By Nicole Wines
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Note: This is the first in a series of guest posts intending to help our community in their home gardening endeavors. If you have a specific topic you would like us to explore or have a question or need advice, please email us with your requests at lawnandgardeningideas@gmail.com
As states and countries continue to go on lockdown and issue stay-at-home orders in this time of the coronavirus crisis, there has a been a surge of news about the momentary breath our society is giving to Mother Earth.
Emissions from cars, factories, boats and planes have gone down, with satellite images and photographs showing both clearing skies and waters. With many people working from home, or even out of work, in their daily practice of our newest vocabulary word, “social distancing”, many have turned to nature.
People are spending time outdoors, heading out for hikes, walks, and even yard work. New gardeners are popping up all over the place, and those who garden regularly are getting serious about growing their own food.
There is a potential for shortages of fresh produce as a ripple effect of the crisis, especially as more than 200,000 migrant workers who work in the fields of America’s farms will not be able to apply for their seasonal visas this season, as U.S. consulates in Mexico are closed indefinitely.
There are many personal actions we can take to address this aspect of the crisis, so that we can continue to have access to fresh produce.
Reaching out to your local farmers to join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and frequenting farmer’s markets (while practicing social distancing), while adjusting to seasonal eating is one way to ensure you will have nutritious, fresh produce throughout the growing season.
But if ever there was a time to turn to gardening, it is now.
The benefits of gardening are endless. Fresh air, clean homegrown food, a direct connection to the soil, the earth, and the cycles of nature. From homestead subsistence plots to a tomato plant and a few culinary herbs in containers, the value of growing your own food is priceless.
This is a call to garden everywhere.
Break ground and set up a plot in your backyard, build raised beds, or grab a couple of pots, buckets, and containers and fill them up with soil.
Even if you don’t have access to a yard or land, you can even grow a few culinary herbs and edible flowers on your balconies, porches, or even on your windowsill.
There are some incredibly creative gardeners out there who grow their food and herbs in the most unusual places, like in old shoes, cinder blocks, sewer tiles, or even the back of a pickup truck!
If you aren’t sure where to start, there are many resources, guides, and inspirational sites available on the web.
Here are just a few:
Container Gardening Resources
- A Complete Guide to Container Gardening with Vegetables for Beginners: https://morningchores.com/container-gardening/
- The Seven Best Herbs for Container Gardening: https://savvygardening.com/best-herbs-for-container-gardening/
- 125 Container Gardening Ideas: https://www.southernliving.com/home-garden/gardens/creative-container-gardens
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Backyard Gardening Resources
- Vegetable Gardening for Beginners: https://www.gardeners.com/how-to/vegetable-gardening/5069.html
- Planning and Planting Your Garden: https://gardenerspath.com/how-to/beginners/first-vegetable-garden/
- 10 Best Garden Crops for Beginners: https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/10-best-garden-crops-for-beginners
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More Resources & Ideas for Getting Started
- Building a Raised Garden Bed: http://www.raicesculturalcenter.org/blog/d-i-y-fridays-building-a-raised-garden-bed/
- Grow Your Own Seedlings, Knowing When to Start: http://www.raicesculturalcenter.org/blog/d-i-y-fridays-grow-your-own-seedlings-knowing-when-to-start/
- Starting Seeds in Recycled Produce Containers: http://www.raicesculturalcenter.org/blog/d-i-y-fridays-starting-seeds-in-recycled-produce-containers/
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One last resource I would like to share has been invaluable to me as a gardener is a planting chart or planting schedule, to guide you in knowing when to plant which varieties in your growing zone.
Here is one that contains planting schedules both by zone and by state for you to utilize and bookmark: https://www.ufseeds.com/learning/planting-schedules/
Happy growing!
Nicole Wines is the Eco-Culture Coordinator at Raíces Cultural Center http://www.raicesculturalcenter.org/ . She can be reached at nicole@raicesuclturalcenter.org
BUY SEEDS, HELP RAISE FUNDS :
Check out Raíces Cultural Center’s online seed shop: https://www.seedsnow.com/?rfsn=533738.a6a4a
Raíces Cultural Center is a local NJ non-profit organization and an affiliate of SeedsNOW. Any order, no matter the size will help keep funds coming in to the organization through this difficult time of canceled programming. The online shop has hundreds of varieties of veggies, herbs, fruits, and flowers, and offer low-cost sampler packs for $0.99 – $1.99 so you can try planting a diversity of varieties. Please share to help us spread the word, every bit helps!
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