• Start small.

• Use compost!

• Start with strong, reliable plants. (Like ours!)

• Do not use chemicals for pest management - there are other, more effective ways. Plus, beneficial insects are necessary in a healthy garden. Chemicals hurt enemies and friends.

• Remember the three most crucial ingredients for growing a successful vegetable garden: full sun, healthy soil, and water.

Salad greens, kale, and Swiss chard are incredibly forgiving crops and require little maintenance. They grow fast and are easy to harvest.

Strawberries and raspberries are among the easiest fruits to experiment growing.

Tomatoes are super easy to grow in pots or in the ground. If they have sun and support, they will bear fruit for months.

Hybrids are usually recommended for beginners.

Cucumbers will grow like weeds when exposed to the appropriate amount of sunlight and given a good amount of water.

Zucchini or squash plants are also fairly low-maintenance. One plant can feed a family with abundant fruits for months!

Most culinary herbs such as thyme, oregano, and basil are resilient and easy to grow.

That green thumb will develop in no time!

Plants are put in the ground at different times of the year depending on climate, temperature, and moisture.

Crops that are first in the ground and first to harvest in the spring are arugula, kale, lettuces, peas, cilantro, parsley, and chard. All thrive in cooler temperatures.

Late April & May is a good time to get tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and eggplant in the ground, as they take a while to mature. Make sure nighttime temperatures are no lower than 40 degrees. These crops are sensitive to cold. If nighttime temperatures do drop, be prepared to cover them with a bucket or row cover to protect the plants. The benefit of planting early is earlier fruit, but this can be risky.

Tender seedlings need time to acclimate to changes in temperature, wind, and sun exposure. This acclimatization is called “hardening off.”

One way to do this is to expose your plants gradually to longer periods of outdoor exposure. Move them outdoors for 3-4 hours and then back indoors. Increase the time bit by bit each day. After 3 to 4 days, the seedlings should be ready to be transplanted into the garden.

Many gardeners ask how to manage garden pests (both animals and insects). No one wants their tomato harvest to be wiped out by deer! Recommended methods can include the building of fences/barriers to physically keep critters out, or deterring animals by planting things they won’t eat around vegetable crops. Setting up traps for groundhogs and moles can also be highly effective.

Insects play a critical role in the garden. There are many insects that are beneficial, preying on pests or pollinating flowers that will in turn produce fruits to eat. Increasing beneficial habitat around the garden by planting flowering natives and creating a multi-tiered ecosystem can increase the number of beneficials in a garden.

Aside from the beneficial insects, there are the well-known pests, many that are specific to each crop. Aphids attack a multitude of crops. The Mexican bean beetle, spotted cucumber beetle, and striped flea beetle (which attacks members of the Brassica family) are also common in a garden.

A common management method we use on the farm is to create a physical barrier between the plants and the pests in the form of “row cover”, which is a thin porous white sheet-like material draped over the garden beds.

Companion planting is also used to confuse pests. Interplanting marigolds, asters, or mums can achieve this effect.

Then there’s always the manual method: pick ‘em off the plants!

There are many ways to water a backyard garden.

A common method is to set up a drip irrigation system - this consists of a network of black 1” irrigation tape where water is pressurized at a mainline source and dispersed, slowly emitting from the tape into the root zones of the plants. It’s a very efficient and conservative way to water a garden. Aside from the initial set up time, it’s quick to turn on and off. 

Rain barrels are another method that connects to a roof’s downspout to collect and recycle rainwater for the garden.

In general it’s important to water a few times a week (sometimes more during extremely hot, dry weeks in the summer).

The main way to care for fruit shrubs is to mulch, mulch, and mulch. Pine needles, wood chips, straw, dead leaves - material that will add fertility to the soil and suppress weeds around the plants.

Shrubs can be planted in rows or patches; either works depending on the site and the gardener’s management preferences.

The most common way to manage fruiting shrubs is to mow them down to the ground in the fall. This will help keep fruit size up and disease/pests down. New canes will sprout up in the spring.  Woody material can go directly into the compost pile.

Organic gardening can improve our health and the health of the planet. Organic food is safer, higher in nutrients, and tastes better - there is nothing like a fresh, organic heirloom tomato on a hot August day.

We are committed to growing plants that are free of chemical herbicides and pesticides that continually degrade our bodies and our land. Cultivating a garden that is free of toxins starts with the quality of the seedlings you plant in the ground.

We are certified organic to ensure customers are getting high quality, chemical-free plants that produce amazingly well. Customers come back year after year and tell us they see a remarkable difference in the plants we sell.

Gardeners should be able to grow most plants in containers that they can grow in the ground!

Herbs thrive in pots - and some choose to plant them in pots instead of in the ground due to their vigorous, spreading nature. Mints are commonly seen in pots for that reason. I love to have a few containers on my kitchen windowsill of favorite, commonly-used culinary herbs such as basil, parsley, and dill.

Many berry plants are also particularly adaptable to containers, including strawberries. They need large pots, at least two feet wide.

Fast-growing plants such as lettuces and leafy greens can be succession planted in pots throughout the summer.

Cherry tomatoes grow extremely well in containers.

For all potted plants, use a quality, loose organic potting mix and compost.

Trellising certain vegetables can save space and provide additional support for plants with heavy fruits. Supporting them lifts them away from roving animals and improves air circulation.

We generally recommend to stake tomatoes - this is the way we grow all the tomatoes on the farm. They’re also much easier to harvest this way. We use a very simple method: every 10 feet down our tomato row we drive a stake into the ground (every 5-6 plants). Once the stakes are in the ground, we use a box of tomato twine and string them every week as they grow to encourage vertical growth. Tie the string to the stakes to keep the plants in on each side of the row.

Cucumbers, squashes, beans, peas, and melons can also be trellised. We’ve used an A-frame grid to trellis cucumbers on the farm to save space in the high tunnel. They can grow on the ground but are sprawling and take up more space. Melons require a strong trellis, since their fruits are so heavy.