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  Photo by  Joshua Pieterse  on  Unsplash Water is a precious resource, and when it comes to your food garden, it's essential to optimize its usage for the benefit of both your crops and the environment. By adopting smart watering techniques, you can ensure that your plants receive adequate moisture while minimizing water waste. In this post, we'll explore some tips and strategies to help you water your food garden easily and in a way that supports optimal growth while being mindful of sustainability. 1. Stay Regular Establish a regular watering schedule to maintain consistent moisture levels in your garden. Watering deeply and infrequently is more effective than frequent shallow watering because it encourages plant roots to grow deeper, making them more resilient to drought conditions. Water early in the morning or late in the evening when temperatures are cooler to minimize water loss due to evaporation.   However, the easiest way to stick to a schedule is to ...

  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 carr...

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...

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 ...

As we embark on a new growing season, many of us seasoned gardeners are itching to act on our carefully crafted plans.  In the lockdown era where supply chain issues had grocery stores running on empty, interest spiked around the idea of growing your own food. With concerns about the environment, the cost of groceries, and the desire for fresh, healthy produce, many people are beginning to turn to "urban farming" as a way to feed themselves and their families. For many novice gardeners, the process can be overwhelming, especially if you're like me and want to try multiple varieties of the same crop.  How do I coordinate all of the different planting schedules? How much space do I need for all the seeds I purchased? Will there be enough time in the season to get a harvest at all? These questions, if not properly considered, can make or break your growing season. That's where plannt.ca comes in. With this helpful tool, users can easily plan and organize their garden, d...

  "Growing your own food is like printing your own money."  - Ron Finley I love to cook, and I love to eat.  I'm concerned about pesticides, transport emissions, and fair trade.  I also happen to have a background in Lean Manufacturing (how to do anything as efficiently as possible).  Over the years, I found that growing my own food brings all of my passions together and gives me an outlet for experimentation and learning. Every season, I use my backyard garden as a testing ground for different varieties of fruits & veggies that I grow from seed.  My goal is to see how well they perform against each other, with the ultimate goal of finding a handful of crops that will produce reliably in my specific hardiness zone.   When I first started, I created a spreadsheet to track everything.  However, it quickly became a mess due to my love for variety.  I couldn't maintain a live map with so many things changing at once.  There was no t...