Want to Plant Your Own Garden? Here’s Where to Start!
During the months of quarantine, many people stuck at home took up the new hobby of gardening. Backyard gardening is possible for anyone but looks different for everyone; the garden can live in raised beds, bigger plots, or containers. More and more people are finding comfort in growing their own food. If you took up this new hobby or want to join the trend, how do you start with fall coming? The first step is to decide what you want to plant in your garden.
Popular and successful fall crops include sweet corn, herbs, and any leafy greens. Specific varieties include Ambrosia or Temptress sweet corn, herbs like cilantro and parsley, and any lettuce mixes. Some other plants that would be great for a backyard garden in the fall could be eggplants, peppers, and carrots.
The next step, once you decide what you want to grow, is to create a plan. Planning is an essential step when becoming a successful gardener. When planning for the crops you want to grow, there are two critical things to consider – first, maturity dates and, second, if they need to be transplanted or just directly seeded.
Maturity dates can be found on most seed packets or just with a simple google. It is an important date to know because this determines when you should plant by working backward from the maturity date to select your plant date. You want to have enough growing days that you can harvest your crop before the first frost date.
The other thing to consider is what seeds need to go directly into the ground or start as transplants. Seeds that would go straight into the ground would be lettuce, corn, peas, and carrots. Crops that would be better off as transplants include eggplant, peppers, beets, and any of the herbs.
Our garden at the Sunbelt Ag Expo is growing many of these favorites right now. Though we do not have people coming to see it for educational purposes, the garden is still making an impact. Every crop coming out of our Sunbelt Ag Expo garden is being donated to the Moultrie Food Bank to help those in need. Continue looking out for our gardening blog series so we can help you have a bountiful harvest to share with your friends, family, and those in your community.