garden tips Archives - Grow Your Own Vegetables

Spirit Gardening [Stage 2] How do you “Be Ease”?

Have you ever had a job where it felt like your boss might’ve been looking over your shoulder?

Like they were “just checking in” to make sure you’re working?

When you have a boss like this, it’s easy to pick out work that makes you “look busy”…

(Even when you don’t have any real work to do.)

It may sound strange, but this is relevant to your garden too…

Because many gardeners I’ve met treat their garden like a “job” where they have to constantly stay busy. Or they start to feel like they won’t get their payday of a harvest at the end! They say they HAVE to be working when they’re in the garden.

And they put a lot of pressure on themselves for not doing enough planting, weeding, pruning, watering, harvesting…

Sometimes it can feel like their mantra is “There’s always SOMETHING to do!”

But is it actually true that working all the time gives you a better garden?

Well you might want to consider these truths…

A seed that gets the right amount of sun and moisture will sprout. 🌞🌱Nature flourishes and thrives without any help from us. I know it’s hard to believe, but sometimes doing less IS more. Especially in your garden.

That’s what today’s stage of Spirit Gardening, Ease, is all about.

But how do you “do ease?” Here’s a helpful question to ask yourself…

When do you feel the most “at ease”? 😌

Think about going to your favorite coffee shop to meet your best friend. You feel relaxed and comfortable. You can tell your friend anything and not feel judged. You can even just sit in silence observing the goings-on around you and feel at peace!

That is “doing ease!” And it’s something you can achieve in your garden every day.

When we’re “at ease,” we’re most observant of the world around us. You can take in the little things in nature and, most importantly… listen to what your plants are telling you!

Being at ease is also a state of being with yourself. You’re trusting your intuition and what you feel is right for your garden.

I’ve learned more about what my garden needs from taking a few minutes a day to just sit among my plants than I have in hours of diligent tending and weeding.

And going to your garden shouldn’t feel like going to work. It should feel like visiting with your best friend. You want to sit in your garden and observe. Breathe, relax and enjoy being among your plants.

So that’s your goal for this stage of Spirit Gardening.

Have one day this month where you just SIT in your garden and be at peace instead of “doing” your next project.

Of course, if you want to know more about how to “do ease” in your garden. Or how to turn down the volume on the “boss” in your brain telling you what you should and shouldn’t be doing, register below for my FREE live QA event.

In this training I will answer your questions about the 5 stages of Spirit Gardening and how they can help you get more joy and abundance from your garden.

Peace and Ease,
Stacey

P.S. — Watch Stage 3 tomorrow where I show you how to have more FUN in your garden while growing even more than ever before!

Save Your Spot

“How to Practice Spirit Gardening LIVE Q&A” with Stacey Murphy

April 5th, 2023
[10am PT / 1pm ET]

Join Stacey LIVE to help you answer any gardening mindset questions or challenges you have.

Spirit Gardening Stage 1
Spirit Gardening Stage 3: Coming Sunday, April 2nd
Spirit Gardening Stage 4: Coming Monday, April 3rd
Spirit Gardening Stage 5: Coming Tuesday, April 4th

Enjoying Stacey’s Spirit Gardening Series? Share your ‘AhHa’ moments with us!

Spirit Gardening [Stage 1] How to wonder more and worry less in your garden

“It feels like turning on a ‘light switch’ in your brain.”

That’s how one of my students described this meditation. Because in just one, simple visualization meditation you go from a world in your garden that is…

• Small
• Lonely
• Hard
• Full of challenges

…to a world that is…

• Big, unlimited potential
• Connection
• Easy and flowing
• Surrounded by solutions

And yes, you can do this all with ONE simple visualization exercise in your garden!

Pretty neat right? 😄

The real secret to this meditation isn’t anything complicated or confusing. It is just a simple reframing of your mind to go from a closed state to one of abundance. I’ll tell you more about how I came across this in a minute…

But first, let me introduce you to the first stage of Spirit Gardening that we’ll be exploring together today…

Wonder!

This is the first step to gaining more joy, hope, and energy in your garden. You start here because it is all about one thing… being curious!

When your mind is in a curious state it’s almost impossible not to find happiness… because Mother Nature is so freaking cool and mysterious!

She’s like an elusive mistress of sorts… 😉

When you start with a curious mind everything else will start to just get easier. And the way to start is so simple, I’m pretty sure a 3-year old invented this. All you have to do is say to yourself…

“I wonder why ________ ?”

And you can do this anywhere, anytime! Just find a comfy chair or a place to sit in or around your garden. Then look out at your plants and just start to ask questions. Here are a few primers for example…

• Are there plants around you that you didn’t notice before you sat down?
• Do leaves or flowers stand out to you that didn’t before?
• How about any insects or birds?

You’ll soon find that just sitting in your garden, wondering, will open a whole new world for you!

And you’ll start to feel excitement and joy around you again.

Now, let me tell you a little secret… the reason I was able to discover this was because I was feeling a little down on myself one day. I felt like I was watching other gardeners have success with plants and crops that I had struggled with for years. And I couldn’t help but feel like I was a little broken.

The voice in my head was asking…

“Why does it seem like there are things that I can’t get for myself?”

When I heard this thought, I decided to sit down and meditate on this for a bit. I asked nature in my meditation to show me that life is full of abundance. And that I too CAN have beautiful things for myself in my garden.

When I opened my eyes, nature was there to greet me with a WONDERful surprise…

All around me were tiny asparagus plants popping up through the soil!

Now normally this wouldn’t be a big deal except that these asparagus plants shouldn’t have been there at ALL in September! Asparagus traditionally shoots up in early summer where I was growing. And by this point they should’ve been tiny, dried up nubs by now.

But here they were… right in front of me!

Nature was showing me the magic of her abundance right there. 😊🙌🌿✨

And it had been there all along. The only difference was that now my mind was primed to see it.

Which is what I want to give to YOU in Stage 1 of your Spirit Gardening Journey… Wonder!

Here’s how.

(This is a shorter version of the full visualizations and meditations you’ll see inside the Spirit Gardening Course)

Just go out in your garden, take a few deep breaths, and close your eyes for 5 minutes. And while your eyes are closed, ask Nature to show you her abundance.

Then open up your eyes and start writing down all your “I wonder why _______?” questions.

Trust me, this process is magical! 🧙‍♀️🧙‍♂️

And after you’re done, I’d love for you to watch my upcoming training.

In this training I help answer any Spirit Gardening questions you have. And if you don’t have any questions yet, that’s ok too. You’ve still got 4 more stages of Spirit Gardening to go through.

In Stage 2 we’ll talk more about the second stage… which will take a lot of the STRESS out of your garden.

Because gardening should be EASY! You’ll see how to have ease in your garden on demand tomorrow. Until then, happy WONDERing in your garden!

Peace and wonder,
Stacey

Save Your Spot

“How to Practice Spirit Gardening LIVE Q&A” with Stacey Murphy

April 5th, 2023
[10am PT / 1pm ET]

Join Stacey LIVE to help you answer any gardening mindset questions or challenges you have.

Spirit Gardening Stage 2: Coming Saturday, April 1st
Spirit Gardening Stage 3: Coming Sunday, April 2nd
Spirit Gardening Stage 4: Coming Monday, April 3rd
Spirit Gardening Stage 5: Coming Tuesday, April 4th

Enjoying Stacey’s Spirit Gardening Series? Share your ‘AhHa’ moments with us!

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!

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.