Although we are only a few weeks past the winter solstice, the 2024 gardening season is right around the corner. Depending on where you live, you might be starting to think about choosing varieties, preparing the soil, and starting seeds. We are in zone 7, which means our last frost is expected to be sometime around the first week of April. However, my grandmother, who is an experienced gardener, says to always wait until after Mother’s Day to start seeds or move any plants outside. I tend to live on the edge as far as growing food is concerned though, so I start things as soon as possible. In this guide, we'll explore ways to enhance soil fertility, share the lineup of crops we plan to grow this year, talk about when to start seeds, and share our methods for starting seeds indoors– including how to use a seed blocker and why you should!
Preparing the Beds
There are endless ways to go about preparing the garden for the coming growing season. The way we do things centers around doing the healthiest thing for the soil, for the ecosystems surrounding the garden, and for ourselves. This means we avoid using synthetic fertilizers and additives. Our composted food scraps, the chickens, and many oak trees provide loads of organic material for us to use. Using what you have on hand to enrich the soil is ideal. Fallen leaves can simply be collected in a pile and left for several months to a year or more to create a leaf mold, or composted, broken down leaves. Leaf mold is not very rich in nutrients, but it helps the soil in many other ways: It helps them retain moisture, makes them more resistant to disease, inhibits weed growth, and its coarse nature helps to aerate the soil and enables roots to easily establish themselves.
In the fall, we did a few things to put the garden “to sleep” for the winter. First, we chopped and dropped the remains of the plants left standing. For example, our spent tomato plants got chopped right above ground level (leaving the roots!) and cut up into 1” or smaller sections which were left to sit on top of the soil. Over time, the nutrients from these decomposing plants will feed the next crops we grow there. The roots will decompose as well, further feeding the soil. Until the roots decompose, they help maintain the integrity of the structure of the soil.
After chopping and dropping, we decided to burn off some sections of the garden to add organic material to the soil, and to see if it keeps the squash bugs from coming back next year. Squash bugs are pests that seem to come out of nowhere, reproduce rapidly, and cause irreparable damage to crops. Unfortunately, we have plenty of them here which makes growing anything in the squash family (and as we learned last year, melons) a bit more difficult. Successfully growing these requires persistence in hand-picking the squash bugs or altogether planting before they come since they can decimate a whole crop in no time. Last spring, we had several pumpkins pop up from the compost we added to our garden beds. Those pumpkins came earlier than expected and did really well. However, we planted some pumpkins at the recommended time from seeds we had purchased, and the squash bugs eventually arose from their underground slumber and gobbled them up along with the watermelons. As an experiment, we carefully burned off the sections of the garden that were infested with squash bugs to see if it helps prevent them next year.
Chickens are outstanding composters since their primary objective is to eat and expel nutrients all day, every day. The ground in their run is covered with several inches of material like leaves, hay, straw, and whatever else we can find for them. They stomp around on it all day, pooping as they go. Their nutrient-rich waste composts over time and after awhile, we take the bottom layer out and use it as a soil amendment. We replace the composted material with fresh material and the process starts all over. This is sometimes called the “deep litter method” and it’s a way to have excellent compost while keeping the coop from smelling bad.
One of the great things about using chicken manure in the garden is that it provides a slow release of micro- and macronutrients such as nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and calcium over time. This organic material feeds the soil and plants that grow in it and improves the structure of the soil overall by preventing erosion while increasing aeration and water drainage. So, after adding leaf mold, chicken manure, compost from the pile, and some experimental burning, the garden waits for springtime.
Planning the Garden
The beds are at rest for the winter, the garlic is planted and overwintering, and we are about 13 weeks away from the last predicted frost. What follows is a phase of catching up on building and maintenance projects, battening down the hatches for potential winter weather, and planning next year’s garden. Garden planning is important for several reasons, but for me it’s mostly because the appropriate time to start seeds sneaks up on me so fast every year. It’s difficult to decide what to plant, where to grow it, and when to start everything, so I wanted to share a quick guide about how we do it that will include some hopefully useful tips!
Early January is a great time to begin dreaming up your garden plans; there’s still plenty of time to get the beds ready, order seeds if needed, and get everything set up. If you’ve ever perused the seed section in a store in early spring or looked at a seed catalog, you know it’s a bit overwhelming how many options there are. People garden for different reasons: some people garden with an aesthetic plan, some garden to grow some or all of their produce, some garden to provide food for pollinators, and lots of other motives. Our garden is mostly one of utility to provide us, pollinators, and other wildlife with food while growing as many native plants as possible and building the soil over the long term. A garden of utility doesn’t mean a boring garden, just not one that is meticulously planned for ornament.
When choosing what to grow, I first think about what foods we like to eat most and which provide the most nutrients. For us these include leafy greens, herbs, cucumbers, peppers, potatoes, beets, radishes, beans, tomatoes, and peas. Besides that, we grow flowers for pollinators and to deter wildlife like deer and rabbits from certain areas and cover crops like oat, rye, clover, and wheat to build the soil. Winter cover crop seeds are planted at the end of fall to prevent unwanted weeds from going, to help the soil maintain its structure over the winter, and so it can be chopped and dropped in the spring. The chopped cover crop provides organic material that will decompose over time to feed the soil, retain moisture, and smother weeds that may try to pop up in the spring alongside your crops.
The first and arguably most important step to creating a permaculture or simply a more sustainable garden is to become well-acquainted with your environment. In addition to considering which crops you want to eat, you also need to consider what grows well in your area, how much sun you get throughout the day, how much space you have, which plants support native pollinators, etc. This requires a period of committed observation before putting down roots, so to speak. Of course you want to give your crops the best chance to do well in their environment, creating a sustainable food system. After a couple years of observation and experimentation, we’ve mostly figured out what works and what doesn’t. For example, certain crops just won’t thrive when planted in the partial shade garden under the big oak trees, while some “heat loving” plants actually prefer the shelter of the oaks in the hot, humid Ozark summer. We have a tentative growing plan for this year which includes our partial shade garden, herb garden surrounding the chicken pen, and our full-sun garden amongst the wildflowers in the field. The plan is to grow:
Partial shade garden: peas, beans, nasturtiums, marigolds, greens, brassicas, radishes, beets, calendula, dill, feverfew, carrots
Herb garden: rosemary, Tulsi basil, lavender, mint, and zinnias
Full sun garden: strawberries, corn, squash, beans, tomatoes, bell and serrano peppers, onions, okra, garlic, potatoes, melons, chamomile, basil, marigolds, calendula, sunflowers, cucumbers, wild bergamot
Indoor Seed-Starting Guide (Using the Soil Block Method)
Some seeds will be sown outside straight into the dirt, while others will be started indoors. Starting seeds indoors can be a laborious task, but it is well worth it to get a jumpstart on some crops, especially if you live somewhere with precarious and often unpredictable spring weather. There are many methods of starting seeds indoors, most of which involve buying plastic containers to fill with seed-starting mix. However, there is an option that involves less waste: soil blocks. I’ve shared a bit of information on soil blocks before, but I’d like to share more about the process.
You’ll Need:
Soil block tool
Large plastic tub
Water
Seed trays (can use any tray that can hold about ¼” of water)
Fill a large container, like a plastic tub, with soil and have a jug of water on hand.
Mix the water into the soil until it is a consistency that holds itself together but isn’t sopping wet.
Fill the 2” openings of the soil blocker with the soil and water mixture, or just push the whole soil blocker down into the soil and let it fill itself.
Push down on the handle to compress the soil into blocks.
Transfer the blocks to a seed tray or diy tray that will hold about ¼” of water.
Plant seeds, cover according to directions for each particular seed.
Water seeds blocks by filling trays with a small amount of water and set trays in good light. You may choose to cover the trays with a clear lid to hold in moisture.
Though it requires purchasing the soil blocker tool, this method saves money otherwise spent on buying disposable seed trays or pots over the years. More importantly, it yields better seedlings that don’t get root bound and that don’t experience transplant shock when put in the ground. The steps above describe how to start seeds with a 2” seed blocker. You can also purchase the 4” seed blocker for when the seedlings grow larger. This gives them more room to stretch out their roots before moving them outside. However, I haven’t had a need for the 4” tool so far, so I’m sticking with the 2” for now. I think the 4” would be more useful if I were somewhere with a shorter growing season or if I were selling plants at markets.
To determine when to start seeds, I use this free guide from Botanical Interests. To use it, you’ll just need to determine your first and last frost dates. This one from the Old Farmer’s Almanac is good too.
After the seeds are planted, they’ll need at least 8-10 hours of sunlight each day to grow. You can utilize a sunny window if you have it, but if you don’t, you’ll need grow lights of some kind. Simple shop lights will do the trick, but there are many kinds out there to search through to decide what’s right for you. As a general rule, seedlings need about 2,000 to 3,000 lumens of light and mature plants need 5,000 to 10,000 lumens. Our setup consists of these stackable shelves that were left in the shed when we moved in with grow lights:
Make sure to label your seeds, remember to turn the grow lights on and off each day, and water consistently until your seedlings begin to emerge. Refer to your seed packets or the sowing guides I shared from Botanical Interests and the Old Farmer’s Almanac for details about when to transfer your seedlings outside. Et voila– your crops have begun!
Planning the garden can be one of the most exciting parts of gardening, and it’s easy to get carried away with fun, colorful varieties in seed catalogs and consuming gardening and homesteading influencers. But please remember that preparing the beds and choosing crops that grow well in your environment are absolutely crucial for an efficient, sustainable garden! Soil is the basis of all garden life, so in order to have healthy crops, you need healthy soil that’s been given lots of love, mulch, and organic material. When you get to the planning stage, choosing the right crops for your growing region, using plenty of organic material and mulch, and taking advantage of companion planting can enhance biodiversity and resilience.
As we wait for spring’s arrival, I hope you will consider incorporating some of these practices (chop & drop, leaf mold, your own compost, etc.) when preparing your garden for the new season. It can be difficult to acquire all the material you need to do this, but with some investment of time, energy, and resources, it is possible. It’s helpful to start with what you have available and take advantage of that as much as you can. Methods like making seed blocks, maintaining your own compost, and building up leaf mold piles are all very simple, low cost ways to be a little more efficient and sustainable in your garden.
Soon we will start our seeds and I’ll be sharing that process as they begin germinating and growing, leading us into the 2024 garden! There’s lots of work to be done between now and then, so I’ll end this here and get to it.
Until the seedlings sprout,
Allyson