Purchasing compost and potting soil can be expensive and new garden beds can take a lot of soil to fill them. Plus, we’ve talked before that commercial compost often needs a little help getting the microbes up and moving again in order to make it biologically active and not just an inert material that’s not helping our plants at all. So, filling a raised bed with nothing but trucked in compost and bags of potting mix just isn’t the way to go. If you’ve gotten behind on building your beds or you’...
Feb 21, 2023•19 min•Season 3Ep. 136
For this week’s Focal Point Friday, I answer a question asked by a student in my Plan Like a Pro garden planning course last week. She wanted some clarification on what I mean when I’m talking about intercropping. “Does that mean I plant another crop in between the rows of the other or does it mean the second crop is spaced in the same row as the other crop.” Companion Planting Chart Say Thank You! Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Facebook Group Follow me on Instagram JustGrowSomethingPodca...
Feb 17, 2023•5 min
Potatoes are a staple in many areas of the world, and they can be grown just about anywhere. Your yield definitely improves if you follow a few techniques, but there are so many options: from big long in-ground rows, to raised planters, old bathtubs or wash basins, buckets, grow bags, even pots on your patio. So, even if you don’t have hundreds of row feet of space to grow potatoes for your entire family for a year, most everybody has space to maybe do some fingerling potatoes or some small boil...
Feb 14, 2023•36 min•Season 3Ep. 135
Jennifer in the Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Facebook group said, “I've seen, several places now, an argument about whether sunflowers are toxic to other plants around them or whether they are soil cleaners. Can you give us the low-down?” This was a great question and one that was asked again just a few days later in our Kansas City Area gardening group, as well. The quick answer is everything you've heard about sunflowers is true! Say Thank You! Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Fa...
Feb 10, 2023•5 min
Different types of soil have different water holding capacities and nutrient availability. Much of this is based on the percentage of three soil particles in the soil composition: sand, silt, and clay. Knowing what the texture of our soil is helps us to know what how water and nutrients move through our soil and the best amendments for our particular soil type and the plants we want to grow. Today we’ll talk about how to test our soil composition and texture by using the jar method or the ribbon...
Feb 07, 2023•28 min•Season 3Ep. 134
Welcome back, my gardening friends, to another Focal Point Friday episode, this time covering proper lighting for your indoor seedlings. It's not as complicated as you may think! These quickie episodes are either an important highlight from a previous episode or a quick focus on a current event in the food and agriculture world that I think we should be talking about. Think of these episodes as a way to tickle your brain with one or two ideas to ponder while you’re planning or planting or diggin...
Feb 03, 2023•4 min
Most beginning gardeners struggle with growing full-sized bulb onions for a number of reasons: they don't understand there are different onions for different growing situations and that the nutritional needs for onions at different stages of growth are different from other root vegetables. I struggled with all of this plus not growing the correct type of onion for long-term storage. In this first crop-specific episode of season three, we’re jumping into everything onion, including background inf...
Jan 31, 2023•50 min•Season 3Ep. 133
Welcome back, my gardening friends, to another Focal Point Friday episode all about proper airflow for the seedlings you may be starting indoors. These quickie episodes are either an important highlight from a previous episode or a quick focus on a current event in the food and agriculture world that I think we should be talking about. Think of these episodes as a way to tickle your brain with one or two ideas to ponder while you’re planning or planting or digging in the garden this weekend. Wit...
Jan 27, 2023•4 min
It’s often difficult to know exactly how much of each crop to plant, even for experienced gardeners. You’ve had to have been pretty meticulous with keeping track of your harvests to have a firm grasp on how much each of the plants you grew last year actually produced. And then need to average that out over a few years, figure out whether that’s enough for your needs, and then decide on how many plants you’ll need this year based on that average. But how do you figure out how many of something yo...
Jan 24, 2023•26 min•Season 3Ep. 132
Welcome back, my gardening friends, to another Focal Point Friday episode. On this week’s quickie episode, I am introducing you to my brand-new garden planning course, Plan Like A Pro. I have been working around the clock for almost two months now on videos and downloads and building an online community and I want to give you all the details before we launch next week. It's the time of year when we should be planning our gardens and I want you to have the best garden year yet! Listen as I walk y...
Jan 20, 2023•10 min
If you like to start your own seeds for your garden but often struggle with the amount of space it takes up, you’re definitely not alone. Or maybe you’ve wanted to start your own plants but are put off by all the indoor growing requirements? Having the space, the lighting, fans for strengthening the seedlings, keeping a watering schedule, getting them hardened off … starting transplants from seed indoors can feel intimidating or overwhelming. Even for me, someone who has an entire room dedicated...
Jan 17, 2023•44 min•Season 3Ep. 131
Welcome to this Focal Point Friday episode featuring the top three reasons why you should be growing your own food in your own garden, even if that "garden" is a pot on a windowsill in your kitchen. Think of these episodes as a way to tickle your brain with one or two ideas to ponder while you’re planning or planting or digging in the garden this weekend. Without further ado, let’s get down and dirty. Enjoy! Related episode: Ep. 3 - Why Grow Your Own and How to Preserve the Nutrients if You Don'...
Jan 13, 2023•8 min
As we start to plan our gardens for this year, we may realize that we don’t have enough room for everything we want to grow. This is where intercropping and succession planting come in. We’re planting different plants with each other to make the most of our space or we’re planting them one after each other, sometimes with some overlap. And lots of times you will hear these terms used interchangeably or in conjunction with each other. But is intercropping and companion planting the same thing, or...
Jan 10, 2023•23 min•Season 3Ep. 130
Welcome to the first Focal Point Friday episode of season three. Think of these episodes as a way to tickle your brain with one or two ideas to ponder while you’re planning or planting or digging in the garden this weekend. This week, it's all about the easiest crops to grow for beginners. Without further ado, let’s get down and dirty. Enjoy! Related Episode: Ep. 2 - Garden Talk Tuesday: The Basics...
Jan 06, 2023•11 min
Welcome to season THREE of the Just Grow Something podcast! We’re going to kick off this season with an in-depth look at how to figure out what size garden bed is ideal for you and your gardening space. I have run the gambit of different sizing on beds, both in-ground and raised planters and I’ve finally landed on my preferred sizing and spacing for both. And, guess what? It’s different for both situations! I prefer my in-ground beds to be one size and configuration and I prefer my raised plante...
Jan 03, 2023•38 min•Season 3Ep. 129
Throughout the month of December, we’ve been doing little something different around here where I’ve been treating you to episodes of other podcasts where I was invited to be a guest. This week is the final week of having some honest conversations about different topics related to farming and gardening with other podcasters within the Positively Farming Media podcast group on their shows. And you can’t get any more honest than the Barnyard Language podcast. This one will be a little different th...
Dec 27, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Season 2Ep. 128
Last week you heard my interview with Ashely Constance of the A Little Self Reliant podcast all about compost. This week, we change it up a little bit. We’re going to hear an episode of the We Drink and We Farm Things podcast, affectionately known as Drink and Farm. This podcast is hosted by Bev Ross and Sam Bolton. Sam is on hiatus and Bev invited me and a few others onto the show to talk about some farming firsts. You’ll recognize Ashley Constance in this episode along with our friend Erica Le...
Dec 20, 2022•39 min•Season 2Ep. 127
Throughout the month of December, we are doing little something different around here. I am treating you to several episodes of some other podcasts where I was invited to be a guest. These will be some honest conversations about different topics related to farming and gardening with other podcasters within the Positively Farming Media podcast group on their shows. Last week you heard my interview on the Rural Woman Podcast with Katelyn Duban and if you missed it, I highly encourage you to go bac...
Dec 13, 2022•34 min•Season 2Ep. 126
Throughout the month of December we’re going to do something a little different around here. I am going to treat you to several episodes of some other podcasts where I was invited to be a guest. I hope you’ll enjoying hearing some honest conversations about different topics related to farming and gardening as I speak with other podcasters within the Positively Farming Media podcast group on their shows, some of whom you’ve heard interviewed on this podcast. So, without further ado let’s jump int...
Dec 06, 2022•57 min•Season 2Ep. 125
Let's do a Q & A! We’ll talk about whether or not market gardening is worth it, both from a personal satisfaction standpoint and from a monetary one, explore whether or not it’s too late in some areas to plant garlic, find out how to tell when your strawberries have gone dormant, and talk about a very interesting tip I learned about growing fruit trees in colder climates. You bet I’m going to be taking advantage of this little tidbit of information! Let’s dig in. Grow Guide Podcast E146: Ins...
Nov 29, 2022•22 min•Season 2Ep. 124
‘Tis the season! We’re moving into the time of the year when gift giving is on everybody’s mind. Whether you’re looking for gift ideas for the gardeners in your life or if your loved ones are asking for gift ideas for YOU, I’ve got a bunch of ideas in a variety of price ranges. Some of these are things that are on my own wish list and some of them are things I already own that I swear by or I upgraded to this year. This is a fun episode and hopefully you’ll come away with some great gift ideas f...
Nov 22, 2022•36 min•Season 2Ep. 123
This week we’re talking about how to use less water in the garden. We are still in drought conditions here in west central Missouri, it was a hard gardening year for sure, but I also know when I lived in northern California that water conservation was always a topic of discussion and that was 30 years ago. Many of you live in areas where water is just naturally scarce, and restrictions are always in place. So how do we, as gardeners, balance a need to grow our own food and in some instances food...
Nov 15, 2022•35 min•Season 2Ep. 122
There’s something to be said for military life. It’s regimented. There’s a strict hierarchy, there’s a chain of command, there are orders to follow, and you know day in and day out what your duties are. And if you’re someone who fits well into that sort of lifestyle and the mindset that’s necessary to take on the demands of being in that lifestyle, it can often be very, very difficult to transition back to civilian life where those things don’t always hold true. There are a lot of military servi...
Nov 11, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 121
This episode is the second of two parts talking about growing for farmer’s market. This week we’re digging into changes to your garden plan and other considerations around planning, planting, and pricing the produce you want to take to market. When I first started, I really thought it was just a matter of increasing the volume of what I grew, but it turned out to be a little bit more complicated than that. It’s not hard, but the amount of space you have to work with is going to dictate what you ...
Nov 09, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 120
This episode we’re going to get started with selling at farmer’s markets. This subject will be a two-parter. Planning a garden with the intention of selling some of it is different than just selling the extra you happen to grow, and we’ll talk all about all those details in part two. Today we’re going to walk through all the things I didn’t take into consideration before I started selling our produce in our CSA program and at multiple market stands. This is quite literally a “I did it all wrong ...
Nov 03, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 119
This episode we’re digging into how to use cover crops in our home gardens. I kept saying I needed to do a full episode on this and we’re doing it today. This is not reserved for just big farms with thousands of acres of land. Using a cover crop in the home garden is beneficial in all kinds of ways and can be tailored to what you need: improving soil structure, preventing erosion, as a living mulch, to add nutrients back into your soil, or all of the above. This is effective for both in-ground b...
Oct 25, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 118
This episode we are digging into growing cut flowers in our garden. I am not a flower farmer, I’m a mediocre flower grower at best, but I love having cut flowers in my house and I’m determined to grow my own at some point. And since right now is the time we should be preparing our beds for the spring, and flower beds would be no exception, I thought it was the perfect time to talk to an expert. Kathy Gormandy is a cut flower farmer and the owner of P and K Farms, a 3-acre farmstead in southern A...
Oct 21, 2022•36 min•Season 2Ep. 117
Asparagus is a fantastic perennial, with healthy beds lasting as long as 30 years. Asparagus crowns are planted in spring, but the fall is when you want to prepare the bed. So, today we’ll go over everything you need to know about planting and growing asparagus so you can get your beds prepped in time and place those orders for spring crowns. In the question of the week, we’re talking another favorite perennial – strawberries! Lots of questions around winter requirements these juicy beauties, so...
Oct 18, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 116
Depending on where you garden you may have just had your first frost or even a hard freeze. If you are one of my warm-climate gardeners, you’re steadily marching toward the time of year when plants begin to go dormant or, if you don’t have a Persephone Period, the time of year when growth slows dramatically. Now is the time to take advantage of that period of time to either put the garden to bed for the winter or to get it ready for spring, or both! Today we’re talking about what to do to get yo...
Oct 11, 2022•39 min•Season 2Ep. 115
This episode we’re going to tackle one way to grow onions for spring, depending on our location. We haven’t done a full onion episode yet and I promise we will because there’s a lot to unpack there, but since now is the time to get some types of onions in the ground depending on your goals, we’ll cover some of the basics and the how and why for overwintering. We’ll also review the Question of the Week, which is actually more of a discussion than a question surrounding the difference between hard...
Oct 04, 2022•40 min•Season 2Ep. 114
