If you’re new to gardening you might be panicking. What is a Plant Hardiness Zone? How do you find out which one you live in? Which plants do you buy seeds for and when? How much space do I need? Shhhhh…. MUD’s got you. Our sustainable agricultural certified Site Steward, Dan Gagner, sat down to school us with some great tips and tricks.
Determine a Suitable Gardening Method
If you live in an apartment or duplex, you might be working with some pretty limited space. Hopefully, you have a small porch to work with, or a small patch of space outside that you can use. If that’s the case, container planting might be your best bet. If your spot gets decent sunlight, container planting can give you a little more control over the soil composition and you can plant warm soil-loving crops like peppers and tomatoes. You can drill some drainage holes into buckets and plant a few layers of potatoes. There are even people who grow tubers in laundry hampers!
You can also check to see if there are any community gardens in your vicinity that you can use. You can use this map produced by the University to find your closest garden. Each community garden has its own rules and fees, so make sure you do some research to see if it’s a good fit.
If you’re living somewhere with a yard you have a few more options. You can use some MUD tools to build a garden bed or a raised garden bed. A raised garden bed gives you some more control over the soil composition and can be a lot easier on your body (less stooping over to weed and water). You can construct affordable raised garden beds in a very short amount of time. You can try to find all sorts of building materials at very affordable prices at Home ReSource.
Soil composition and care is a complicated endeavor that can take years of experience to perfect. If you’re just starting out, consider sourcing soil locally! Missoula Compost sells varieties of compost rich soil to suit your needs.
Pick Your Plants
Which veggies and herbs do you eat the most? What is your gardening experience level and how much time are you willing and able to spend in your garden? If you’re a beginner in Missoula, there are a few “easier” plants you can start your journey with. For beginners in Montana, Dan recommends zucchini, sugar snap peas, radishes, parsley, kale (a cold hardy crop that can last into fall), carrots, beets, and potatoes.
They also touted the benefits of companion plants. Companion plants can improve garden health by repelling or distracting pests, enhancing soil nutrients, attracting pollinators, or providing some shade. Dan recommends marigolds and sunflowers to attract pollinators, and nasturtiums to repel aphids and beetles. Nasturtiums are also edible! Their leaves and stems can be eaten in salads, and their spicy edible flowers can be used to adorn your charcuterie boards, avocado toasts, and pastas.
Choose a manageable number of plants to begin with based on your experience and comfortability. Begin with a solid 3-5 plants.
Identify Your Plant Hardiness Zone
Plant Hardiness Zones were created to help people identify which plants they can plant at which times of the year to see the most success. These zones are primarily based on temperature extremes. There are several other factors to consider when gardening, like soil, light, space, and humidity. But, generally, when you purchase seeds they will tell you the best time for you to plant them indoors and outdoors based on your hardiness zone. Use this tool from USDA to identify your Plant Hardiness Zone. The map can even show you block-by-block variances in Hardiness Zones. Missoula is primarily 5b, but there are some odd blocks in other zones.
Get Plantin’
When you purchase seeds, you can determine how and when to plant them usually based on the back of the seed packet. It will give you basic instructions, and some will even tell you when you should begin sowing either indoors or outdoors. If your seed packet doesn’t specify when to plant based on your hardiness zone, you can use this almanac tool to design your gardening plans.
Some plants require starting seed indoors and transplanting them into your garden at an appropriate time. You can use recycled materials as much as possible to build an indoor plant starter nursery with basic white LED lights.
If starting seed indoors sounds like too much of an expense and/or hassle, select plants that don’t require starting seed indoors. If you’re a beginner, avoiding transplants might be the best option. Gardening is a skill that takes practice and patience. Don’t get deterred early with information and labor overload. Start slow and try to keep things simple your first and second years.
The seed packets or the almanac will tell you the amount of space you need per seed, how deep they need to be planted, and how much sunlight and water they require. You can keep a spreadsheet or notebook with all the information about the plants you chose to reference as you care for your garden.
Dan’s hot take? “The planting directions on the seed packets are more for row planting for farmers. My philosophy is that there shouldn’t be any bare ground. If you have two tomato plants that are a couple feet apart you can plant some lower crops that don’t grow as tall to cover up any bare earth. Less weeding, more yield. Abundance.”
You‘re Doing Amazing, Sweetie!
Gardening is an ancient and vast practice. Overwhelm is a huge barrier to entry for new gardeners. At the end of the day, you have to pick a place to start, make mistakes, make successes, and keep going. Just like any skill, you will have to use the information available to forge your own path. Luckily, in this age of information at our fingertips, there are many people sharing their knowledge. The MUD community is full of passionate, seasoned gardeners who are more than happy to share their wisdom.
This year, Dan will be planting flowers, tomatoes, radishes, garlic, kale, arugula, spinach, tomatillos, peppers, herbs, and rosemary at the MUD site. Make sure to come by and check it out, ask questions, and nab some tools to begin your own gardening projects.
Don’t miss out on this year’s Five Valleys Seed Library Seed Swap, March 14, 10 am – 2 pm, to stock up on seeds and plant knowledge! MUD will see you there.
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