Starting a Garden for the First Time?

How to Start a Summer Garden

Part One: Clearing the Land

Organic Gardening Video Series

Hello! You have found this post because you are interested in starting a garden. I want to start by saying gardening is a very rewarding hobby. Growing your own food is so satisfying. Starting a project and working through it will add another dimension to your life. It can also give you the confidence to tackle other projects you have been dreaming about doing. Starting from scratch is sometimes the most fun. Whether you have grown your own vegetables in the past or this is your first time. I want to help encourage you to get out in the garden and start working. It can be a scary task and easy to put off, but once you dive in, you will feel so much better. Plus, remember, we are in this together. So that means post video responses of where you are in the process. I would love see other peoples gardening space and watch them develop.

Step One: Clear a plot of land

In this video I show my techniques for clearing a plot of land. At first clearing out weeds and shrubs from your garden may seem tedious, but take it slow, area by area, and before you know it you will have a clear piece of land.

Sweet Potato Slips: How to make Sweet Potato Slips at Home in Water

Sweet potato slips are expensive. Why not plan ahead and start growing your own slips? Start about 2 months before the sweet potato planting season, which is after the last frost once the soil warms up. You will need an organic locally grown sweet potato. Do not buy the sweet potato from a big box store, instead seek out a small local co-op or organic food market. Often corporate sweet potatoes are treated with some sort of "no sprout" serum. Gross. Weird things put on/into veggies: another reason to grow your own food or shop locally.

Materials

-Organic Sweet Potato
-Jar or Glass
-Water
-Toothpicks

Instructions

1. Fill the glass with water
2. Place the toothpicks around the center of the tuber. The toothpicks are there to elevate the sweet potato, so the roots do not grow against the bottom of the glass.
3. Set the glass in an eastern facing window to receive beneficial morning sun. Yet, protecting it from the hot relentless afternoon sun.
4. Be patient, watch, and wait as the sprouts emerge and the shoots come forth.

Sweet Potato in Water waiting to root and produce shoots:

Fast Forward

Sweet Potato with roots, shoots, and slips:

Once the Potato has Produced Slips

1. Carefully twist the slip(s) off of the sweet potato.
2. Place the slip in water.
3. Wait for the individual slips to grow roots.
4. Once the roots seem stable place in a small pot with soil.
5. Let the slip get use to the soil for a few days, then transfer into garden.

Sweet potato slips placed in water to grow roots:



Slips with small roots:


The stages involved in producing sweet potato slips: