Do you want to start a vegetable garden, but literally have no clue? Do your eyes glaze over when you start to do your research but it gets too complicated? What are zones? How do you prep your soil? What should I plant? How do I keep it from dying?
You’ve come to the right place. In this post I’m going to give you a plan for making your own garden that has a good chance of success, all in simple language.
Peppers are what I consider one of the “vegetable gardening glory plants.” Nobody really cares if you can grow nice beans or zucchini, but everyone will ooh and ah over your peppers and tomatoes.
Unfortunately, if you live in a colder climate like I do, peppers can be tricky to grow, unless you’re an advanced enough gardener that you have a greenhouse or you’ve got some experience under your belt.
I hate to admit it, but it took me 4 YEARS to finally grow a grocery-store-sized bell pepper. And you can bet I bragged about that pepper to practically everyone I knew.
So what did I learn from that experience?
Here’s some of my favourites that I think beginner gardeners will have better success with.
If you’ve never planted a pepper before in your life, start with Hungarian was peppers. They’re super easy to grow, produce lots of fruit, and can handle your abuse. When I had to abandon my garden this summer because of health issues, my Hungarian wax peppers still kept producing.
Does this mean you can plant them and forget them? No. But they’re not so delicate that missing one watering is the end of them.
Much like the Hungarian wax peppers, cayenne peppers are peppers that just keep on giving. I like to harvest them when they are green and let them turn red in the house, so that I can get more peppers in my short growing season.
I have not personally grown these–yet, but lots of my friends have and they’ve all raved about them. I’ll be starting some seeds this winter and I’ll let you know how it goes.
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For the last year I’ve felt really bad that I don’t have answers like this for all of my readers who live in much warmer climates than I do. So I’ve hired another gardener who lives in South Carolina to write and consult for me occasionally so I can better serve you. The following suggestions are based off of her advice.
First of all, if you live in a warmer climate, you’ll have a MUCH easier time growing peppers than I do. In fact, you might even have to shade your peppers in the afternoon to avoid sunscald.
Here’s seven varieties that are better suited to beginners in warmer climates:
She also mentioned all of the pepper varieties up above that worked well for me in zone 3.
Whatever pepper you decide to grow, I wish you the best of luck in your gardening adventures!
Finding a gift for the gardener in your life can be challenging. Sure, tools or gardening gloves are the obvious choice, but they will probably only be appreciated by the most serious of gardeners. I’ve come up with some pretty and practical suggestions for beginners and advanced gardener’s alike, as well as a few options for kids who love tagging along in the garden.
Bonus! Most of these gifts are $30 or less!!
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We’ve all been there. Promising ourselves that this is the year we will stay on budget in the garden centre. But $100 soon becomes $200 and then you realize that you need “just one more thing” and suddenly your best attempts at not spending too much quickly spiral into $500 on bedding plants and seeds in the blink of an eye.
So what’s a gardener to do?
Here’s 5 ways this Fall you can make a dent in your gardening budget next Spring.
The easiest way to save money in the garden is by saving seeds. Sure, you’ll have an initial investment, but after that your cost is essentially zero. Tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, lettuce, squash, pumpkins, and cucumbers are all really easy vegetables to start with.
When you do buy your initial seeds, make sure you get heirloom, open pollinated varieties and not hybrids. If you plant a seed saved from a hybrid vegetable, you’ll get a plant that resembles one of the “parents” that went into making the hybrid, not the hybrid itself.
Not sure where to buy seeds? Here’s a list of Canadian companies, and one for the US.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to spend a fortune to make your front yard look amazing? Save seeds from marigolds, sunflowers, nasturtiums, zinnias, calendula, and more for an easy and cheap flower garden next year. Or plant them amongst your vegetable garden for some wonderful companion planting benefits.
More established gardeners are often happy to share perennials plants that have grown a bit too big for their intended space. The parent plant often ends up revived the next growing season and you end up with some free plants for your yard. Win!
Before you get too excited, you might want to read over this list of plants that can quickly turn into a nightmare in zone 2 and 3, and this one for all the warmer zones.
Favourite plant on the list? You can still plant it!! Just know that if you’re not willing or able to maintain it every year, you’ll quickly have an overgrown mess on your hands.
For years my mother has taken cuttings of her favourite coleus and german ivy plants and grown them over the winter. Then, in Spring, she takes multiple cuttings from those indoor plants and has enough plants that she doesn’t need to buy them from the nursery. Although lets be real. . . a new variety or two always makes it’s way into the cart.
How do you take a cutting? It’s quite simple. Cut the plant so that it has a bit of a stem. Put the stem in water until it grows roots, usually in around a week. Transfer your newly rooted cuttings to a pot with dirt. Put them in a spot with adequate sunlight, water every few days, and repeat the process in spring.
Don’t throw away those kitchen scraps and old leaves! They are the perfect ingredients for making a nutrient-rich compost for your soil.
If you’ve never composted before, know that composting can be a bit of a waiting game (unless you vermicompost or hot compost). Your home compost will need to sit a couple of months and sometimes up to a year to be fully ready to use in your garden. The time depends on a couple of factors, such as how frequently (if at all) you turn it, and if you live in an area that has extremely cold winters or not.
If you live someplace where the whole winter is below freezing, the composting process will stop for the winter and re-start in the spring.
Check with your municipality if they have a compost program. Some cities offer free compost to their citizens!!
Every May I emerge from winter ready to conquer the world and plant an enormous garden, which may have included 27 tomato plants. Every September I end up silently cursing my optimism.
This year, I’ve come up with a better system to get things done while still keeping my sanity. Here’s how.
For those of you who live in warmer climates where all your tomatoes are vine ripened, you can skip this tip. Those of us in Saskatchewan and other USDA zone 2 or 3 areas have to pick most of our tomatoes green and ripen them indoors.
Set out four boxes and divide your tomatoes by colour and ripeness: green, yellow, orange, and red. This way you will be able to grab the ripest box and save precious time that you could be canning. Check your tomatoes every day or two and transfer any outliers to the correct box.
Cut your tomato processing time in half. Find out how!Click To Tweet
I cut my tomatoes in large chunks and squeeze out the seeds. You will not get every single seed out, so if you can’t stand any seeds in your tomato sauce, this is not the method for you. For roma tomatoes, I cut off the top, make a small slit, squeeze out the seeds, and put them into my slow cooker whole. Which brings me to my next point. . .
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to sit around a stove for 3 hours ensuring my sauce doesn’t burn. I also don’t have time to blanch and peel them. I’m happy to deal with the odd bit of tomato skin in my sauce.
I cut up my tomatoes about 6 hours before I know I’ll have time to deal with them again. Throw in other vegetables you want in your sauce such as onions, garlic, zucchini, carrots or squash and walk away.
Somewhere around hour 4-5 I come back and puree the sauce with a stick blender. This ensures that my super picky small child will actually eat the sauce I make.
Let your slow cooker or oven do the heavy lifting. Process your tomatoes with less effort. Click To Tweet
If a slow cooker isn’t your style, you can cut up all your veggies and roast them in the oven. Roasting adds an extra sweet caramelized flavour that I’m a huge fan of.
Put all veggies in a large roasting pan and cook at 400 degrees for at least an hour, or until some of the tops turn a bit black. Let cool, add spices, puree, and either can or freeze in containers.
We are short on freezer space here, so I try to can as many jars as I can. However, I don’t always have the time or energy, so I put my sauce in smaller containers in the freezer and call it a day. If you’re short on space, put your sauce in good quality freezer bags and freeze them flat for easier storage.
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Tomato season unfortunately seems to co-incide with back-to-school season, which in our house is a recipe for beautiful tomatoes going to waste. If you find yourself with almost no time to deal, chop tomatoes in quarters or eights and freeze in plastic bags. It’s not ideal, but you can always thaw frozen tomatoes and deal with them later.
How do you process your tomatoes? Any tips or tricks to add? Let me know in the comments what your favourite method is.
Gardening doesn't have to be complicated. Learn the basics in minutes, get started with your first garden in a day or less, and start your lifetime gardening adventure.
Enter your name and email address to download the Quick Start Garden Guide. You'll also get a mini-email course and weekly gardening tips and advice.
