How To Plan A Garden. Tips That Cost You Nothing But Make A Major Difference.
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Ashley is a soil scientist who has had a passion for plants since she was a small child. In the long summers as a child, she would garden alongside her grandmother and it was then that she realized her love for greenery. With years of great studying, Ashley had begun her post-secondary education at the University of Saskatchewan.
At first, her second love, animals, was the career path she chose but while doing her undergrad she realized that her education would take her elsewhere. And with that, four years later she graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a bachelor’s degree in science and a major in Soil Science.
Some of Ashley’s interests are YouTube, in which she posts informative videos about plants and gardening. The focus of Ashley’s YouTube channel is to bring science to gardening in a way that is informative but also helpful to others learning to garden. She also talks about the importance of having your own garden and the joys of gardening indoors. Ashley continues to study plants in her free time and hopes to expand her YouTube channel as well as her reach to up-and-coming gardeners.
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44 Comments
Find an old gardener in your area and glean information from him/her!
Your first point is one of those things where you’re right, but I’mma do it anyway. Lol It’s really only a matter of pride that I start my things from seed. I’m also only a second year gardener and find the whole process really interesting and fun.
1 type of tomato… you're on drugs if you're not starting 20 varieties and 100 of each. (Knowing full well, you only need 5 plants total)
First off,gr8 info and i agree to a certain point,but 3 tomato plants for 12$….honey that's expensive where I'm from 😅get a pack of 50 seeds for $2.98 …I'll start off with higher starting costs now,to be able to plant for years to come
Yay! It's seed starting time! 🌱💕
I started pretty much everything from seed in my garden last year but I will be buying pepper plants rather than starting my own this year since I'm a bit behind. No shame in supporting my local nursery 😋
I think it's important to note that if you're interested in certain varieties you're either going to find them hard to find locally (aka $$) or impossible which doesn't actually save money
I didn’t expect this video to kick off so much discussion. But please keep the comments respectful to other people. Some folks are coming across unhinged 😅 it’s just gardening guys. Breathe in. Breath out.
Being able to buy cheap seedlings is relative to the area you live in.❄️💚🙃
This past year our starts at the big box stores were 2-4$ each, It was much cheaper to do your own starts here in Upstate SC
I don't know prices of starts in Canada but my local home depot in Pennsylvania or Walmart are 3 to 5 dollars
Last frost date is deceptive because soil temperature is also important. My last frost is March 15, but the soil is not warm until the end of April. Cold soil can stunt tomatoes. For this reason, I like to buy started from a green house nursery rather than a box store that holds the starts outdoors in the cold.
New Liskeard has a short season but it's intense Planning the garden up here for the summer now…I've gottoget someof those high top clear domes
Great information! Thanks Ashley.
Starts are definitely not cheaper for me. Especially not for the varieties I want and need for my area. The box stores don't care about appropriate variety for our growing season. Learned that the hard way. I'll buy starts for peppers, but that's about it.
I use an old shelf, $10-15 shop lights (LED, Walmart), and reuse my trays until they fall apart – same for the solo cups and other containers. I sift regular potting soil to be lighter and add boiling water. Much cheaper than starter soil.
Good advice: start simple, easy, and get some wins under the belt. Rinse and repeat for more next season. And no one said you can't start a few plants from seeds first year; some seeds are just easier than others, and knowledge makes all the difference.
I always get good ideas from you, even though my growing conditions are so different. At this time of year, we Floridians are racing the summer heat to see what we can get to crop before the excess sun and heat (and ravenous hoards of pests) kill off our plants.
Number 1 tip for new gardeners: grow what your family will eat and grow it in proportion. For example, I’m the only one who eats fresh tomatoes so I only need a couple of plants and I stagger the starts so I don’t have a glut of tomatoes I can’t realistically eat or process.
I love this video, Ashley. So many people listen to the garden snobs and think they need a 60×60 garden right NOW and have to start every seed. Start slow, start small, and really see if you want to work that hard at making/growing a garden. I teach knitting. I can't fill a class up until the 1st snow, then women come in with the LLBean catalog, all wanting to knit THIS Christmas sweater, now! I tell them: you can knit that sweater, next year. This year, we learn knit, purl, increase, decrease, etc.x100. It's wonderful that you put this video out because all of your reasoning is right on the money!
This is only my second year gardening, first year from seed., Ottawa Ont. I have started my seeds by soaking then placing on papertowels in baggies in front of my large south facing window. Once sprouts have started, I will transfer to 4 inch pots. No one I have seen online has done this and I feel like I might have messed up?
I so agree on the DATES not ZONES. I honestly don't know why most YT channels focus on zones more than dates. I'm the same zone as parts of Oklahoma (6a) and our last frost date isn't until May 15th in Eastern Washington. We still have 2-3 feet of snow on the ground right now with daytime of upper 30' to lower 40's and night time in the 20's. Oklahoma is in the 70's. We have about 120 days of frost free dates on average.
I like to keep a journal where I can make notes of what worked, what didn’t work and try to improve the next season. I’ll even make notes on the seed packs. And when I try something new I like to read a few different sources to get growing information. It can get confusing when you read conflicting information, so take it with a grain of salt and try your best. There are so many variables and Mother Nature will sprinkle in strong winds, hail, late frosts, scorching heat etc. Have fun and keep learning!
Ugh, looked up Calgary, we are 99-57 days 😔 all the cool things I want to plant go so much longer! Time to figure out covering lol
I have no tips since it is my first year doing anything at scale. I can assure you however seed starting is fun… so far… I already know I'm going to need to support some of these up to the last frost and well… it may become a challenge, but I am ready for the attempt and I'm ready for the oh sh** moment of welp, I guess I got to start new seeds. I'm learning from experience and failures this year as much as I don't want to fail, it's gonna happen for something.
Farmers Almanac online will tell you growing days and frost dates for your area
I would love to just buy seedlings, but I live in a tourist town and you will easily pay 4 dollars per plant or more. It's ridiculous:(
I first started gardening only from starts. 30 years in now I grow from seed and no longer buy seeds/ learn to care for garden plants before jumping in full fledged. I had and occasionally still do have failures, just learn from them. Sometimes you can do everything right but Mother nature had other plans.
I bought most of my garden from starts in the beginning (except beans, and peas) but start seeds indoors now just for the varieties. Last year though, I planted broccoli I had started indoors and within a week of planting outside, something had eaten them to the ground. I bought some starts from the Co-Op to replace them and they produced so well. I had the best broccoli crop.
A lot of the stores that you mentioned to purchase seeds starts do not sell non GMO and the nurseries charge too much for me.
I do not use expensive equipment for starting plants indoors. I use egg cartons that I sear holes in the bottom of each cup for drainage. I also save toilet paper inserts and fold them into little pots. I also use a variety of larger containers for placing the starts in when they outgrow the egg cartons. It is more work but I was raised to save, save, save and try not to spend money on anything that I can do myself.
Youtube has so many instructional videos on how to just about everything. I truly love it when you step into my visual space to teach. Thank you and God Bless.
There are a lot of varieties not available in the nursery which is why I do my own seeds germination. I will be growing pink celery, Armenian cucumbers, Aunt Molly ground cherry, & different chillies. Etc. I will definitely be buying pickling cucumber plants to transplant. I had a bacteria wilt issue last few years. My cucumber plants die by the middle of August. It used to last till October. Any suggestions?
About a grow set up, I decided to invest in one during the early days of the pandemic because in Toronto seedlings were so hard to find near me cause all of a sudden everyone wanted to garden and then what was left was like, not good quality…I bought grow lights and attached it to a shelf I got on Kijiji for like $20, got a couple clip on fans and one heat mat of Kijiji I think in all it cost me like $300 but I've been able to start a lot of seeds…I think now that I'm in my 3rd year of doing this I'm like breaking even but it's a learning experience for sure!
I have found box stores worst place to get starts, I do much better at local greenhouses and better variety, but still limited. So I start varieties of vegetables I cant buy and tomatoes since I find them easy to start and I can try many varieties. This year trying more determinates since they take up less space. Trying more winter sowing this year with cool weather crops as last years did well. Definitely know those frost dates I moved to new area and was shocked by the later frost dates, what I did in my old area wouldn’t work, that’s were frost covers come in handy and knowing hardiness of plants, like some lettuce can take frost and others can’t. 😊
Thanks, Ashley, that was great, as usual! Arkansas! 😂🤣😂
Woah, I wish starts were cheap here. All over the states (at least in WA) Bonnie starts are all $5+ a plant.
I love your videos!
I love that you give us the facts. Clear, honest facts, for Canada. With the facts you give us, if there is a desire, people can learn how to garden. With the facts, if you are already a gardener, that person can improve. We can always improve.
I think the most frustrating part for me, when people ask me questions about gardening is the amount of light plants need that produce flowers and plants that produce vegetables.
Both need lots of light, yet people have such a hard time understanding that areas that have shade for 6 plus hours, is not sufficient. Thank you. You are doing a great job.
Eileen
ON, 🍁🇨🇦
Keep making these videos.
I have a glassed balcony garden and I really want to start everything from seed so that I'm not bringing for example aphids to my garden. I have the experience that whenever I buy plants or seedlings they almost always come with pests. Last summer and the one before that I had no problems with any pests, but somehow the ladybugs still found my pepper plants and settled there… I sprayed with aspirin every two weeks to give extra protection for tomatoes and peppers. Also, if you grow from seed, you can easily choose your variety from bigger selection but transplants are often quite limited in selection…I just bought a new house plant from a grocery store and I did a gentle pest treatment for it even when I don't see anything crawling… How on earth garden centers and always hide some spider mites in every single house plant🤔?! I'm gardening in Finland👋
Thank you for this information. I input my postal code and found out my last frost date is May 4th. I have 161 growing days in Toronto. I love nerdy videos!😆
curious what your thoughts are on long sun hours in the north. does that change the conditions in comparison to what seed packet says for how long it takes to grow a plant. I have noticed with 18 hours of sun my garden grows really fast yet I have a short 108 day frost free season here in northern bc. Locals say to ignore the directions on seed packets due to our extra sun hours.
Excellent basic, even essential, reminders for plant growth in this video. Thanks.
Its funny cuz Climate Change is CHAnging the frost dates and number of growing days lol 😂 every day . For example in April of last year we still have weeks of 5C or freezing 🥶 temps even tho we usually get 10-15C that month
Can you share tips for shade gardens please.
As someone who is completely new to gardening but full of excitement, your tips, and the information you share with us is so beneficial for me. Thank you so much for all this and I will try to keep up to make this world a better place, sharing mind experiences and ups and downs. Wishing you all the best and take care. 🙂
Always happy to pick up some new tips and tricks. Within a year or two.. I should have a more usable soil outback. Was solarized to DEATH.. but not anymore 🙂 till then I’m germinating a few things and trying a few in pots.. but I still got a ton to learn with outdoor gardening 🙂 but I been busy thou
The only reason I start with seeds is because I can grow things that I could never find in the grocery store or as starters. I completely agree that for the basics, however, starters make waaay more sense! Lol. I'm also very aware that I'm really lucky that I have a 211 day growing season, (Sooke BC). Thanks for great tips!
Live in edmonton they cost 3 to 5 a vegi plant I have a huge garden
Pick things that are just as good as a young plant as they are when fully mature. For example: choose leafy lettuce over heading lettuce. That way if your plants don't perform well you still get a really solid harvest. Other great plants to consider are: carrots, beets, spinach, kale, Swiss Chard, scallions, and herbs. Also, don't be so hard on yourself if something goes awry, every experienced gardener has killed plants and had crop failures.