I received product samples in order to facilitate my honest review.

Living in Upstate New York, we are always excited for spring.  The winter months are hard, and I find myself dreaming of warmer weather all the time!  I also work in a greenhouse, so gardening is on my mind a lot.

It is nice to start planning early and brainstorming, and dreaming about what we are going to do with our garden!  The great thing is that during the colder months, you can use this time to plan out your garden.  True Leaf Market is a great place for all your gardening supplies.

Since having kids, I always include my them in my gardening.  There are just so many things kids can learn from gardening, and growing plants is the perfect way to teach children about the life cycle of plants, and what goes into caring for a garden.  I know plenty of adults who aren’t familiar with growing plants, and these are wonderful life skills.

My kids enjoying cherry tomatoes from our garden.

Here are my tips for planning out your garden.

1. Plan your garden.

There are many things to consider when you create a garden, including:

~ What planting zone you live in
~ How much space and depth your plants need
~ How many days until germination and days until maturity
~ Plant requirements (sun, water, nutrients)

We have a raised garden bed, plus we use large pots for some other plants (for example, tomatoes, which grow well in pots, plus I can keep the pots on my patio, away from where deer like to graze on my vegetables!).  Figure out your arrangement first so that you know what plants are ideal.

2. Choose your seeds.

Once you have your physical garden layout, then you can choose seeds based on things like sun, depth, space available, etc.

I like to guide the kids to pick out veggies that they will enjoy growing and harvesting.  Some of these are:

~ small tomatoes like cherry or grape tomatoes
~ cucumbers or pickling cucumbers (you can make easy fridge pickles!)
~ lettuces

3. Begin planting and prepare your garden.

Since our growing season here is short, it is good to start your plants ahead of time, harden them off, and then plant them in your garden.  I also have to prep my garden by mixing up the soil, adding fertilizer, and making sure I have the proper setup (like tomato cages).

Our raised gardening beds, which need some cleaning up and preparation.

I picked out a variety of True Leaf Market garden seed packs, including my favorites, Sugar Snap Peas and Mammoth Sunflower.  If you haven’t had Sugar Snap Peas straight from the garden, it is just amazing and something I really look forward to every year.  Sunflowers add a lot of beauty to our landscape, and at the end of the season, I cut the tops off and set them by the bird feeder where the birds and squirrels can enjoy it.

True Leaf Gardening

The kids have been helping me prepare the garden, and we picked out a True Leaf Market grow kit.  Ours is a salad kit, but there are so many different kinds to choose from.  I really want to get their medicinal & herbal tea kit, sprouting supplies, and microgreens kits.  The nice thing about the kit is that it has everything you need to get started, plus instructions.

The kit is so easy to use, and there is an instruction card that makes it easy to do your seed starting.

I love how convenient this is, plus the starting tray has a cover to help insulate it (and bonus – my cats can’t destroy the seedlings like they have done in the past!).

While we wait for our seeds to come up, we will prepare the garden beds for when it is time to transplant.

Now is the perfect time to get your True Market seeds and supplies and start planning and starting your garden!