Spring Gardening Resources

If you have ever dreamed of growing a garden, it can be a daunting task. However, there are many resources that can help you plan and grow and a garden, whether it is a container garden or a whole field of fruit, vegetables, flowers, and more. Today, I plan to share a plethora of good Spring gardening resources that can help you in growing your gardening skills.

Websites

• Proven Winners
• Better Homes and Gardens
• Martha Stewart
• Southern Living Plants
• The Homestead Challenge
• The Spruce
• Almanac
• Purdue
• Martha Stewart
• Trend Spot
• The Spruce
• USDA
• Kids Gardening
• Purdue
• Hoosier Gardener
• Purdue – Advice for First Time Gardeners
• Hoosier Gardener – Resources
• The Indy Public Library Seed Library
• Garden Club of Indiana
• IU Spring Gardening Tips
• Marion County Indiana Master Gardeners Association
• Indiana Native Plants
• IU The Green Staffer
• Indiana Grown
• My Indiana Home
• The Indy Public Library Blog
• Save the Dunes

News

• Good Morning America
• Indiana Public Media
• Bob Vila
• Country Living
• National Park Service

Books and Magazines

• Spring Gardening Magazine Issue 32
• Midwest Fruit and Vegetable Gardening
• The Joy of Raised Bed Gardening for Beginners
• All New Square Foot Gardening
• Gardening Know How – The Complete Guide to Vegetable Gardening
• Four Season Food Gardening
• The First Time Gardener – Container Food Gardening
• Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio Month By Month Gardening
• The Vegetable Garden Pest Handbook
• Beginner’s Guide to Growing Fruit Trees Fast and Easy
• Container Gardening The Permaculture Way
• Kitchen Garden Revival
• The First Time Gardener Spring Edition
• The Family Garden Plan
• Bird Friendly Gardening
• Complete Container Herb Gardening
• Indoor Kitchen Gardening
• The Layered Edible Garden
• The Cottage Garden
• Midwest Gardener’s Handbook
• The Elegant and Edible Garden

Starting Seeds Indoors

• My Experience Starting Seeds with the Jiffy Tomato & Vegetable Greenhouse: Part 1
• My Experience: Starting Seeds in Cardboard Egg Cartons

Where to Find Free Seeds

• Save seeds from foods you use in the kitchen (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash).
• Save onion bottoms with the roots from foods you use in the kitchen.
• Host or attend a seed exchange at your local library.
• Free Heirloom Seeds – I have gotten some seeds from this website before.
• Robin Greenfield Seeds for the People
• Everbloom Seeds
• Just Bee
• Step by Step Inc.
• Charlotte Noar

Join in on the conversation!

I always love hearing from my readers, so feel free to comment on this post. Or start a conversation on X.com/sarahderinger88.

• Are you struggling with knowing where and how to start gardening?
• Do you find yourself wishing you could grow things all year round rather than being stunted by the growing season?
• What are some other resources that you would recommend for learning about gardening year-round?
• What are some other resources that you would recommend for beginning gardening or spring gardening?
• Where else do you know of that you can get free seeds?

Book Review: Container Gardening: The Permaculture Way

Book Review: Container Gardening: The Permaculture Way by Valery Tsimba

Gardening – A new adventure

Gardening is something that can relieve stress and produce delicious food. When one has a small space or can only grow fruits, vegetables, and flowers in containers, it can be new adventure for those wanting to try gardening. This new adventure can be daunting especially when not knowing where to start.

Gardening Tips and Tricks

Valery Tsimba has proven it to be a worthwhile venture that can produce long-term. Tsimba shares her tips and tricks in Container Gardening: The Permaculture Way, which she says she started in the COVID-19 lockdown. Permaculture is where the garden is growing all year round, no matter the season. Let’s say that the grocery store ran out of produce but you have your own permaculture garden in container where you live; you would be able to continue getting produce as long as it was in season.

Hardiness Zones Matter in Permaculture Gardening

Tsimba does say in the book that this will work in USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 5 and under; zones 6 and 7 will need to bring their containers inside to keep the plants alive over winter. Since I am in zone 6a, this book has less application to me; however, I know that there are many others who live south of where I live that could use these tips and tricks to grow a garden in containers year round.

A Valuable How-To

Tsimba showed how to transplant plants and save seeds. There was also a very handy chart about the average period of viability for seeds so anyone saving seeds can know how long they are good to plant. Tsimba also shared the value of gardening as a community. Container Gardening: The Permaculture Way is a valuable resource with 162 pages of material for the gardener who wants to start small and try gardening all year round. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. (Thank you to Net Galley for this book in exchange for an honest review!)

Join in on the conversation!

I always love hearing from my readers, so feel free to comment on this post.

• Are you struggling with knowing where and how to start gardening?
• Do you find yourself wishing you could grow things all year round rather than being stunted by the growing season?
• Have you read this book?
• What are some other resources that you would recommend for learning about gardening year-round?

My 2024 Garden Plans

“Watching something grow is good for morale. It helps us believe in life.”

Myron Kaufmann

I enjoy gardening to see what I can grow and harvest, and this year, I have plans to grow these plants:

• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Watermelon
• Perennial Wildflowers
• Rudbeckia
• Zinnia
• Coreopsis
• Sunflower
• Lavender
• Cilantro
• Spaghetti Squash
• Yellow Squash
• Zucchini
• Pumpkin
• Sweet Corn
• Cucumber
• Carrot
• Green bean
• Thyme
• Strawberries
• and some more flowers

Migardener Brandywine Black Tomato

Migardener Mr. Stripey Tomato

Livingston Bush Beefsteak Tomato

Livingston Independence Day Tomato

Burpee’s Early Pick Hybrid VF Tomato

Burpee’s Bush Early Girl Hybrid Tomato

Burpee’s Fourth of July Hybrid Tomato

Burpee’s Porterhouse Hybrid Tomato

Migardener Brandywine Pink Tomato

Migardener Delicious Tomato

Migardener Brandywine Yellow Tomato

Migardener Granny Cantrells Tomato

Onion starts

Onion starts planted

Burpee and Ferry-Morse Watermelon

Livingston and Burpee’s flowers

Livingston Sunflower and Burpee’s Lavender

Livingston Cilantro

Livingston Squash and Burpee’s Pumpkin

Burpee’s On Deck Hybrid (Sh2) Sweet Corn

Burpee’s and Livingston Cucumbers

Livingston Onions

Livingston Carrots

Livingston Kentucky Wonder Beans

“An addiction to gardening is not all bad when you consider all the other choices in life.”

Cora Lea Bell

Starting Tomato Seeds Indoors

I have just this week started my tomato seeds. I use the Jiffy Seed Starting Greenhouses, and what I did was order more planting pellets which allows me to use the same greenhouse boxes rather than continually buying new ones. To use these, add warm water to the pellets which allows them to rise. Then you add in three-four seeds in each pellet of whichever type of tomato or pepper you are trying to plant. Then close the dirt over the seeds. Then place the lids on top of the boxes, and if you think your seeds need more light, use a grow light to help them grow. In a few weeks, you will be able to take the lids off when all the seeds have started and you see spouts.

Jiffy Seed Tray Greenhouses with the pellets

Add warm water to your pellets

Place 3-4 seeds in your wetted pellets

Place lids over the boxes and add a grow light if desired.

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.”

Francis Bacon

Start a Garden

If you want to start a garden this year, here are some tips and resources to get started:

• Find your USDA Hardiness Growing Zone. This will help you know when to start seeds and plant. My zone is 6a, which means that in mid-May, I can start planting outside.
• Look through a few different seed companies. I typically use Burpee, Gurney’s, Baker Creek Seeds, Ferry-Morse, Botanical Interests, MIGardener, and St. Clare Seeds.
• Order which ones you would like to plant in your growing zone. You can also look at your local stores to see what they are offering; local stores will have what is in your growing zone.
• Look at the average dates on the back of the seed packets (and compare to the Hardiness Growing Zone map) to know when to start seeds indoors and plant seeds outside. Also use the planting instructions as far as depth and ways of planting that are listed on the seed packets.
• Find the best place to plant around your property, whether in the ground in a sunny garden or in a window box for your apartment.
• Try a garden journal so that you can keep track of planting dates and what worked and what did not work.
• My Experience Starting Seeds with the Jiffy Tomato & Vegetable Greenhouse: Part 1
• My Experience: Starting Seeds in Cardboard Egg Cartons
• Gardening Resources
• Garden Update

“There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.”

Janet Kilburn Phillips

You do not have to be perfect at gardening, and it is quite a bit like experimenting. I have not yet harvested a crop of good sweet corn, and I am still experimenting with different ways of growing corn. If you keep a garden journal, you can start seeing patterns in gardening issues, and then you can try new ideas of how to make your garden grow better. You can try a new gardening container or try moving the garden to a place with more sun or more shade. You can try flower boxes or an open field. The possibilities with gardening are endless.

Join in on the Conversation

I always love hearing from my readers. Feel free to comment below, or join the conversation on X.com by following my account (x.com/sarahderinger88).

• Have you ever had a garden?
• What was your favorite part about gardening?
• What fruits, vegetables, herbs, and plants does your family enjoy to grow?
• What seed companies do you recommend?
• What are your tips on growing sweet corn in zone 6a?

My Experience Starting Seeds with the Jiffy Tomato & Vegetable Greenhouse: Part 1

It is finally spring again, and that means it is time to start tomato seeds again. Here at Deringer Farm, I am hoping to plant all kinds of vegetables, flowers, and some fruit trees this year. I find it even more important to grow a garden this year due to the COVID-19 crisis, so that our family will not run out of food. Things I hope to plant and grow this year include:

• Tomatoes
• Lemons
• Sweet Peppers
• Red Peppers
• African
• Forget me nots
• Green Peppers
• Cucumbers
• Summer Squash
• Carrots
• Green Beans
• Peaches

I saved all sorts of seeds from over the past year hoping that they will grow this year. Last year to start the tomato seeds, I tried starting them in egg cartons starting them in egg cartons. While that was a useful way of starting tomato seeds, I found that the roots of the tomato plants grew through the carton making it difficult to remove them for planting. Therefore, this year I am testing out the Jiffy Tomato & Vegetable Greenhouse, which is available at Walmart and other local gardening supply stores.

The Jiffy Tomato & Vegetable Greenhouse comes with 36 “pellets” for planting seeds, so you could have approximately 36 new tomato plants this year. That is really helpful in my opinion, and that could produce a lot of tomatoes. So after opening the container, I read the instructions, which were fairly easy to understand. Unlike using the egg cartons, the Jiffy Tomato & Vegetable Greenhouse doesn’t need extra dirt because the dirt is in the pellets. The Jiffy Greenhouse also does not have holes in the bottom of the pan, so water will not spill out onto whatever table or bar that you have them sitting on.

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First, you get warm water and pour it into each of the pellets. The warm water allows the pellets to expand, and they sound like “Snap, Crackle, and Pop” as they expand to their full capacity. It takes quiet a bit of water for these to expand fully, so do not worry about overwatering the pellets. If you do end up with too much water, you can take it outside and pour the excess off.

* The Jiffy Greenhouse does include some nutrients for the soil but on the main instructions, it did not talk about using it. So I will wait to add the nutrients until the pellets need water again. The nutrients call for being mixed with a gallon of water.

Then, once they are fully expanded, open up the netting on each one of the pellets and then start making little holes for your seeds. You can use 2-3 seeds per pellet; I went with 3 seeds per pellet because I am hoping that at least one seed will work. After the seeds are in cover them back up with the dirt in the pellets. These should have enough water in them to start the seeds. You can then place the lid on the Jiffy Greenhouse and move it to a place that is not in direct sunlight. The Jiffy Greenhouse should now work as its own little greenhouse, growing the seeds and keeping them watered. Of course, the instructions say that when the seeds start to sprout, crack the greenhouse lid (slide it partly to the side) to let more air in. Then, when you are ready for planting, take the lid off and begin preparing them for the transition to outside. If you see that the pellets are turning brown instead of the black wet dirt, add some more water.

I am excited to see how effective the Jiffy Tomato & Vegetable Greenhouse is in starting the seeds, and I will update as the process continues. Thus far, the process that the Jiffy Greenhouse uses is really simple.

Join in on the conversation!

I always love hearing from my readers, so feel free to comment on this post! Are you doing a garden this year? What do you like to plant and grow? Is this your first time planning a garden? What are your tips for growing a garden? Have you used the Jiffy Tomato and Vegetable Greenhouse before? What are your experiences with growing a garden?