Episode 001: Welcome To Organic Gardening For Beginners

Hello and welcome to the very first episode of Organic Gardening for Beginners. My name is Jessica and I have over 20 years of gardening experience across the US and my goal is to share that all with you. I have started many gardens over the years, starting when I was a teenager and we lived out on five acres out in the country, all the way up to where I currently am in Southern California. I am a military spouse, which means that every couple of years we move and I start over again. So I have garden up in the Pacific Northwest in Southern California and also down in the southeast in South Carolina, where my garden was less than successful, battling through bugs and humidity and hurricanes. So I’m happy to be currently in Southern California where it is much more ideal to garden. But enough about me.

The point of this show, the purpose of this show is is to help you and encourage you to start your first garden. Maybe you’ve tried in the past and you haven’t been successful. Either your seed didn’t sprout or you got some things going but ended up losing them to weather or to bugs, or maybe even your kids pulling things out of the garden. That’s happened to me And you want to try again. But the problem is, sometimes it’s easy to get overwhelmed, it’s easy to get busy, it’s easy to feel like you missed the ideal planting time, and really what I want to help with is helping you not get preoccupied with that and just get started. No matter, honestly, what time of year it is, even if it’s in the dead of winter, there are still things you can do to help get going on your garden. And, just for a little bit of context, i am a stay at home mom to an almost two year old and almost four year old, So I definitely understand the pains of feeling like you have not quite enough time, not quite enough headspace to keep track of everything, so I can completely relate on that. But that does not mean that you can’t get out to the garden and start growing some pretty flowers, start growing just a little bit of food to bring home into your house for your family, and the joy of gardening is truly something that I love to share with people, so that is why we are here.

This show will cover some of the bigger picture topics in gardening, like companion planting or planting your garden, maintenance chores during each season, how to keep your garden productive and healthy, especially in the summer, when it’s at peak production time. And we’ll also break down some of those larger topics into bite size chunks to avoid the overwhelm and, instead of looking at the entire scope of planting your garden, instead look at just one aspect of it, such as focusing on where to put your garden, how to take advantage of the sunlight or the shade that you have, and what you want to use your garden for. Some episodes will focus on one plant or a group of plants, perhaps talking about zinnias or shade tolerant veggies. Some episodes will definitely help you learn from my mistakes. I have no shame in sharing my garden failures, my lessons learned and helping you skip some of those, like trying to start lettuce in July. I really don’t recommend anybody does that And one episode per month will provide some guidance on what to do or what to plant in that month. Now, of course, this will vary depending on where you’re at in the United States or where you are in the world, but in general, there are common themes that you can apply across the months, no matter where you’re at. That can help you stay on top of your garden or get prepared for your upcoming season. Now, hopefully, what you’ve heard so far has helped you think to yourself hey, this show sounds like it’s just for me. I really want to get started with my garden. But in case you’re not sure yet, here are a few people that I think about when I am recording these episodes and when I am planning out episodes for this show.

This podcast is for the person who wanders the farmer’s market and looks at all those beautiful displays of produce, of flowers, of all the fruits and vegetables that the farmers have brought in, and they think, man, i really want to grow that for myself. I want that coming right out of my backyard straight into my kitchen where I can grow it all myself and cook it up. This show is for the person who has bought packets of seeds that either they forgot to plant, chose not to plant, or maybe they did plant them and they didn’t sprout, or they sprouted for a couple of weeks and then they died. It’s not too late to try again. This show is for the person who wants to grow some of their own food for themselves and their family. You know that local food is awesome. You know that fresh food is even better that when it comes straight out of the ground and into your kitchen that it still has its freshness, its nutrition, its vitality that you want to bring into your kitchen to feed you and your family.

This show is for the person who loves beautiful flowers and wants a fresh bouquet on their kitchen counter every week. I love growing flowers, not only for me, because, yes, they are gorgeous, they are pretty, they are romantic and just so fun to look at, but they also are amazing for the local pollinator and bird populations, and I love seeing those come into the garden. You will definitely hear me talk about my hummingbirds that I’m always trying to bring into my garden. And lastly, this show is for the person who just doesn’t know where to start and needs a hand to figure it out. The person who has this picture in their head of what they want their garden to look like, the food they want to grow in it, the flowers they want to grow in it, the aspirations that they have for their garden that they’ve seen in magazines, on TV, in their neighbor’s yard, and they’re just not sure how to start. This show is most definitely for you.

When you listen to this show, you’ll get tips and advice from me, who has been gardening for over 20 years. As I mentioned before, i’ve grown in Washington, in Southern California, in South Carolina, so I know that there are struggles and hurdles with different climates, with getting used to new areas and the different kind of weather patterns than you might be used to. You’ll definitely get the real scoop on starting your garden with simple steps. It’s not difficult to get a garden started, but there are some things to think about and it can be easy to get overwhelmed with the things that you need to do. If you are starting your garden on a tight budget. I absolutely have some tips for you on how to do this without dropping a bunch of money on fancy raised beds or extra garden materials that, honestly, you really don’t need when you’re just getting started out. Finding free mulch and free compost are two of my favorite things to do whenever we move. And, lastly, you will get inspired to grow new things, to try new varieties and planting techniques.

Maybe this isn’t your first garden, but you still consider yourself more or less a beginner and you still need a little bit of guidance. Well, hopefully I will have some insight to provide for you, some tricks that have worked for me that I can pass on and share that will make your second and consecutive gardens even better and even easier to get started and more productive. That is all for this episode, and I really hope that you got something from it, that you are excited to have a gardener in your corner who is here to help you. Next week, we are going to be talking about some of the most common mistakes the beginners make and how to avoid them or how to fix them. If you’re already on that path And if you are getting value out of this show already, then please hit that subscribe or follow button and I will talk to you next week. Bye.