offices to the AirDoctor 5500 for professional-grade performance for large spaces such as open concept rooms and rooms with high ceilings.

The air that you and your family breathe has a profound impact on your health. Breathe Easier with AirDoctor. With increasing concerns about air quality due to factors like wildfires, airborne chemicals, viruses, and rising pollen levels, it’s crucial to take action. The AirDoctor air purifier offers a comprehensive solution to these challenges, ensuring that your family can breathe clean and healthy air. Don’t compromise when it comes to your family’s well-being; invest in an AirDoctor and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with breathing clean air. You and your family deserve nothing less.

Find the AirDoctor that works best for your needs!

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