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Tag Archive for: Vegetable Gardening

Why Gardening Should Always be a Team Effort

May 10, 2022/in Blog, Fruits & Vegetables, Gardening, Spring Gardening, Spring Gardening, Summer Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

people gardening together

Spring is here, and there’s no better way to celebrate the new season than by getting outside and gardening. Even better, why not garden with your friends, families, and community members? It’s the perfect way to help our planet while also connecting with the people closest in your life. Don’t believe it? Here’s why gardening with other people should be at the top of your to-do list this spring.

Woman and child in garden

1. It benefits your health.

Verywell Family says that gardening is a moderately intense form of exercise. It’s a great way to burn some calories without feeling like you’ve just run a marathon. This also means it’s a fun way to get your family physically active as well. The website states that, “Kids ages three to five need to get three hours of physical activity each day, and older kids need a minimum of an hour daily.” You and your family can bond over planting onions, corn, potatoes, you name it! As a bonus, Espoma’s Garden-tone Natural & Organic Fertilizer will have your family fawning over your healthy crops all season long.

basket of carrots

2. It benefits the environment.

It goes without saying that when you plant a garden, you’re significantly doing good for the environment. Greenmatters claims that gardening improves air quality, protects soil, lessens global warming, minimizes landfills, and saves different kinds of wildlife. These might seem like daunting tasks, but it’s really easier than you think. Verywell Family suggests that when gardening with your family, “You might invest in a rain barrel and start a compost pile to make your garden more Earth-friendly, too.” 

Gardens for kids are an easy, engaging way to learn more about sustainability and its importance for our planet. And even for those who aren’t children, you’re never too late to learn something new. Gardening can teach your friends, family, and fellow neighbors about all the green benefits of growing plants and crops.

child taking picture of a flower

3. It’s just plain fun.

Whoever you plant your garden with, you go on a journey together to grow something entirely new. 

Harddy explains that “Watching the plants start to grow is an incredible achievement. When the planting is done together as a family, it makes the entire process even more meaningful from start to finish.” 

This rewarding process is a bonding experience that can strengthen your relationship with your family and local community. There’s also tons of ways to spice up your garden to make it a fun time for everyone involved. 

Playful Acre thinks that adding themes to your garden can make your children more engaged and interested in helping out. The blog tells us that having garden bed ideas spanning from “fairy tales to stories to favorite vacations abroad” can make your time outside all the more fulfilling.

Once your luscious garden is complete, the fun does not end there. There’s lots of ways afterwards to enhance the beauty of all your hard work.

Harddy recommends to “Use this time to come up with some beautiful decor you and your children can make together. Buy some terra cotta pots and have everyone paint one in their own unique designs. You can also clip the flowers you’ve grown to make gorgeous decorative arrangements for the dinner table.”

No matter who you garden with, whether your family, friends, or other local green thumbs, social gardening is your answer to springtime fun. Just as importantly, there are health benefits to gardening that keeps you and your close circle physically active on a daily basis. And of course, we need to upkeep our planet to make it a safe, beautiful place for everyone, and gardening helps us accomplish exactly that.

We can’t wait to see you and your squad planting seeds and growing meaningful relationships. Check out all our products ranging from fertilizers, to soils, and everything in between to make your next planting party a success. Happy gardening!

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Meet Your New Gardening Guide: Kaleb Wyse

May 9, 2022/in Blog, Fruits & Vegetables, Gardening, Kaleb Wyse

Kaleb Wyse

Kaleb Wyse is a fourth-generation to live on his family farm in Iowa. Leaving business and accounting, Kaleb started Wyse Guide as an outlet for his passions in the garden and indoors in the kitchen. His goal is to show viewers how they can start a garden no matter the size, preserve food, and create the home they love to live in.

Some things about Kaleb? You won’t find spirea or daylily in his garden. When Kaleb isn’t gardening, he’s busy crafting new recipes of his favorite foods, like ice cream and gourmet popcorn. While you’d think his favorite season is summer because he loves to garden, he adores the winter; he likes to slow down and curate his plans for springtime gardening season while he looks out at the Iowa snow. 

Kaleb Wyse and Kippie

His 3 year-old Frenchie, Kip, helps him out in the garden when he needs an extra hand, or paw in this case. Though he doesn’t like to do any garden work, he’s a good supervisor. 

Vegetable gardening is incredibly important to Kaleb — “We have the ability to grow actual food, think about how amazing that is! We can enrich our soil to be healthy and full of nutrients that will transfer to the vegetable garden plants we grow, making them more nutritious that what we buy that is mass grown.” He never grows tired of the excitement about how he can take a seed into something he can eat. Kaleb’s passions have sprouted instructional videos, recipes, and home gardening tips for everyone to use.

Kaleb with house plants

Be sure to check out Kaleb’s amazing gardening tips and recipes on Wyse Guide. When you have your list of garden vegetables you’re ready to plant, we’ve got you covered with fertilizers and soils sure to start the season off the right way.

https://www.espoma.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image2.jpg 1350 1080 espoma https://www.espoma.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/espoma-logo340w-1.png espoma2022-05-09 16:30:222022-05-11 11:46:54Meet Your New Gardening Guide: Kaleb Wyse

How to Use Succession Planting in Your Fall Garden

September 23, 2021/in Blog, Fall Gardening, Fruits & Vegetables, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

Gardening with hands in soil

 

Did you finish harvesting your summer crops and find yourself wondering what to do next? There’s still plenty of time to get a fall and winter garden going before the first frost! Try planting one vegetable right as another one finishes. This is a process many gardeners use called succession planting and will maximize your harvest all season long. Here are four different ways to do it!


Harvest and replant


Go ahead and harvest your veggies that are ready to go. When you’re done, plant another set of vegetables with a shorter maturity date in that same plot in your garden. Replacing leafy greens with potatoes is a great example of this method.

 

Be sure to plan accordingly here! Growing based on maturity can be a little tricky if you aren’t planning for your region. Make sure to check the seed packet or plant tag to find out how long the plant will take to mature and what temperature in which it will grow best. Also be sure you have enough seeds to keep you going through the season.

 

Companion crops

 

This method involved planting two or more crops with varying maturity dates around each other. This way, even after you harvest the first crop, your garden will continue to flourish! Radishes next to cucumbers are a perfect example of this since radishes will be harvested before the cucumbers start to produce too much shade.

 

Remember to feed all your crops at their varying stages of growth to keep them moving along. Espoma’s Garden Tone will keep the soil rich in order for your crops to continue thriving as the weather gets colder. And don’t hesitate to pull plants that are reducing or ceasing harvest in order to make room for new crops!

Man gardening tomatoes and vegetables in a raised bed

 

Staggered crops

 

Try planting the same crop every few weeks in order not to be bombarded by the entire crop at once. For example, tomatoes and peas would work well in small batches throughout the entire season.

 

Just one crop

 

Lastly, you can always keep things simple by planting the same crop with different maturity dates. Seed packets will often display the days to maturity for you. Broccoli, for example, is a crop with various maturity dates.

 

Don’t forget that you can always start your seeds indoors in order to speed up the growing process outdoors! This allows you to harvest and quickly plant to keep your garden at an optimum level throughout the fall and winter season.

 

Gardening, leafy Green plants, fall gardening

 

Ready to get out there and start succession planting? We can’t wait to see your endless harvests all season long! Get started by making a list of veggies it’s not too late to plant.

 

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Cutting Flowers and Planting Fall Crops with Garden Answer

August 31, 2021/in Fruits & Vegetables - None

Follow along as Laura from @Garden Answer cuts some especially beautiful flowers for some friends! Stick around as she provides some helpful tips for cutting flowers and to see which Espoma products she uses while planting fall crops!

 

 

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Video: Planting Vegetable with Garden Answer

June 23, 2021/in Blog, Fruits & Vegetables - None, Garden Answer, Summer Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

It’s time to plant some corn, beans, and tomatoes at the @Garden Answer household! Tag along to see how Laura gets her vegetable gardening done with some Espoma products.

 

 

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Video: Planting Peppers with Garden Answer!

June 8, 2021/in Espoma Videos, Fruits & Vegetables, Fruits & Vegetables - None, Garden Answer, Gardening, Summer Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

Laura from @Garden Answer is planting sweet and spicy peppers in her garden! Watch to find out which Espoma products help her get the job done.

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Video: How to Care for Tomatoes with Epic Gardening

June 7, 2021/in Blog, Fruits & Vegetables, Fruits & Vegetables - None, Gardening, Summer Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

Kevin from @Epic Gardening is walking us through how he plans to maintain those tomatoes he recently planted with the help of Espoma. Follow along to hear his top tips!

 

See our guide to growing tomatoes here

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6 Vegetables to Sow During Early Spring

March 16, 2021/in Blog, Fruits & Vegetables, Gardening

organic vegetables, broccoli, peas, carrots, zucchini

The weather is getting warmer, which means it’s time to start thinking about sowing spring veggies and planning ahead! Cool season crops can be directly sown into the ground as soon as the soil temperature is at or above 40˚F, but ensure you’re not working with wet or muddy soil since those are not favorable conditions for plant growth. Don’t forget to include Espoma Organic Garden-Tone to give your new vegetables the nutrients they need to grow big and delicious!

1. Spinach

Fresh baby spinach is not only delicious, but it’s also loaded with vitamins and minerals. This vegetable is versatile because you can eat it alone in a springtime salad or mix it into something like a smoothie! Now is a great time to sow spinach since it usually sprouts quickly and is somewhat frost-resistant in the face of unpredictable spring weather.

organic vegetable

2. Swiss Chard

You may not be familiar with this beet relative, but it’s another amazing plant that is easy to grow from seed in the early springtime. You can eat chard raw or cooked and feel good knowing it contains 3 times the recommended daily intake of vitamin K and 44 percent of the recommended amount of vitamin A! Remember to harvest only the outer leaves during the spring and leave the inside for a later harvest.

Leafy Green Plant, Lettuce

3. Lettuce

Lettuce may seem simple, but did you know it actually comes in a variety of colors, species, shapes, and sizes? Gardeners love this plant lettuce because harvesting the baby greens is quick and easy — sometimes it can be ready after just 30 days! Lettuce is low in calories, fat, and sodium and is also a good source of fiber, iron, folate, and vitamin C. You can use your lettuce in a traditional salad, or spice things up by putting it in soup, making a wrap, or even grilling it.

organic radishes

4. Radishes

Radishes are the quickest vegetable to grow on this list if you truly want an early spring harvest. They’re also rich in antioxidants and minerals like calcium and potassium. Did you know these nutrients can help lower high blood pressure and reduce your risks for heart disease? You can put radishes in salads or even add them to stir fry or tacos.

5. Kale

Kale is the perfect vegetable if you want to produce a lot of food with little effort. It’s known as a “super food” for a reason — because cooked kale actually produces more iron than beef! It grows easily from a seed, so all you have to do is harvest the outer leaves for baby kale and let the rest of the foliage grow to full size. Kale, like spinach, is a great ingredient to add to your next salad or smoothie. Try a kale salad, or add it to a smoothie to make it healthier!

6. Peas

If you want to get your kids interested in gardening, the simplicity of planting peas is a great start. Fresh grown peas are a sweet and delicious side for any dish, or you can use them to make pea soup. They’re a good source of vitamins C and E, zinc, and other antioxidants that strengthen your immune system. You’ll want to read the seed packets closely to see if there are any specific growing directions and to get an idea of how tall this plant will grow. If you don’t want to do all the shelling regular peas require, you should opt for sugar snaps or snow peas.

*****

It’s much easier than you may think to grow delicious and nutritious veggies in your own backyard. Plus, it’s fun and simple enough for the whole family to help! Which ones are you going to include in your early spring garden?

 

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5 Veggies to Plant in August

August 12, 2020/in Fall Gardening, Fruits & Vegetables, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

Have you thought ahead to your fall harvest yet? August is prime time to plant delicious and nutritious vegetables that will come to life in the cooler months. And there’s nothing better than being able to spice up your home-cooked dishes using your very own garden — no need to run to the supermarket! Read on to find out which veggies you should be planting right now.

 

Lettuce

Did you know lettuce cannot be frozen, dried, pickled, or canned? That’s why you have to eat it fresh! Luckily, planting it right now means you’ll be able to enjoy it in just a few months. A fall harvest is ideal as lettuce’s sturdiness prevents any frost from destroying it. These leafy greens are a good source of vitamin C, calcium, iron, and copper — making it the perfect base for a healthy salad. Keep an eye out for the dark green leaves when harvesting as they’re even healthier than the light green ones. 

Spinach

Spinach is well known for its low-calorie count and high levels of vitamin A, C, and iron — making it the perfect addition to that healthy salad. This veggie also gives you the highest turnover out of all the others. If collected in small quantities, you can keep harvesting them late until May! The best time to start planting them is now, at the tail end of summer.

Parsley

Ready for another healthy addition to that salad we’re working on? Parsley is a rich source of Vitamin K, C, and A, and minerals like magnesium, potassium, iron, and calcium. It’s no wonder this veggie has been used in dishes since ancient Rome! It’s also believed to have anti-tumor, anti-bacterial, and antifungal properties. Plant your parsley now to make sure you can reap all these benefits in the fall.

Carrots

If you’re planning on sowing some veggies that aren’t leafy greens, carrots should definitely be your first choice! As this vegetable grows into the fall season, the cool weather turns the starch to sugar, making them extra delicious. This sweet flavor makes them the perfect side or snack — sauteed, roasted, or even raw! Keep in mind that this plant does need a little extra care compared to some of the others on this list, so be sure to use vegetable food like Garden-tone to provide them with the energy they need to grow.

Beets

Last but not least, beets should definitely be on your August to-plant list. Did you know beets are edible from the tip of their green leaves to the bottom of their brown roots? They also help capture some hard-to-catch toxins and flush them out. These same antioxidants provide anti-inflammatory agents that provide a wide array of health benefits. Still not convinced? Since beet juice helps cleanse your liver, it’s thought that it can even help cure hangovers! If you want to make use of the entire plant and enjoy all these delicious benefits, make sure to sow the seeds now — about 8 weeks before the first frost.

*****

Just because summer is winding down, doesn’t mean it’s time to pack up your gardening supplies. August is the perfect time to plant some of your favorite vegetables! Cooking primarily with these veggies straight from your garden will give you some of the freshest and tastiest dishes. So get your family together, head outside, and get planting!

 

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Video: Tying up & Fertilizing Tomatoes with Bloom and Grow Radio!

August 4, 2020/in Bloom and Grow Radio, Espoma Videos, Fruits & Vegetables, Vegetable Gardening

Are your tomato plants growing out of control? Time to tie them up with Bloom and Grow Radio‘s Tying and Fertilizing Tomatoes video featuring Tomato-tone!

See our guide to growing tomatoes here

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