Let's Grow Stuff

Greetings from the garden! My name is Ben, and today, we're going to look at getting started with planting things in the ground so that you can grow your own food right at home. Let's jump into the garden and get started! So, when you're thinking about what to plant in your new garden, first think about what it is you actually want to eat. Don't grow something if you're not going to want to eat it. If you hate green beans, don't plant them. Second, think about how much time you actually want to spend out in your garden. Is it something you want to sort of set and come back to later, or do you want to be in it a couple of times a week? That'll influence what you plant and how you plant. And finally, just so we're clear, we're not going to cover tomatoes today. Tomatoes could be a whole episode in their own. They're really intensive. Today, we're gonna focus on simple easy wins so that you can start producing food right away. When planting in the ground, you have two options for how you actually plant. The first option is using a transplant like this from your garden center or farmers' market. If you can find it at either of those locations, you know it should be successful for you in your growing area. Your other option is to plant seeds directly into the ground. We're gonna look at transplants first, because starting there you know how much space you have left over for seeds. And all you'll need to do this is a digging implement of some kind. We're gonna use a trowel. But if your soil is nice and loose like ours, you can use your hands. So, to get your transplants out of their pots, be gentle. Give each cell a gentle squeeze, a little massage, and then gently tug up on the base of the stem where it's strongest. And there's your plant.

Quick tip

Lay out all of your plants on the ground first, before you actually start to plant them. This is a quick and easy way to make sure that you have enough space for everything to reach its full potential. Our kale can be planted a little more closely than the cabbage, which takes up a lot of space. When in doubt, consult your plant tag. When you're planting your transplants, make sure to pay attention to how deep you're planting them. Too high above the soil and the plants could dry out. Too deep and they might rot. What you're looking to do is match the surface of your garden soil with the surface of your transplant and that is the perfect depth to plant in. Well, now that our plants are in the ground, we can start to plant our seeds. So, for this, we'll need just a few other tools. First, something to mark our rows with because, again, we won't be able to see our seeds until they start to pop through the soil, and we want to remember where we planted things. We'll also need something to make a trench with. We're gonna keep using our trowel that we used to plant, but you can really use anything-- a kitchen spoon, a big stick, anything-- to make a shallow trench. And, of course, we'll want our seeds. Always begin by consulting your seed packet. Each one will have detailed instructions about the plant you want to grow. Next, dig a 1 1/2- to 1-inch trench with your digging implement. And an easy way to know if your trench is deep enough is to curl your finger like this, set it in the hole, and that distance right there, between my fingers, is exactly about 1 inch. And so, that's a quick and easy way to measure. Today we're planting two kinds of seeds. The first is a lettuce. And you can see, the seeds are fairly small and a little more difficult to handle. And we're planting beans, and these are larger and easier to handle and to see where they're going in the ground. We're gonna start by planting our beans. And as you can see, I've marked the start of our row before I've started putting seeds into the ground. This is so that we don't forget where the seeds are once we cover them with soil. So, following our seed packet's instructions, we know that beans need to be spaced about 4 to 6 inches apart. Making this symbol with our fingers is a great way to quickly measure that, as we're out in the garden. And so, then, we just go through and put our seeds in all the way down the row. Next, we're gonna do our lettuce. And since these seeds are smaller, we're just going to take a pinch and pretend like we're putting salt over our dinner. And so, we're gonna go down our row and just sort of move our fingers back and forth. And spacing matters a little bit less here. Our final step is to cover our seeds with soil and give them a bit of water to get started. How do you know when you need to water your new plants? An easy way to do this is to just scratch the soil surface down maybe 1 to 2 inches and if this soil is still moist, you don't need to water, but if it's dry, give your plants a little bit of a drink. Well, I hope you can see how easy this was to get started with growing your own food right at home. And we'll see you next time in the garden.