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  Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash Harvesting crops from your garden is incredibly rewarding.  After all, it's where you get to enjoy the literal fruits of your labor! If you're lucky enough to reach the harvesting stage in your crop's lifecycle, it's important to know when and how to harvest. Before we dive into different harvesting techniques, let's talk about the term "continuous harvest".  The basis for whether crops are considered to have a continuous harvest comes from their growth habit and reproductive strategy. Examples of crops that can will provide a continuous harvest are lettuce, spinach, and tomatoes.  These are plants that will produce new growth continuously throughout the growing season. Because the growing part of the plant is not removed during the harvesting process, these types of crops allow for multiple harvests throughout the season.  For this reason, these types of crops typically stay in the garden for much longer. On the

  Credit: @plannt_ca on Instagram Starting a garden from seed can be a great way to grow your own fruits and vegetables. However, as the seedlings begin to grow and mature, it is important to thin them out to ensure that the remaining seedlings have enough space to grow and thrive. What is thinning? When seedlings are first planted, they are usually sown very close together to guarantee that some of them germinate in an area.  Thinning is the process of removing some of the seedlings from a group to give the remaining seedlings more space to grow.   Depending on how you originally planted your seeds, this could be one of the more difficult gardening tasks you encounter throughout your entire season.  Thinning becomes more difficult if you planted multiple seeds in the same spot instead of spacing individual seeds at the manufacturer-recommended seed spacing distance. Also, regardless of your sowing method, thinning can be a laborious task for crops like beets or carrot where the sheer

Photo by  Joshua Lanzarini  on  Unsplash Square foot gardening is a popular gardening method that allows gardeners to maximize their space and grow a variety of plants in a small area. The idea behind this method is to divide your garden into square-foot sections and plant different crops in each section. This method not only saves space but also helps to reduce the amount of water and fertilizer used. In this blog post, we'll explain how to sow seeds outdoors when following a square foot gardening method. Step 1: Plan Your Garden The first step to sowing seeds in a square foot garden is to plan out your garden space. Here are some considerations for this: The types of growing space you have Raised bed, in-ground, containers How the sun moves in your yard throughout the day, and which areas get the most sun.   What types of crops are best suited to your growing space and environment Light levels, wind, season length, soil drainage. What crops you want to grow & will actually ea

Photo by Jael Rodriguez on Unsplash Transplanting seedlings from indoor containers to your garden is like graduation day. Your babies are off to make their own way in the world. However, before you take this step, it's important to ensure that the seedlings are properly acclimatized to the outdoor environment. If you need a refresher on hardening off seedlings, check out our Gardening Guide on Hardening Off Seedlings . If you're ready to transplant, read on to discover how to do this in a way that will help your seedlings thrive in their new digs (sorry, plant pun). Step 1: Choose the right time Transplanting seedlings should be done when the weather is suitable. For most crops, the reason you are starting the seedlings indoors in the first place is because you need to wait until the last frost has passed to transplant them outside. However, some more advanced gardeners may choose to start seeds indoors well into the growing season in order to time their transplant with the

  Photo by  Zoe Schaeffer  on  Unsplash Hardening off seedlings is an important process that allows young plants to gradually adjust to outdoor conditions before being transplanted into the garden.  If you skip hardening off your seedlings and go straight from indoor to transplanting, you may risk stressing them.  Stressed seedlings can show signs like limp stems, off-color foliage, or even sunburn. Gardening is already an exercise in patience, so why not give your seedlings the best chance at thriving by gradually introducing them to the outdoors?  Note that this process can look different for everyone; some seedlings are more sensitive than others, and all yards have different sun/wind conditions.  Feel free to try this 7-day plan as a starting point, and then adapt it to suit what works best for your environment and what you're growing.  The main idea is: take baby steps.  Your baby plants will thank you. Here is a cheat sheet for our 7-day process for hardening off seedlings: T

Photo by Andrej Lišakov on Unsplash Starting seeds indoors is a great way to get a jump start on your garden, especially if you have a limited growing season. Here are our top 15 tips that provide a crash course in seed starting: Know the needs of your seeds : This may sound like a no-brainer, but you should only start seeds indoors if it's already well known that they are suitable for indoor starting. Some plants don't appreciate being transplanted, and others grow so quickly after being sown directly outdoors that the effort to start indoors just isn't worth it, so do your research before you start. The best place to get information is right from the seed supplier, so always read the seed packet. Start the seeds at the right time : Once you know which seeds can start indoors, you then need to understand when to start them.  There is a delicate balance here: you usually want to avoid re-potting the seedling, but at the same time, starting seeds in too large of a pot can

Photo by  Christin Noelle  on  Unsplash Solarpunk is a subgenre of science fiction and a movement that envisions a hopeful, sustainable future with renewable energy, ecological harmony, and community-driven societies. It draws inspiration from a variety of sources, including sustainable architecture, permaculture, DIY culture, and alternative energy sources.  Solarpunk is a new movement, but has quickly gained momentum as people became more cognizant of climate change, pollution, and waste and began searching for ways to do better.   In practice, Solarpunk is not just about imagining a utopian future, but about actively working towards it in the present. This can involve making changes to one's lifestyle and advocating for policies that promote sustainability, resilience, and social justice. Here are some examples of how individuals can help bring about the Solarpunk future: Embrace renewable energy : One of the main tenets of Solarpunk is the use of renewable energy sources such a

Gardening is a game of patience.  You sow your seeds and wait with bated breath until you see the seedlings emerge.  For those of us with a "healthy" stockpile of seeds left over from past seasons, it can be an unwelcome surprise to find that they don't last forever.  The seeds you planted weeks ago have failed to germinate, and now you need a change of plans (or, should I say, plants).  I experienced this firsthand recently, and wanted to share the results of my own experiment. What is seed germination? Seed germination is the process by which a plant grows from a seed. It starts when the seed takes up water, which triggers enzymes to break down stored food inside the seed. Once the food is broken down, it provides the energy for the plant embryo to grow roots, a stem, and leaves. Which seeds are less likely to stay viable after multiple years? While some seeds can last for decades, others lose viability quickly. The general consensus is that the following types of seeds