As everyone will see on the right hand side of my blog there is a list of helpful links. Since the link text doesn't really do them justice, I figured I'd provide a summary of them below because they have been invaluable in helping me get my gardens off the ground. Hopefully they can help you tackle your first garden or take your gardening to the next level. Now is the time to plan your garden and start planting "early spring" varieties that can take a frost or two like peas. And if anyone has any other sites they love please share.
1. Sprout Robot. Very simple site. You just enter your zip code and it tells you when to plant what.
2. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Confession, I haven't actually used them. But I know how important heirloom seeds are to some people so I wanted to include it. My sister uses them and they have a HUGE variety of seeds far cheaper than Burpee (so I was a bit jealous when I saw her receipt) and she's trying a bunch of fun things from them like stevia and coffee. Yes, you read that right, COFFEE. Clearly risk-taking gardening runs in the family. I'm sure I'll be doing a post on her beautiful garden in central Delaware at some point so you can see how her seedlings did, and I'll be getting some of her seedlings to transplant too. Seed sharing, it's all the rage.
3. "Free Garden Planning Tool" a/k/a SmartGardener.com. This is a free garden planning site. It has some quirks but overall I love it. You create a little map of your garden, tell SmartGardener your zip so it knows your planting season, and add the plants you want to put in your garden; they have hundreds of varieties. It then gives you a planting plan with how much you should do of each plant based on the number of mouths you have. It also takes into account companion plants that go well together and which direction your garden faces. They even have little container plots you can add to your map. If you aren't sure what you want, it can suggest plants for you based on a number of factors (easy, drought resistant, shade happy, etc) and then you can order the seeds directly through the site. The best part of the site for my purposes though...it gives you a weekly to do list based on the plants you have in your garden. Everything from when to prep the soil to when to start a fall crop.
4. Gardeners.com. Although I've never ordered plants from Gardeners, this is my go to site for all sorts of fun garden tools. Literally any random garden thing you've heard of, they have. My favorite buys from here are my grow bags, a garden pen for labeling that doesn't fade outdoors like sharpie, a firewood rack, and a variety of hard to find trellises. The prices are very reasonable and they often have good sales. They've also got plenty of raised bed kits. Currently on my wish list from here is a water timer and watering kit. Or like three.
5. Burpee Seeds. Not much to explain here. America's seed company, they have just about every seed you're looking for and seedlings for many harder to grow varieties as well that they ship once it's time to plant in your zone. Most of my seeds this season are Burpee and most seeds you'll find in stores will also be Burpee. I'm also trying sweet potatoes and onions from them.
6. Baltimore Sun-Garden Variety. Sadly, this lovely blog on gardening ended last year. But they keep the archives up online and there's an insane amount of entries on vegetable gardening in the Mid-Atlantic. You can filter based on various gardening topics too. Really fun to go and browse on your lunch break or to search if you're having a specific problem with a plant.
So those are my go-to sites. I'm sure I'll add more as I continue experimenting and go off researching for more help :o)
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