Spring Garden Preparation (or “Hoarding Is Good for the Earth”)

I know it's still the dead of winter, but it's already time to start spring garden preparation! We're well in the middle of our garden preparation, clearing out our garden space, preparing soil and gathering supplies.

This little backyard space will soon be a bonafide starter garden brimming with fruits and vegetables.

Spring garden preparation with supplies we have at home

Toilet paper rolls for seed starters

I've already begun saving all our toilet paper rolls to make my own little seed starter containers! I won't have to spend a dime on peat pots, and toilet paper rolls are totally biodegradable so I can just stick them directly in the ground with the plant. You can also make seed starter pots with newspaper. I'm a little bit nervous about starting our seeds indoors (what if it's too cold in here? what if they don't get enough light?), but I've researched a ton and I'm already learning little tricks like using a shop light to help boost growth. I'll be sharing everything I learn as I go.

Leftover food for rich soil

We've started composting! Making our own natural fertilizer is super-easy with the Soilsaver Classic Composter (our leftover coffee grounds and eggshells are already adding up quickly). These composters are available on Amazon, but we actually picked ours up at the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation here in San Diego. San Diego subsidizes the cost so that residents in certain parts of the county only have to pay $40 instead of the usual retail price of $94. To see if your county has a similar program, just Google your county name plus the word “composting.” That should help point you in the right direction toward any local resources available to you.

Old silverware for garden markers

Nate and I are making garden markers by punching plant names into old silverware with letter and number stamps. We picked up the Tekton 5/32″ stamper kit on Amazon (it'll also be perfect for jewelry projects down the line) to do the lettering with. Cheaper metal actually stamps the easiest, so don't feel compelled to go buy anything fancy!

Bald tires for tire gardening

Tire gardening is the perfect way to give large plants like cantaloupes and watermelons their own space. We've finally come up with a good use for the old Hyundai tires we've been keeping around!

We're ordering all our seeds for the season from FedCo, a cooperative that sells a ton of varieties of seeds in small quantities perfect for starting home gardeners (I've always been aggravated having to buy a whole packet at the store when I know I'll never use them all). The company's located in Maine, so their cold-hardy plants do well in pretty much any part of the United States, and they have helpful commentary throughout each of their plant listings to point us newbies in the right direction. Check back tomorros for a full listing of the exact seed varieties we ordered from them for our spring garden preparation. We're planning quite the bountiful crop full of beans, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cantaloupe, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, eggplant, lettuce, peas, peppers, pumpkins, okra, onion, spinach, squash, tomatoes and watermelon.

Are you getting into spring garden preparation mode? If you're planning to start plants from seeds (instead of transplanting pre-started plants from the nursery), it's almost time to get them going indoors with the help of a few other on-hand items like an old shop light or reptile light and syran wrap. We'll walk you through every step and help you figure out when to sow your plants indoors and outdoors, depending on the frost date in your area.

Click on over for our full seed order list and planting plan!