Hi Bloomers!
It’s official, the 2023 garden has been started!
My friend Jenna came over today, and she helped me dig out, mulch up, fertilize and plant all of my little seedlings out into their new homes for the summer!
This year I’m trying to plant with intention and keep in mind my fall canning plans, leaning heavily into the tomato and peppers for salsa and pasta sauce. Of course with a few new trials (that’s what makes gardening so fun!).
Planting with intention for me means planting items that I know we will eat and make use of in our house. We eat a lot of tomato sauce and salsa in our house and last year’s final harvest made us enough to last until April this year!
Now, onto another fun part of gardening… Companion planting and using other plants for natural pest repellent!
Jenna and I planted dill, chives and marigolds all among the garden beds to help deter potential pests. And it helps that the dill and chives make for a delicious herb as well!
This will also be my first year not planting anything extra in buckets. Normally I overflow my beds, have extra pots in the backyard and on the side deck.
For this year’s garden layout I used an app called ‘Planter’ to properly measure out my beds, work on my spacing and hopefully help me stick to my plan. Now that we have majority of my seedlings outside and in their spots and my decks are not filled with buckets, I feel organized, clear headed and like I will be able to use this year to focus my energy on putting energy into the plants we have and not I to trying to keep all of them surviving because there is such a high volume of them.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for planting without a plan, in any place you can find room and trying your best to see what turns out! But I am feeling a sense of calm with this year’s garden.
No matter what your process is, chaos or meticulously planned (this year I’ve landed somewhere in the middle of these two), it’s always worth the experience and adventure finding what works and what you like!
I hope you all have time in the coming weeks to place your seedlings or transplants into their outside homes.
Catch yah’ later Buds!