If you’re like me, this is where you’ve been the past two months. 20/20 vision for the garden, blind to everything else.

It’s been a whirlwind of seeding, planting, and watching the weather. By now, you likely have most, if not all, of your vegetables, and you likely have no more worry that frost will take out that newly planted tomato.

In my family’s garden, we’ve planted all our warm season vegetables except sweet potatoes (happening this week!). Outside of that, everything we plant will be successions.

But planting everything doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do. In fact, this month is critical for weeds, trellising, and pests. Here’s what I’ll describe in this post:

• Why mulching in June frees you in July, and how we’re currently mulching our vegetables

• My 3 go-to trellises for all those trellised crops (thinking of you, cherry tomatoes!)

• 2 methods for germinating lettuce in the heat

• The exact vegetables I’m succession planting this month

• How to cultivate your garden instead of weeding, including my two favorite cultivating hoes

• Tips for managing June garden pests

• And more!

Here goes…

Read more

well…

“Is there any life outside of gardening” season.

Or, “How will I ever get everything planted?” season.

Yeah, I have moments in May when brain feels about ready to burst, and any information you give me is like trying to squeeze yet another stuffed animal into the kids’ already overflowing toy box.

But really, for gardeners, it’s that delightful time of year when the weather is finally “consistently” warm, and by mid-month “hopefully” (fingers-crossed) all frosts are past and tomatoes, peppers, and such are safe in the great outdoors.

So let’s get to it…

Here’s what you’ll find in this month’s email…

• Which vegetables to plant in your garden in May

• How to succession plant lettuce and cilantro for harvest all summer, including the specific varieties that perform best for me in hot weather

• My 3 worst pests of May and how I deal with them in my garden

• And lots more!

Remember, though, that in zone 6b, your last frost date can range from mid-April to mid-May, with the average being around May 1.

However, the weather never seems to listen to the meteorologists, and your micro-climate may vary significantly. Only a few years ago we reached 27 degrees F in our little valley on May 17! Needless to say, that was the year many gardeners were buying a second round of tomato plants!

So watch your weather forecast closely, know your own microclimate and how it differs from the projected weather forecast, and be ready to protect young vulnerable seedlings if necessary.

And check out my Garden Resource Library (paid subscribers only) for links to various gardening calendars, spacing guides, and lots more to help you with your garden. I add new links and other specifics to this almost every week!

Let’s get to it…

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You know those moments when you hear a piece of information so impactful you can remember exactly where you were standing years later?

This was one of those times.

I remember exactly where I was standing in our kitchen when I heard this piece of information…

The vast majority of elderberry products consumed in the US come from Europe.

Seriously? Shipped 3,000 miles across the ocean?

This makes no sense.

You see, I’d experienced elderberries as one of the easiest crops to grow. Here on our heavy clay, wet soil farm, they grow with virtually zero assistance from us, even growing wild in our creek bed.

So why couldn’t Americans grow their own supply of this incredible superfood?

With fence rows increasingly being ripped out and sprayed and many farms growing larger, elderberries are much rarer than they were 60 years ago. But on our farm, our wild elderberries still give us many small berries on upright sturdy branches, and our improved varieties bear giant heads that drag the branches down.

The good news is, Americans are catching on, and local elderberry production is increasing. As more and more people realize the elderberry’s incredible health benefits, along with its ease of growing, more and more are adding it to their gardens.

I didn’t grow up with elderberries, but my wife did. Elderberry juice for colds was a common winter tonic at her house.

I’ve since developed quite an affinity for these beautiful shrubs, and here’s why I think you should too:

Elderberries are easy to grow. Here’s how to grow them:

Have you ever planted a stick? (I’m remembering those times my kids poked a random stick into the ground and showed me they planted a tree!)

But… elderberries are one of those plants! Simply cut a stick off a plant in the winter and poke it into the ground to clone that mother plant!

By year 2 or 3, they’ll be giving you fruit!

That’s what I call EASY.

Besides, they can tolerate slightly wet areas as well as shade!

Elderberries can also spread via suckers, giving you either new plants to dig out, or leading you to a battle to contain them. Nowhere nearly as aggressive as something like mint, however, they can definitely be contained along the edge of your garden.

However, if you don’t want the bother of digging out suckers, simply plant them where you can mow around them and they’ll be easily contained.

👉 Order elderberry cuttings on our farm website. We have several named varieties that bear enormous clusters of fruit (like the picture above).

*We ship all across the United States!

Be sure to plant 2 different varieties for best fruit production.

Both the berries and flowers have incredible health benefits. Here’s how to use them…

North American indigenous people used to use elderberries to treat fevers, rheumatism, gastrointestinal issues, and diarrhea. Today, many people use it to shorten colds and flu symptoms and to improve brain health, thanks to their high antioxidant levels. (https://journals.ashs.org/view/journals/hortsci/59/12/article-p1723.xml)

In fact, elderberries have now crossed over into mainstream as a health tonic, with elderberry syrup and gummies available at our local Aldi checkout!

By now, elderberries are well-known to support the immune system and knock out viruses.

But have you ever tasted a raw elderberry? They really don’t taste that great. And if you try very many you’ll quite possibly get a bellyache.

That’s ‘cause raw elderberry is mildly toxic.

Ok then. How do you eat them?

Many people make an elderberry syrup as an immune booster to take during the winter months.

Simply steam or boil in a small amount of water on your stove top. Include spices like ginger, cloves, and cinnamon if you wish. Then mash and strain out the juice. Mix with honey to taste and you’ll have your own immune-boosting tonic to fend off those winter colds!

Here’s the recipe for elderberry-ginger syrup which we actually use for flavoring for kefir or yogurt or drinks. We use more of it when we think we’re getting sick and it’s one of the few herbal remedies that my kids actually like.

Elderberry Syrup

• 1/4 pound of berries

• 2 cups water

Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let set for 24 hours. Strain and wring out all the juice through a cloth.

• 2 cups of raw local honey

• Vinegar to taste

Add and stir.

• 1/4-1/2 cup ginger root sliced

Place in a glass jar and cover with the syrup. Top with a plastic lid and either freeze or refrigerate.

If you’d prefer no sugar of any kind, you can make a tincture. If you’ve done this before, you know how easy it is to make WAY TOO MUCH tincture.

Ridiculously easy, that’s what.

Make your tincture by filling a small glass jar with dried elderberries and then covering it with glycerin (for a non-alcoholic tincture) or vodka. Shake it every day for a week, every week for a month and then store it in a dark place until you need it. Add it by the teaspoon to teas.

Here’s an exact recipe if you need it: https://practicalselfreliance.com/elderberry-tincture/

Thank you, for these recipes!

(She also has recipes for elderberry jelly and pie if you happen to have way too many elderberries!)

The simplest way to use elderberries is just to dry them in a dehydrator. We dry a quart every winter to add to teas throughout the winter. You can powder them in your blender or food processor and store them in a small glass jar to add to peppermint tea by the quarter teaspoon as soon as you feel a tickle developing.

If you prefer a cough syrup instead, remove the berries from the stems and barely cover them in water in a sauce pan. Simmer them for fifteen minutes and then mash them and strain them. Add slightly less buckwheat honey than the juice and stir to mix the the two. Add an equal amount of apple cider vinegar to make an oxymel (and for a preservative.) The vinegar will preserve it at room temperature, but it will change flavor after a while so you will want to keep it in the fridge. If you really do not like vinegar, don’t add it, and instead store in the freezer until flu season, then keep in the fridge for a quick response to flu symptoms.

*If you want to use elderberry for your child under a year old, (so honey is contraindicated) or if you just want a delicious blueberry-like-flavored syrup, follow the above recipe, but use organic sugar instead of honey and leave out the vinegar. Boil for fifteen minutes or until it is slightly thick and the sugar completely dissolved. This is nice in milk or with sparkling water or on pancakes. It is also helpful with coughs and colds. Win-win!

As with most things herbal, the best time to start any of these remedies is as soon as you start feeling sick, if not before, if that were only possible. After all, “it’s easier to steer a car away from the cliff than to put it back together after you’ve driven off the edge!” (Credit to )

Elderberries make delicious jelly!

Elderberry jelly is quite possible the best jelly I’ve ever tasted. And it certainly helps to know it’s at least somewhat healthy!

The quickest option to get elderberry jelly in your kitchen would of course be to hop over to our farm store and buy some to get shipped to your door! (Of course, I’m biased! 😀)

But if you want to make your own, here’s a recipe from the UK:

Again, quoting “I find it fascinating that she doesn’t act like you have to follow a bunch of rules or you will fall over dead. She doesn’t even recommend water bath canning! ‘We don’t do that in the UK,’ she says, ‘and our preserves keep perfectly well without it.’ (Cue sound effects of brain exploding.) Anyway, here’s the recipe. https://larderlove.com/homemade-elderberry-jam/

You can even make elderberry pie. Here’s a link to a recipe: https://www.joyfulcakes.com/elderberry-pie/

Elderberry plants are beautiful, pollinator-friendly, and native

Need I say more than show you this video?

If you’re ready to grow elderberries in your garden or on your homestead, get your starts right away on our online store. We have plants and cuttings available to ship anywhere in the US.

I want to grow elderberries!

Happy growing!

-Laverne

👉 P.S. Are you struggling with poor soil in your garden?

In my 15+ years of organic gardening, I’ve learned to transform heavy clay soil that couldn’t even grow a simple cover crop into rich loose garden soil that produced over $100,000 of organic veggies on less than an acre!

I’ve finally distilled what I’ve learned into a simple, 1-hour course that’ll walk you through:

• How to build a rich, healthy soil that gets better every year.

• Why tilling is quietly ruining your soil

• 3 no-till methods I use to care for the soil in my garden

• Practical solutions for weeds, clay soil, and compaction

It’s called The No-Till Garden System, and it’s the techniques I’ve learned over 15 years of gardening to turn hard, compacted soil into something dark, crumbly, and full of life!

If you’re ready for a garden that’s easier, more productive, and actually enjoyable again…

👉 Join the No-Till Garden System here

Your future self will thank you 🌿

Join Here!

👉 And if you’re interested, here are more ways I can help you in your garden this year:

1. Grab my $7 workbook, Plan Your Garden: A Guide to Less Overwhelm & More Success

This is the exact process I use for my 1-on-1 coaching clients. It will help you find the gardening methods that fit your context, and design a garden that fits your life so you can grow more food with less work.

2. Buy edible and useful perennials to add to your garden or homestead

If you want to grow more food with less work, perennials are your answer! I grow and ship a variety of edible and useful plants anywhere in the US, including elderberry, pawpaw, currants, and lots more to make your garden more resilient and more productive.

Check out our edible plants!

3. Work with me 1-on-1 to design your garden or edible landscape

If you feel stuck designing your garden or edible landscape, or you want another set of eyes on your property to help you sort through the possibilities and ideas, I offer property visits as well as remote consultations. Click here to learn more.

4. Upgrade to a paid subscription

A paid subscription gets you…

• A monthly garden plan telling you exactly what to do each month to grow food year-round (specific to zone 6 but easily adaptable to zones 5-7 or beyond).

• Access to my always growing library of garden resources, including growing calendars, pest solutions, and more.

• 15% off edible perennials in my online store, (I ship anywhere in the US).

• Garden troubleshooting -the ability to directly ask me or the Garden Coach community all your gardening questions.

I know this first hand.

I’ve burned out gardening more than once, and after 15+ years of gardening and homesteading and growing all the vegetables for my family, I’ve learned a little about what’s most important out of hundreds of things to do.

Here are three questions I use to guide me…

What are the 5-7 most important crops for me to grow?

Just like many gardeners, I get enthralled by all the pictures on Instagram and in the seed catalogs. I’ve done it way too many times! …just add this one crop yet. Oh, I can find room for that somewhere. And before I know it, I have way too many plants to fit into my space, let alone have time to care for.

The result? I’m overwhelmed and exhausted before it’s ever time to harvest. By August my garden is overrun with weeds, my tomatoes aren’t trellised, and my plants are covered with disease. Harvesting what they do yield is difficult, and every time I step into my garden I feel ashamed. And because I don’t want to feel shame (who does?), I mostly stay away from my garden. (Which, by the way, can make me feel more shame.)

So I’ve started asking which crop is most important. If I could only grow one, which would it be?

Maybe potatoes? Since they’re a survival food. Or maybe tomatoes? Since we make our pizza and spaghetti sauce and ketchup to improve countless dishes throughout the winter. Or maybe it’s greens because I love salads and never want to buy a supermarket salad.

After I answer that question, I ask, “If I could only grow 2 crops, what would they be?”

I keep doing that until I get to about 5-7 crops.

For my family, the garden is about food that’s more nutritious than supermarket food, saving money, and food security. That’s why potatoes matter so much.

For you, the garden might be about therapy, or about health. Or about earning an income. So you’ll prioritize different crops.

Growing only 3 crops well is better than growing 10 poorly. When I know my priorities, I can choose which task out of a hundred to spend my time on.

How can I care for my soil?

If you’ve listened to me for very long, you’ve heard me say it before…

Good quality soil is the ONE THING that will make everything else easier or unnecessary in the garden.

If there’s anywhere to invest time and money, especially in the early years, it’s into soil.

When I started gardening on the heavy clay I’m currently in, I had no idea that plants wouldn’t grow and thrive like they had in my Lancaster County garden. Normal for me was placing a seed into the ground, watching it sprout and grow with vigor, and then yielding a decent if not abundant harvest with very little work.

But boy was I in for a surprise!

That first year? Stunted yellowish plants with a yield of only a few ears of sweet corn and maybe a tomato or two.

An absolutely utter failure for a gardener like me trying to grow for my entire family’s vegetable supply.

So I moved my garden to a dryer space and brought in some so-so compost and aged woodchips.

The result? Terrible again. I tried foliar feeds, fertilizers, and more. Nothing worked. Yes, my plants improved, but they still weren’t the vibrant green thriving plants I saw in the pictures.

Finally, I purchased an expensive load of high-quality compost.

And boy was I in for a surprise! Finally, my plants looked like the pictures! Why hadn’t I done this earlier???

It didn’t take me long to start saying… “If I’d go back and start over, the first thing I’d do was purchase some high quality compost.” Yes, it’s expensive. But it’s far less expensive than the failures of those first few years.

Additionally, I’d source all the organic materials I could get my hands on and use it as a mulch and for making my own compost.

I finally came to realize a few things about soil…

Soil wants to be constantly fed. The easiest way for gardeners to constantly feed their soil is by doing two things:

• 1) Keeping it constantly covered with organic materials (hay, straw, wood chips, plant debris, leaves, etc. …whatever you can get your hands on. There’s no one right material.)

• 2) Keeping living plants growing in the soil as much as possible.

Soil doesn’t like being disturbed too much. A little disturbance is fine and normal. But excessive disturbance ruins the structure, destroys the earthworms and microbes that are making your plants healthy, and releases carbon into the air rather than storing it in the soil where it can benefit your plants and soil life.

Soil wants to be covered. Bare soil dries out and cracks and gets hard easily, making it difficult for plants to grow, requiring more water, making the all-important mineral calcium less available, and allowing weeds to grow freely. Cover your soil, and it will thank you.

As I’ve learned and attended to what my soil needs, I’ve worried less about what my plants need. Because my soil is doing the work for me.

And that makes gardening easier and more fun.

What do I enjoy doing in the garden?

I remember the day the reality hit me. I was manhandling large row covers and lugging around heavy bags to weigh them down. “Why am I doing this?” I asked. “Is this worth the effort to get a harvest one week earlier?”

If this makes me hate gardening, it’s not worth the early harvest.

So I changed my approach. I quite pushing the early harvests, and I chose only a few crops, only what could fit into my high tunnels, for ultra-early harvests.

And guess what happened?

I enjoyed gardening more and burned out less.

I also learned that I hate wrestling large tarps, I hate excessive weeding, and I don’t like watering my crops. So I switched to smaller tarps in my no-till system, I used more mulches and more cultivation to reduce weeding, and I automated most of my irrigation.

This makes gardening more fun, which means I do more of it!

And more gardening means more food for my family! And that’s my goal.

What do you enjoy in the garden? What makes gardening fun for you? And how can you adjust your systems so you spend more time doing what you love, and less doing what you despise?

Happy gardening!

-Laverne

👉 P.S. Are you ready to focus on building healthy soil?

I’ve distilled my methods for transforming heavy clay soil into rich loose garden soil into a simple, 1-hour course that’ll walk you through:

• How to build a rich, healthy soil that gets better every year.

• Why tilling is quietly ruining your soil

• 3 no-till methods I use to care for the soil in my garden

• Practical solutions for weeds, clay soil, and compaction

It’s called The No-Till Garden System, and it’s the techniques I’ve learned over 15 years of gardening to turn hard, compacted soil into something dark, crumbly, and full of life!

If you’re ready for a garden that’s easier, more productive, and actually enjoyable again…

👉 Join the No-Till Garden System here

Your future self will thank you 🌿

Join Here!

👉 If you’re interested, here are more ways I can help you in your garden this year:

1. Grab my $7 workbook, Plan Your Garden: A Guide to Less Overwhelm & More Success

This is the exact process I use for my 1-on-1 coaching clients. It will help you find the gardening methods that fit your context, and design a garden that fits your life so you can grow more food with less work.

2. Buy edible and useful perennials to add to your garden or homestead

If you want to grow more food with less work, perennials are your answer! I grow and ship a variety of edible and useful plants anywhere in the US, including elderberry, pawpaw, currants, and lots more to make your garden more resilient and more productive.

Check out our edible plants!

3. Work with me 1-on-1 to design your garden or edible landscape

If you feel stuck designing your garden or edible landscape, or you want another set of eyes on your property to help you sort through the possibilities and ideas, I offer property visits as well as remote consultations. Click here to learn more.

4. Upgrade to a paid subscription

A paid subscription gets you…

• A monthly garden plan telling you exactly what to do each month to grow food year-round (specific to zone 6 but easily adaptable to zones 5-7 or beyond).

• Access to my always growing library of garden resources, including growing calendars, pest solutions, and more.

• 15% off edible perennials in my online store, (I ship anywhere in the US).

• Garden troubleshooting -the ability to directly ask me or the Garden Coach community all your gardening questions.

April is here, and this is the real deal!

Here in central Pennsylvania zone 6b, this is the month to get serious about gardening.

If you’ve done nothing up to this point, rest assured, you’ll still be okay. But if you're serious about growing food, this month is game on!

In fact, with the exception of cold sensitive crops like beans, tomatoes, peppers, basil, and such, pretty much every other crop can go into the garden sometime in April.

In this post for paid subscribers, I’ll detail…

• Which crops should be planted in April, and advice I wish I knew about each when I was getting started

• 4 pests that show themselves in April and how to manage them

• How I trellis my peas

• How to give your potatoes an early start

• How to harvest asparagus so it’s not tough

• 3 weeds you can eat, and how to eat them

Without further ado, let's get to it…

Read more

Tiny, forked, crooked, funky orange vegetables. Far from the long, straight beauties you see in the store.

Now don’t get me wrong… Those long straight beauties might look perfect, but looks say nothing about the taste. The crooked, bent out of shape carrot from your garden will taste better than the grocery store carrot any day of the week.

And I have nothing against growing and eating imperfect looking carrots.

But…

I couldn’t sell them.

And…

I wanted a bigger harvest, and carrots that were easier to clean and work with.

In my 8 years in this heavy clay soil, I’ve finally learned to grow beautiful, straight (mostly), tasty carrots.

Here’s how I’ve done it…

1. Transform the soil

Everything in the garden starts and ends with the soil. It’s the ONE thing that will make everything else in your garden easier or unnecessary.

I’ve transformed my soil from dense clay that allowed my garden trowel to penetrate only a fraction of an inch, to rich deep loose chocolate cake that my entire trowel can penetrate with a simple push.

And when you think about it, a slender young carrot root needs that loose soil to find its way down and form a long root!

For me, soil transformation was a combination of strategic tillage with no-till practices, broadforking/subsoiling, and compost.

First, I layered my soil with compost and tilled deeply to incorporate this microbially rich organic matter and jumpstart my soil.

Then, I used no-till practices of keeping the soil covered as much as possible and disturbing as little as possible to protect that precious underground life, and it’s that microbial and earthworm life that continues to do the “tillage” and nutrient scavenging that my carrots need.

Additionally, every time before seeding carrots, I broadforked my bed, introducing oxygen and gently loosening the soil without significantly disturbing the network of underground fungi and other soil life. By now, I’ve quit broadforking every, but for the first few years this was critical.

Lastly, I add a layer of partially finished compost to the surface of my soil every year. This continues to feed the soil life and protect the soil with a cover that is also fine enough to plant directly into.

2. Trial different varieties

I can’t say this often enough if you’re struggling to grow a particular crop…

Don’t stop with the seed packet from your local garden store. I tried many different varieties of carrots until I found what worked for me, and even then, I continued to trial new varieties and make changes.

For now, I’ve settled on Narvik as my favorite spring carrot and Bolero as my favorite storage carrot. Narvik gives me healthier, stronger tops and a higher yield with better germination than any other variety I’ve tried as a summer carrot. And Bolero simply can’t be beat for it’s rugged disease resistance, high yield, and incredible storage life.

Some people like the short chantenay types for heavy soils, and while they certainly work, I’ve never been satisfied with their yield, even when compared to long carrots in a heavy soil.

3. Grow for storage

Speaking of Bolero carrots… Did you know carrots are one of the best storage crops you can grow?

Next to potatoes, they’re my favorite storage crop! Delicious, easy to maintain in storage, and versatile in the kitchen, they’re the perfect addition if you want to begin eating year-round from your garden.

I’ve stored a good quality carrot for over 6 months in my cooler. And a good root cellar is suitable for carrot storage as well.

And those carrots are one of my family’s favorite winter snacks! Right up there along with apples. 🙂

4. Use tarps for good germination

Carrots are notoriously difficult germinators.

That starts with a fine soil, but keeping those tiny seeds moist during their entire time in the soil before sprouting is just as critical.

Here’s how I solve that problem…

For spring seeded carrots, I immediately water and cover with a black tarp or with 1-3 layers of row cover. This protects the soil from drying out, and also lightly heats it in the early cool spring.

Early spring germination can sometimes take 3 weeks, and it’s critical to keep peeking under the tarp to look for the first tiny sprouts and then immediately remove the tarp, but not expose them to immediate direct sunlight. I either remove the tarp late in the day or on a cloudy day.

In the summer when seeding carrots for winter storage, I’ll use a white tarp to reflect heat since carrots won’t germinate well in really warms soils. For my July planting of carrots, I can almost always count on 6 days until germination.

5. Focus on weed control

Carrots being the slow germinators they are, and weeds being the quick germinators they are, this quickly causes a problem!

One of the best ways to solve that problem is using the concept of a stale seed bed.

Water a bed thoroughly and give the weeds a week to germinate. Then use a flame weeder or shallow cultivation to kill those weeds without surfacing new weed seeds.

Alternatively, use a black tarp on the bed for several weeks after watering to encourage all the weeds to sprout and then die for lack of sunlight. Then remove the tarp and seed your carrots.

Early spring plantings also help beat the weeds, and that’s why I love planting my carrots in March or very early April.

But for summer carrots, I don’t often have the time for two weeks of stale seed bedding before seeding my carrots. So I’ll compromise by seeding and watering my carrots, covering with a white tarp, and then removing the tarp on day 5. I’ll immediately use a torch/flame weeder to kill any tiny weeds that have germinated, and then the next day the carrots will emerge into a weed free bed. They’ll typically still need some light hand weeding, but this gives those tiny carrots a head start on any weeds.

6. Focus on spacing

Carrots are notorious for their tiny seeds and need for thinning after growing.

I use the Jang Seeder to perfect my spacing, but that seeder doesn’t usually make economical sense for home gardeners.

You can learn to lightly rub the seeds between your thumb and forefinger to release them slowly. This won’t be perfect, but with practice, you can learn to distribute the tiney carrot seeds at a wider spacing.

Also, in a deep loose soil a little crowding won’t matter as much because the carrots will more easily push apart from each other as they grow, as long as your rows aren’t spaced too closely.

I seed my carrots 5 rows in a 30-36 inch wide bed, and I prefer a little thicker spacing within rows and then fewer rows instead of vice versa.

Some people use pelleted seed to make spacing simpler, and you could definitely try that. But I’ve found pelleted carrot seed to germinate more poorly than raw seed, and therefore don’t use it.

👉 What are your tips for growing carrots? What success stories do you have that others might benefit from?

Leave a comment and let the world know!

Leave a comment

Happy gardening!

-Laverne

👉 P.S. If you’re tired of fighting your soil every single year… you’re not alone.

I learned to make gardening easier by focusing first on my soil, and I want to help you do the same.

I’ve distilled my methods for transforming heavy clay soil into rich garden soil into a simple, 1-hour course that’ll walk you through:

• How to build a rich, healthy soil that gets better every year.

• Why tilling is quietly ruining your soil

• 3 simple no-till methods I use in my own garden

• Practical solutions for weeds, clay soil, and compaction

It’s called The No-Till Garden System.

This is the exact system I’ve used for over 15 years to turn hard, compacted soil into something dark, crumbly, and full of life!

If you’re ready for a garden that’s easier, more productive, and actually enjoyable again…

👉 Join the No-Till Garden System here

Your future soil will thank you 🌿

👉 If you’re interested, here are 4 more ways I can help you in your garden this year:

1. Grab my $7 workbook, Plan Your Garden: A Guide to Less Overwhelm & More Success

This is the exact process I use for my 1-on-1 coaching clients. It will help you find the gardening methods that fit your context, and design a garden that fits your life so you can grow more food with less work.

2. Buy edible and useful perennials to add to your garden or homestead

If you want to grow more food with less work, perennials are your answer! I grow and ship a variety of edible and useful plants anywhere in the US, including elderberry, pawpaw, currants, and lots more to make your garden more resilient and more productive.

Check out our edible plants!

3. Work with me 1-on-1 to design your garden or edible landscape

If you feel stuck designing your garden or edible landscape, or you want another set of eyes on your property to help you sort through the possibilities and ideas, I offer property visits as well as remote consultations. Click here to learn more.

4. Upgrade to a paid subscription

A paid subscription gets you…

• A monthly garden plan telling you exactly what to do each month to grow food year-round (specific to zone 6 but easily adaptable to zones 5-7 or beyond).

• Access to my always growing library of garden resources, including growing calendars, pest solutions, and more.

• 15% off edible perennials in my online store, (I ship anywhere in the US).

• Garden troubleshooting -the ability to directly ask me or the Garden Coach community all your gardening questions.

Or maybe it’s past that stage already.

But it’s for good reason… no-till works. And I’m here to tell you why.

The garden of my childhood was heavily tilled. Rich black Lancaster County PA soil, mind you. But yes, heavily tilled. Every spring, a pass or two with a deep tiller, sometimes in addition to a moldboard plow.

Then regularly throughout the season, additional passes with the tiller between rows to manage weeds.

Lots of bare wide spaces of exposed soil between narrow rows of crops.

It worked for us. Sort of. Thanks to the already rich soil we inherited.

But what we didn’t know was that we were gradually depleting the treasure we had inherited!

And, we were working WAY TOO HARD!

And then, something shifted…

The shift

When I met my wife and we set out to start our own garden, she introduced me to a book - The No Work Garden Book, by Ruth Stout. In the book, Ruth explained a profoundly simple method of covering your garden ALL THE TIME with hay mulch, and then simply pulling back that hay for planting.

Now I was familiar with mulch, but in my childhood garden we only used mulch AFTER crops were planted and growing. And even then, our mulch use was very limited.

So the idea of mulching an entire garden BEFORE planting was radical.

In order to prove the concept, I needed to see my mother-in-law’s garden.

The proof

I remember it plain as day…

I pushed my spade into the soil… dark, crumbly, black soil.

I walked to the east only 50 feet and dug again, this time into the annually plowed corn field. Heavy, red clay. Just like her garden used to be.

Does that mean soil can actually change?

Yes, indeed! And that change came as the result of her 20+ years of constant hay mulch with zero tilling.

The new mindset

I returned to my own garden empowered, ready to try this new method.

And while Ruth Stout’s “No Work” language is of course hyperbole, I quickly realized that this new method of gardening was simpler than I could ever imagine gardening being.

Simply keep the garden covered with hay at all times, pull back the hay to plant, and pile more hay on top if a weed pushes through.

Virtually no weeding, no watering, and absolutely no borrowing or renting or buying a tiller to slowly pace back and forth across the garden churning the soil every spring.

I was hooked. I couldn’t imagine gardening being this simple.

And as my garden grew and changed over the next 15 years, I never turned back.

And I’ve become a first-hand witness of no-till’s simplicity and its benefits to the soil.

The no-till system

Over those 15 years, I adjusted and refined and changed my systems. I adapted them from a small family garden to large homestead garden to a 1-acre market garden.

I learned to use other mulches besides hay. And I learned when mulch is appropriate and when it doesn’t work.

And I learned more philosophy, you could say, of why no-till is better for the soil. (You can read more details on that here.)

In short, running a tiller through your garden is like running a giant bulldozer through a city. It destroys all the earthworm and microbe homes, leaving them to rebuild from the ground up.

Those earthworms and microbes, when they have their needs met, will do the work for you. In fact, better than you can do, because it’s what they’re designed for. They’ll till your soil appropriately, and more importantly, they’ll scavenge the exact nutrients your plants need to stay healthy.

They’ll build a kind of soil where plant roots can penetrate deeply, and water and nutrients are held in storage rather than running off into nearby creeks and rivers.

In short, they’ll create an entire underground ecosystem custom designed to grow healthy plants.

And why would you want to destroy that every year?!!

Because I care about soil health, (and my own health, which is directly connected, by the way! As is the health of our amazing planet.) this philosophy kept me going even when the going got tough.

Because it did get tough. I learned too much the hard way, especially about working with heavy clay soils and dealing with slugs.

There were stages where borrowing a tiller felt easier and simpler in the moment, and I even learned to find strategic uses for a tiller occasionally.

But understanding the why, the underground reasons for not tilling, carried me through the tough seasons.

And today I’ve finally transformed my heavy clay soil that only yielded us a a few ears of corn and a handful of tomatoes in it’s first year into a rich, black, soft and crumbly soil that produced over $100,000 worth of vegetables on less than an acre.

That’s the power of no-till.

Your next steps…

If you’re tired of fighting your garden every single year… you’re not alone.

I learned to make gardening easier by focusing first on my soil, and I’m here to help you do the same so that you can grow more food for your family with less work.

That’s why I’ve distilled all I’ve learned about no-till into a simple, 1-hour course that’ll walk you through how to build a rich, healthy soil that actually gets better every year (with less work, not more).

It’s called The No-Till Garden System.

Inside, I’ll walk you through:
• Why tilling is quietly ruining your soil
• 3 simple no-till methods I use in my own garden
• How to transition your existing garden (without starting over)
• Practical solutions for weeds, clay soil, and compaction

This isn’t just theory—it’s the exact system I’ve used for over 15 years to turn hard, compacted soil into something dark, crumbly, and full of life.

If you’re ready for a garden that’s easier, more productive, and actually enjoyable again…

👉 Join the No-Till Garden System here

Your future soil will thank you 🌿

— Laverne

I want the No-till System!

Why?

Because you don’t want a kitchen without onions!

Flavor your soup, your roast, your salad, your sandwich, your pickles, and almost everything else! Many many recipes ask for onions in some way, shape, or form. And there’s a good reason why.

Along with garlic and other alliums, they are the natural garden-grown version of MSG. They take so many dishes to the next level of flavor!

But many gardeners and homesteaders plant onions too late.

In fact, they are the one crop where timing matters more than any other crop.

Let me explain…

Most crops have a clear days to maturity (DTM). This is the approximate number of days it takes them to mature from seeding or transplanting time to harvest time. (It varies, of course, by the weather, the hours of daylight, and the soil conditions.)

Onions also typically have a listed DTM, but it’s not as accurate as other crops.

If you’ve grown onions, you know they initially grow leaves, and eventually transition to forming a bulb.

Here’s how that works…

Onions are sensitive to day length. When the number of hours of sunlight per day reaches a certain threshold, they are triggered to start forming a bulb instead of additional leaves.

And here’s the kicker…

The size of the bulb corresponds directly to the number of leaves on that onion. In fact, every onion leaf corresponds to one ring on the onion. (Seriously, pull out a plant and check it out sometime!)

What this means is that no matter how large your onion top is, the plant will start bulbing at a set time of year. And the larger your top is at that time, the larger your onion bulb will be.

(*This, by the way, is why it’s important to not give onion seedlings too much artificial light so as not to trigger early bulb formation!)

And this is why planting your onions early matters. Earlier planting translates to more leaf growth by the time daylength triggers bulb formation, and this translates to a larger bulb.

Onions are quite cold hardy, and when sets are buried in the ground or young plants are well established, they’ll easily survive a freeze in the field. In severe freezes, the tops may die back slightly, but a strong established root system will quickly push energy back up to form leaves. If your plants are very tiny, as in significantly smaller than pencil thickness, you’ll likely still want to cover them during freezes.

But let’s talk more about daylength…

If you’ve ever purchased onions, you’ve seen the categories: Long-day, Intermediate-day, Short-day. What exactly does this mean? And why does it matter?

These labels are simply a designation for how many hours of daylight that particular cultivar of onion needs in order to form bulbs. And if you understand how your latitude corresponds to your summer daylight hours, you’re already making the connection that northern gardeners will need long-day onions and southern gardeners will need short-day onions.

Here are the types:

• Long-day: Trigger bulb formation at 14-16 hours of sunlight, best for latitudes 37-47°

• Intermediate-day: Trigger bulb formation at 12-14 hours of daylight, best for latitudes 32-42°. (These are sometimes called Day-neutral, and tend to be more adaptable to a variety of latitudes.)

• Short-day: Trigger bulb formation at 10-12 hours of daylight, best for latitudes 25-35°

*Click here for a US map and more detailed description of onion types and which type you should have for your region.

In my region in central Pennsylvania, I normally plant long-day or intermediate-day onions for best results, and I like to plant my onions by the beginning of April.

In ideal conditions and with early enough planting, an onion plant will have a dozen or more leaves by the time bulb formation begins. This should give you a nice, large onion with enough rings to form wrappers on the outside that help your onion store well.

A few more notes about onions:

• The love fertility! Onions use a lot of nitrogen in their early stages of leaf growth, and then a lot of potassium and consistent water in their final weeks of bulb formation. *Check out my Garden Resources Library for my favorite nitrogen and potassium fertilizers.

• They hate weeds! Among all crops, onions are one of the most sensitive to weed pressure, possibly due to their shallow root system. Keep them weed free and they’ll be much happier! I like to use a stirrup hoe or collinear hoe to shallowly cultivate around the plants. *Check out my Garden Resources Library for more details on these hoes.

• If you don’t start your own onions, you can purchase plants online. I often buy from a local seed store or from Dixondale Farms.

• In my area, onions are susceptible to a pest called the Allium Leaf Miner. I’ve found several options for dealing with this pest:

  • Covering with row cover until early to mid May. This has the added benefit of encouraging more early leaf growth, but it has not been fool proof for solving the leaf miner problem for me.

  • Experimenting with later planting to avoid the leaf miner’s life cycle. (Yeah, this goes against what I said in this post!) I tried a late April planting last year and the plants were certainly healthier, and the bulbs were still a satisfactory size.

  • Applying a molasses and boron fertilizer. This has worked great in helping my damaged plants recover in the past! See my Garden Resources Library for an exact recipe.

👉 What tips and tricks do you have for growing onions? Comment below and let me know!

Leave a comment

Happy gardening!

-Laverne

👉 P.S. If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you in your garden this year:

1. Grab my $7 workbook, Plan Your Garden: A Guide to Less Overwhelm & More Success

This is the exact process I use for my 1-on-1 coaching clients. It will help you find the gardening methods that fit your context, and design a garden that fits your life so you can grow more food with less work.

2. Buy edible and useful perennials to add to your garden or homestead

If you want to grow more food with less work, perennials are your answer! I grow and ship a variety of edible and useful plants anywhere in the US, including elderberry, pawpaw, currants, and lots more to make your garden more resilient and more productive.

Check out our edible plants!

3. Work with me 1-on-1 to design your garden or edible landscape

If you feel stuck designing your garden or edible landscape, or you want another set of eyes on your property to help you sort through the possibilities and ideas, I offer property visits as well as remote consultations. Click here to learn more.

4. Upgrade to a paid subscription

A paid subscription gets you…

• A monthly garden plan telling you exactly what to do each month to grow food year-round (specific to zone 6 but easily adaptable to zones 5-7 or beyond).

• Access to my always growing library of garden resources, including growing calendars, pest solutions, and more.

• 15% off edible perennials in my online store, (I ship anywhere in the US).

• Garden troubleshooting -the ability to directly ask me or the Garden Coach community all your gardening questions.

You know those places you take babies so they can be fussy, play with noisy toys, or just get their needs met that aren’t getting met out there in the adult conversation?

Your plant nursery is the same. Baby plants have more delicate needs than adult plants, and sometimes their best life is in that little protected space called a “nursery.”

Here are 4 things I’ve learned about how to keep my seedlings happy…

1. Supplement with sunlight

To this day, I haven’t found a grow light that competes with sunlight. This is precisely what I like about greenhouses and cold-frames for seedlings… the sun is their full source of light.

However, light is cheaper to supplement than heat, making an indoor grow rack or window-sill cheaper than a greenhouse or cold frame.

If you do use a grow-light, keep your lights almost against the top leaves of the plants, adjusting them higher as they grow.

Also, keep your grow light setup next to a tall sunny window if possible so your plants can be supplemented with sunlight even while indoors.

If you use only a window-sill, rotate your plants regularly so they don’t lean one direction. And take them outside on warm days to capture full sunlight.

Too little light, especially in the presence of warmth, will make weak “leggy” seedlings.

2. Drain your pots

Seedlings need moisture, but they also need drainage.

“What,” you may ask, “is the difference? Doesn’t well-drained mean water goes away? But moist means water stays?”

Yes, you are correct.

High quality soil holds enough water, but not too much. This is exactly what a good potting mix is meant to do.

But…

The potting mix can’t drain water if your pot has no holes in the bottom.

All kinds of random containers from your house can work well as pots… old yogurt containers, cups, bowls, and even empty toilet paper rolls.

But one thing is necessary… an opening in the bottom for excess water to drain out.

Way to often, the reason your plants are stressed and yellowed comes from having too much water.

Keep them drained. Keep them happy.

3. Use compost

Compost in your potting mix is hands-down the best source of fertility you can give to your baby seedlings. If you can get your hands on a good compost-based potting mix, do it.

If you can’t, either make your own compost, or purchase it and mix it with your potting mix. Just be sure it doesn’t have weed seeds!

It’s worth putting a little extra care in this compost to be sure it’s fine and weed free!

4. Stocky is better than tall

A fast-growing, tall transplant is mostly a weak transplant that won’t withstand adversity when encountering the outside world at time of transplanting.

In order to keep your transplants stocky, focus on these two things:

1. Plenty of light, especially in proportion to warmth. Keep grow lights almost against the tops of your plants, and give them as much actual sunlight as possible, even if that means moving them outside during the day.

2. Give them resistance. Air movement around the plants makes them strong. Indoors, use a fan to occasionally move air and make them strong. Outdoors, be sure they’re occasionally exposed to light winds.

3. Lower nitrogen, use more calcium and phosphorus. Too much nitrogen will make for vigorous top growth, but a weak root system and weak plant. Use gypsum, aragonite, bone meal, rock powder, or another good source of calcium and phosphorus to give your plants the foundation they need.

Remember, a stocky plant is a healthy plant.

👉 How are your spring seedlings faring? What setup do you use for growing your transplants?

Leave a comment and let me know.

Leave a comment

Happy growing!

-Laverne, your Garden Coach

👉 P.S. If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you in your garden this year:

1. Grab my $7 workbook, Plan Your Garden: A Guide to Less Overwhelm & More Success

This is the exact process I use for my 1-on-1 coaching clients. It will help you find the gardening methods that fit your context, and design a garden that fits your life so you can grow more food with less work.

2. Buy edible and useful perennials to add to your garden or homestead

If you want to grow more food with less work, perennials are your answer! I grow and ship a variety of edible and useful plants anywhere in the US, including elderberry, pawpaw, currants, and lots more to make your garden more resilient and more productive.

Check out our edible plants!

3. Work with me 1-on-1 to design your garden or edible landscape

If you feel stuck designing your garden or edible landscape, or you want another set of eyes on your property to help you sort through the possibilities and ideas, I offer property visits as well as remote consultations. Click here to learn more.

4. Upgrade to a paid subscription

A paid subscription gets you…

• A monthly garden plan telling you exactly what to do each month to grow food year-round (specific to zone 6 but easily adaptable to zones 5-7 or beyond).

• Access to my always growing library of garden resources, including growing calendars, pest solutions, and more.

• 15% off edible perennials in my online store, (I ship anywhere in the US).

• Garden troubleshooting -the ability to directly ask me or the Garden Coach community all your gardening questions.

That giant weeping willow tree by our creek that constantly lost branches and threw debris all across the creek.

So of course, when my wife planted willows on our new property, it made no sense to me.

That is, until about 5 years later when I saw the bouquets.

Then the next year I saw the bees.

And the next I learned how much biomass they could produce on our wet, lowland soil.

I was hooked.

I now consider willows an absolute MUST HAVE for our homestead… a vigorous, adaptable perennial with more functions than I can name.

And the best part of it all?

They grow from a stick!

That’s right, they’re incredibly easy and cheap to start. Simply cut a 10 inch long stick, poke it into the ground 6 inches, and you’ll have a tree or shrub in 2-3 a few years.

It’s that simple.

To grow a willow is indeed a beautiful thing…

They come in all shapes and sizes and styles. That giant weeping willow of my childhood? It’s a monster compared to the new varieties I now know, most of which only grow 10-20 feet tall, and even less when coppiced yearly, which is the ideal way to care for most of them.

So what are those multiple functions I mentioned? Here’s a few…

Pollinator Attractant

Bees need food in the early spring, and willows provide some of the earliest blooms that exist. In fact, as I write this on the 3rd day of March, our earliest willows have already opened their catkins for pollinators to feed on. Weeks before even the earliest blooming Cornelian cherry, or the first dandelion or crocus shows its flower, the willow already offers its pollen to the spring bees.

Medicine

Tired of buying aspirin? Willow bark contains its own natural form called salicin. In fact, the native Americans used to chew on willow bark to relieve pain. It’s most concentrated in the specific variety white willow (salix alba), but can also be found in other willows.

Make your own tea or salve for an all-natural pain killer grown right in your backyard!

Basketry, weaving, and living structures

I am not the craft person at our house, but I do dream of making a willow pergola or fence someday. I mean, what’s better than not needing to buy lumber and nails, but instead shape a living plant into the structure I want?

And baskets? My wife has put out some pretty good-looking baskets from willow stems and willow bark. Wouldn’t you agree?

Willow is sure to make the craft-minded people at your house come alive!

Erosion control

Plant them on your streambank (they love wet!), or next to a pond, or in a wet area to help drain it. They grow massive root systems that love to drink water! And those roots will create a structure that holds the soil in place!

Make willow fences, hedges, and windbreaks

I’ve heard of people planting willow mixed with other species for a quick windbreak. The willow will form a windbreak within a few years, and the other species will eventually grow large and take over as a more permanent, taller, and longer lasting windbreak.

Beauty

Do you think this is beautiful?

Me too.

And the best part? They come long before any flowers are blooming for bouquets.

Willow branches can even be cut and brought into a warm place in February to force into early blooming!

Livestock fodder and biomass

A fast-growing plant, especially in a rather wet farm like ours, gives us the perfect solution to growing more organic material for our farm. After hearing a story of someone in Europe interplanting willows into a food forest and coppicing and chipping them for mulch, I quickly realized that’s a perfect solution for our low-lying wet farm. We’ve already begun interspersing them with our fruiting trees.

Some willows grow into tall trees, and others remain much smaller shrubs, but all willows are very easy to manage as a shrub by coppicing (cutting to the ground) every winter. This not only contains it to a small size, but also keeps it more beautiful for bouquets. It’s the fresh, one-year growth that gives you the brightest colors and the most abundant catkins.

And best of all, willows grow just fine in wet areas. They don’t need wet, but they don’t mind wet. In fact, they’re so thirsty they can help drain wet lowlands.

Ready to add willows to your homestead or garden?

They’re cheap to buy, easy to plant, and bursting with potential!

I sell cuttings of 10 different varieties of willows grown right here on my farm in central PA.

And I ship anywhere in the United States!

Order your willows here!

And while you’re there, check out the other cuttings for rooting I sell. (Elderberry, dogwood, and ninebark all have many uses and are just as easy to start from cuttings as willow.)

Happy gardening!

-Laverne

👉 P.S. If you’re interested, here are 3 other ways I can help you in your garden this year:

1. Grab my $7 workbook, Plan Your Garden: A Guide to Less Overwhelm & More Success

This is the exact process I use for my 1-on-1 coaching clients. It will help you find the gardening methods that fit your context, and design a garden that fits your life so you can grow more food with less work.

2. Work with me 1-on-1 to design your garden or edible landscape

If you feel stuck designing your garden or edible landscape, or you want another set of eyes on your property to help you sort through the possibilities and ideas, I offer property visits as well as remote consultations. Click here to learn more.

3. Upgrade to a paid subscription

A paid subscription gets you…

• A monthly garden plan telling you exactly what to do each month to grow food year-round (specific to zone 6 but easily adaptable to zones 5-7 or beyond).

• Access to my always growing library of garden resources, including growing calendars, pest solutions, and more.

• 15% off edible perennials in my online store, (I ship anywhere in the US).

• Garden troubleshooting -the ability to directly ask me or the Garden Coach community all your gardening questions.

If you’re like me, this latest warm snap (or whatever warm snap you might have in your region) has you feeling a new kind of restlessness.

Yup, if you’re a gardener, your body can tell when the sun is higher, the days are longer, and the air is warmer.

March is GO-time for seed starting.

If you’ve started nothing up until this point, you’re in perfectly fine shape.

But this month is a busier month.

In this post, I’ll describe…

• Which seeds I start indoors in March, including tips for starting each one

• Which seeds I start outdoors (if I’m feeling ambitious or if the weather’s just too nice to stay out of the garden!)

• Which edible perennials I plant in March (Click here to buy your edible perennials and other useful plants.)

• How I manage my winter garden (cold frames and greenhouse) in March

• Tips for watering, preparing garden beds, and more.

And as a fun BONUS this month (if you like it I may keep doing it 😃), I added two of my family’s favorite recipes using veggies from our cold storage.

Eating seasonally requires the right recipes, and these two fit the bill perfectly.

One hails from a book every half-serious cook should have Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking. Seriously, we all noticed the difference in our food when , the head cook in our house started reading this book! I couldn’t recommend this book more.

The other is a roasted beet salad unique to . An absolute favorite of our family that’s perfect for using up those beets and onions in your root cellar or cooler.

Without further ado, here’s what I do in my garden in March (plus the recipes):

Read more

“Start your garden with a thick layer of compost, 4-6 inches, and plant directly into it,” the advice said. “Then, every time you plant a new crop, add another inch or two of compost.”

Of course that works, I thought. I’d seen the beautiful chocolate-cake texture of finished compost, and the ginormous squash plants growing directly out of my compost pile. I mean, if I could garden in a compost pile, I’d have the perfect garden, right?

But I had a problem…

Where do I find enough compost to cover a quarter acre 6” thick?

Or more importantly, where do I find the money to buy 200 yards of compost?

I was stuck.

So my mind immediately began asking… “Do I really need all that compost?”

And here’s what I discovered over my years of market gardening…

Yes, compost is a HUGE boost to a garden, and I wish I’d invested more into it in my first year.

I wouldn’t want to garden without it, at least as a part of my potting mix. It’s also a sort of quick-fix for a wide variety of gardening problems.

But…

There is more than one right way to garden. Your context, including the resources available to you, determines what system is best for you.

No, this doesn’t mean any practice results in good soil. But it does allow for variation within the guiding principles.

And when it comes to compost, here’s what I learned about the necessity of using it in the garden…

Compost isn’t necessary. Organic matter is.

Organic matter is like a fuel that runs the engine in your soil. It allows water and oxygen to enter the soil, it increases the soil’s ability to hold water during drought, it creates a soil that’s easier for plant roots to penetrate, and it’s a sort of “house” for all the good microbes and water and fertilizer in your soil.

It’s the ONE thing that makes your soil resilient.

Organic matter is a key player in whether or not your soil is healthy and producing healthy plants.

A well-finished compost contains a high percentage of stable organic matter that already houses loads of important microbes for your soil, and when added to your soil, it immediately increases organic matter.

Hence the immediate rush it gives and the beautiful plants that result!

But remember, it’s not so much about the compost itself… it’s about the organic matter and its accompanying microbes.

Compost isn’t the only way to add organic matter.

While compost gives that immediate “rush”, there are other (albeit slower) ways to increase organic matter:

• Mulches covering the soil are broken down by soil organisms and can quickly turn into “compost” laying on your soil surface.

• Organic materials like plant debris or animal residue on top of your soil or buried into your soil will turn into organic matter after the organisms break it down.

• Healthy plants release root exudates or sugars into the soil that increase organic matter.

• Cover crops cut and laid on the soil surface or incorporated into the soil add organic matter.

• Organic fertilizers like dried chicken manure, feather meal, alfalfa meal, and other fertilizers made out of real, organic materials are a source of organic matter for your soil.

• Liquid humus will increase organic matter in your garden.

Clearly, we gardeners have numerous tools at our disposal for increasing organic matter in our soil.

And… the exact tool or tools best for your garden will depend on the resources available to you.

Organic matter accomplishes nothing if you don’t also protect your soil.

What matters more than how much organic matter you add is how you manage your soil over time.

For example, excessive tillage destroys organic matter, exposing it to a sudden unnatural influx of oxygen that causes microbes to turn it into carbon dioxide released into the air rather than stable carbon (part of organic matter) protected in the soil.

Leaving your soil bare and dry and exposed to the sun, wind, and rain also destroys organic matter and can also make the top inches less habitable for the beneficial microbes that help keep your plants healthy.

In other words, you can add all the organic material in the world, but poor practices can destroy it almost as quickly as you added it.

Disturb your soil as little as possible, and keep it covered as much as possible, and you’ll be well on your way to protecting and increasing that critical organic matter in your soil.

The path forward… How much compost should YOU be using?

In my garden, I’ve based my usage of compost on the amount of materials and the equipment I have available. Because I’ve refused to turn a pile by hand or use wheelbarrows to cover a one-acre market garden with 6” of compost, I applied it sparingly in my early days, using more purchased organic fertilizers instead.

But as I began to access more organic materials and purchased a skid steer to help turn the pile and spread the compost, I also increased my compost usage while simultaneously decreasing my organic fertilizer.

There is no one right way to garden. The methods best for you depend on your context and the resources available to you.

Instead of focusing on the absolute necessity of compost, find a system that works with the resources you have available, follow the principles of keeping your soil covered and undisturbed as much as possible, and you’ll be well on your way to a healthy garden.

In the meantime, I’d love to know…

Do you use compost in your garden? Why or why not?

If so, how do you make it, and how much do you use?

👉 Leave a comment and let me know.

Leave a comment

Happy gardening!

-Laverne

👉 P.S. If you’re interested, here are 3 ways I can help you in your garden this year:

1. Grab my $7 workbook, Plan Your Garden: A Guide to Less Overwhelm & More Success

This is the exact process I use for my 1-on-1 coaching clients. It will help you find the gardening methods that fit your context, and design a garden that fits your life so that you can grow more food with less work.

2. Work with me 1-on-1 to design your garden or edible landscape

If you feel stuck designing your garden or edible landscape, or you want another set of eyes on your property to help you sort through the possibilities and ideas, I offer property visits as well as remote consultations. Click here to learn more.

3. Upgrade to a paid subscription

A paid subscription gets you…

• A monthly garden plan telling you exactly what to do each month to grow food year-round (specific to zone 6 but easily adaptable to zones 5-7 or beyond).

• Access to my always growing library of garden resources, including growing calendars, pest solutions, and more.

• 15% off edible perennials in my online store, (I ship anywhere in the US).

• Garden troubleshooting -the ability to directly ask me or the Garden Coach community all your gardening questions.

I stepped out my front door, pushed aside the snow, lifted the lid of my cold frame, and it was like peeking through a hole in the earth that took me to Florida.

An array of fresh salad greens awaited, and as I cut and nibbled on the first few, a satisfied and delightful sensation swept over my body. I quickly realized that supermarket salads in January stood no chance against the delectable sweetness I had just tasted.

Dead-of-winter spinach is hands down the sweetest spinach around, luring me in to try a leaf or two every time I walk by.

It took me one time, and I was hooked.

And now, 16 years later, I’m still keeping my family supplied in fresh greens every month of the year.

Let me tell you what I’ve learned…

Growing food year-round isn’t really that hard.

You don’t need a greenhouse. You don’t need special equipment like heaters and grow lights. You don’t need to live in California.

You just need to understand a few basic principles, buy or build some simple infrastructure, and learn to plan ahead.

It’s that simple.

Let me show you how it works…

The switch from gardening 6 months to gardening 12 months.

I remember my childhood experience in my mom’s garden:

She’d announce, “We’re planting garden today!”

We’d pull out the seed packets, the hoes, the rototiller, and the seeder and head out to the garden. Carrots, lettuce, radishes… We’d plant it all, starting at one side and moving across until the garden was full.

It was garden planting day.

And with a few minor exceptions, that’s the only gardening schedule I knew. Here’s what it looked like:

May: Plant everything

July-September: Harvest like crazy

October/November: Everything dies

December-April: Nothing

That’s five months of fresh food and seven months of nothing. And then we wonder why gardening doesn’t lower our grocery bill?

The problem I realized is that for most people, gardening means tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers…

But those are only summer crops, for May-September. All great crops, but all dead by October. They are not the solution to growing food year-round in my climate.

I’ve since learned there’s a whole other set of crops that actually likes the cold winter. And when I learned to grow them, everything changed.

Here’s a glimpse of what I’m harvesting and eating during each season:

January-March: Harvesting cold-hardy greens, roots, and brassicas

April-May: Continuing to harvest cool-season crops (while planting warm-season crops)

June-September: Summer abundance! (the easy months)

October-December: Harvesting fall/winter storage crops and cold-hardy greens and brassicas.

And just like that, I find myself eating from my garden 12 months instead of 5!

The crops that actually survive my winters here in central PA (zone 6b)

People are often shocked to hear what I harvest in the dead of winter without heat. Most people have no idea what’s possible.

Using simple, unheated structures, I can grow a variety of crops designed to handle the cold.

Here’s what I can harvest in the winter where I live:

Kale & Collard Greens - If left uncovered, the leaves will get droopy and dry, but for steamed greens it’s no problem. It’s the sweetest I’ve ever eaten! Some varieties can survive 0°F with no protection, but with a little protection, these cold-hardy brassicas will survive right through the winter.

Spinach & Asian Greens - I’ve had spinach with very light protection survive -16°F when acclimated. It’ll barely grow in the winter, but it’s the sweetest I’ve ever tasted!

Lettuce - Lettuces need a little more protection than spinach and Asian greens, but baby sized lettuce is surprisingly cold hardy and can survive many of my winters with a little planning and care.

Carrots - I can stack straw bales or pile thick mulch on top of carrots in the fall and harvest straight through the winter by pulling back the mulch to dig them even when the ground around them is frozen. Or I can protect them with a cold frame or row cover and do the same. But since voles are a problem, I harvest in the fall and store for 6 months or more in a refrigerator. Some people call these “candy carrots” and I understand why!

Parsnips - Same as carrots. The best flavor comes from leaving them in the ground the entire winter and harvesting when the ground thaws in the spring.

Leeks - One of the toughest winter crops. Choosing a cold-hardy variety means I can harvest right through snow and ice.

Sunchokes - I dig these right out of the ground anytime the ground is thawed until they start growing again sometime around mi-April.

Notice what’s NOT on this list?

Tomatoes. Peppers. Cucumbers. Anything warm-season.

It all starts with choosing the right crops. The crops that actually survive and thrive in cold temperatures.

Protection: My favorite season extension tools

I don’t have expensive equipment to grow food year-round. I’ve only used very simple infrastructure and basic planning.

Here are the season extension tools I’ve used:

1. Unheated greenhouse or high tunnel (Most effective)

This is where I grow the vast majority of my winter food.

It’s literally just a plastic covered structure that blocks wind and traps heat during the day. On a sunny day, the inside will feel like Florida. And during the cold nights, the heat absorbed by the ground during the day releases into the air.

I see many people purchasing expensive, fancy greenhouse structures. If the aesthetics matter for where you live, I get it. But anyone can build an inexpensive structure with some PVC pipe or conduit, UV-treated plastic, and a few other common supplies.

Yes, the crops will freeze overnight, but that’s okay. Remember, I’m growing crops that can handle freezing, and crops that taste better after they freeze! As the sun rises in the morning and the greenhouse begins to heat up, the crops quickly thaw and appear completely unfazed.

*Here’s a tip: It’s critical to wait to harvest until the plants are completely thawed. Harvesting a frozen plant can damage the cell structure so that it won’t regrow.

And when the temps get really cold, I’ll add some frost cloth inside the high tunnel and I’m good to go right through negative temps as long as I’ve acclimated everything gradually.

2. Low tunnels / row covers (cheap, easy for beginners)

These are basically just wire, PVC, or conduit hoops bent over your beds with plastic or fabric draped over them.

They’ll act just like the unheated high tunnel, but with somewhat less protection. They’re more mobile, easier to build, and cheaper for getting started.

They’re especially effective for starting crops a few weeks earlier in the spring or extending them a few weeks longer in the fall, but they can also be used to overwinter some cold-hardy greens and carrots.

3. Cold frames (Perfect for beginners wanting year-round salad)

My first winter salad was harvested from a cold frame set against the sunny side of my house.

This acts similar to the low tunnel above, but is a much sturdier structure and easier to manage under heavy snow in the dead of winter.

Easy to fit into any landscape design, simple and cheap to build, and very effective, this is my top recommendation if you’re just starting off growing your own salads year-round.

They also work great for season extension in the spring, and for a space to harden off spring crops for planting.

The biggest downside? Limited space. A high tunnel or low tunnel will cover far more space for less money.

But for some basic winter salads, a cold frame is perfect.

4. Heavy mulch (Minimal cost, surprisingly effective)

I’ll be honest, I’ve barely used this. But this is one for the lazy gardeners!

Just pile thick mulch over the fall carrots. It’ll keep the ground from freezing and I pull back mulch and harvest anytime throughout the winter. This also works for parsnips and sunchokes.

It’s essentially creating a mini-root cellar that keeps the roots crisp and fresh and alive.

The downside? Voles. I have so much trouble with voles eating holes in my carrots in the winter that I no longer use this method. Besides, my carrots store just as well in my fridge as they do in the ground.

But in your context? Maybe consider if it’s worth a try.

The year-round planting calendar (when to plant what)

Timing is the #1 key to proper winter growing.

In reality, most crops don’t grow in December and January. It may be more accurate to call this winter keeping than winter growing.

The goal is timing plantings early enough so crops mature by late November. Then using the protective strategies to keep them alive and healthy right through the winter.

My calendar looks something like this:

January-March:

• Direct seed early spring greens and radishes in high tunnel or cold frame

• Harvest winter greens, stored root crops

• Start indoors: tomatoes, peppers, brassicas, etc.

April:

• Plant cool-season crops outside (peas, lettuce, spinach, brassicas, onions, leeks, etc.)

May:

• Plant warm-season crops outside (beans, cucumbers, squash, corn, tomato and pepper transplants, and more)

• Succession plant lettuces every 2-3 weeks

• Harvest winter seeded greens and radishes

June-July:

• Succession plant beans, lettuce

• Harvest spring seeded brassicas

July-August:

• Plant carrots, beets, turnips (for fall/winter harvest)

• Harvest summer crops

September-October:

• Plant cold-hardy greens in tunnels/cold frames for fall/winter harvest

  Harvest: summer crops and earliest fall crops

• Plant garlic for next summer

October-November:

• Harvest fall storage crops and cold-hardy greens

• Begin protecting and acclimating winter crops

December:

• Harvest winter greens from protected spaces

• Continue protecting and acclimating winter crops

• Plan next year!

The most critical windows are spring planting in April/May, and fall/winter planting from late July through early October.

Miss the window for fall planting and your greens will spend the entire winter too small to harvest!

A new mindset: From “gardening season” to “gardening calendar”

The idea of “garden planting day” is long gone. My mindset has shifted. Now, rather than planting the garden all at once, I’m planting almost every month.

After all, I do need to eat every month, right?

This doesn’t have to be hard. In a no-till system, it’s a simple as grabbing the seeds, a hoe or seeder, and heading out to the garden for a few minutes.

Simple, quick, and done in the margins of my day.

No more big garden planning day. Just “plant more lettuce” or “seed carrots” added to my regular routine.

But you might be thinking…

“I need a break in the winter!”

I get it. I do too.

But here’s what most people don’t realize about winter gardening…

It’s the lowest-effort gardening you’ll ever do. In fact, many days, I do nothing at all to my winter garden. And many days, it’s as simple as opening my high tunnel or cold frame in the morning and closing it at night.

Winter gardens take almost no watering, rarely have pest issues, and have only a few types of weeds.

In fact, as a market gardener, I earned my highest dollar per hour rate during the winter!

I get the need for rhythms and the need for a break. But in my mind, even winter gardening is a huge break from summer gardening!

And the reward of that fresh salad in January far outweighs the cost of managing the winter garden.

Here’s what you can do to get started:

Start small with winter salads

Step 1: This spring, build or purchase a simple cold frame. A rectangular wood box roughly 12 inches deep with an old window on top is perfect. You can build it as barebones or as fancy as you wish.

Step 2: Place your cold frame against the sunny side of a building to take advantage of the microclimate.

Step 3: Direct seed spinach, radishes, and other baby greens as soon as you have your cold frame built and soil prepared.

Step 4: Open your cold frame on sunny days to avoid cooking your plants!

Step 5: Enjoy fresh radishes and salads while your friends are still planting theirs!

Step 6: Plant more greens in September and early October for winter harvest, and enjoy fresh salads all winter long!

Start small. Give yourself a chance to succeed. And increase your skills over time. And you’ll be well on your way to eating from your own garden 12 months of the year.

It all boils down to this…

Growing food year-round doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or time-consuming. It’s just different.

Different crops. Different timing. And a little protection.

Then you can go from eating fresh food only 5 months of the year to eating fresh from your garden 12 months every year!

Still feeling unsure?

My monthly garden calendars tell you exactly what to do each month to grow fresh food every month of the year.

Upgrade to a paid subscription to get it sent to your inbox on the 1st of every month.

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Happy gardening!

-Laverne

👉 P.S. If you’re interested, here are 3 ways I can help you in your garden this year:

1. Grab my $7 workbook, Plan Your Garden: A Guide to Less Overwhelm & More Success

It’s a workbook that guides you through designing a garden that fits your life so you can grow more food for your family with less work.

2. Work with me 1-on-1 to design your garden or edible landscape

If you feel stuck designing your garden or edible landscape, or you want another set of eyes on your property to help you sort through the possibilities and ideas, I offer property visits as well as remote consultations. Click here to learn more.

3. Upgrade to a paid subscription

A paid subscription gets you…

• A monthly garden plan telling you exactly what to do each month to grow food year-round (specific to zone 6 but adaptable to zones 5-7 or beyond).

• Access to my always growing library of garden resources, including growing calendars, pest solutions, and more.

• 15% off edible perennials in my online store, (I ship anywhere in the US).

• Garden troubleshooting -the ability to directly ask me or our gardening community all your gardening questions.

Subscribe now

Should the tomatoes go here, or there? How many should I plant? And what about crop rotation?

But when it came to edible perennials, I found a whole new level of difficult!

Sure, no crop rotation worries, but if I planted a tree, that’s where the tree would be. For the next 15 years.

What if I decided next year I didn’t like it? Or what if the blueberry plant I purchase next year was meant for that same space?

Designing your garden for success can feel overwhelming, whether planting annuals or perennials.

Over my 15+ years of growing annual vegetables and edible perennials on 5 different properties, I’ve learned a few tips to help me decide where to place that raspberry patch, the blueberry bushes, or the pawpaw tree.

In a post last week, I described a simple concept I learned from permaculture that helped simplify my designing and organize the space in my mind.

Essentially, design to keep your high-maintenance crops close and your low maintenance crops far away.

Yes, there’s more nuance, and you can read it here.

But here’s a nuance I haven’t described yet…

Distance from your house is not the only factor that determines your planting zones.

In fact, the critical factor is not distance, but accessibility. With microclimate also playing a roll.

For example…

My current 17-acre property is long and slender with a small creek running the length of the property.

The creek has no bridge.

In the first years on our property, how often do you think we visited the other side of the creek?

Almost never.

In fact, we visited the far end of our property 1,000 feet away more than we visited the other side of our creek only 300 feet away.

Until one day we were hit with the profound realization that the other side of our creek was hundreds of steps closer than the far end of our property! And that all it would take to change the accessibility was a bridge, which would make our entire zone 3 space 2x larger.

For us, that meant more pasture, which means more animals and more fruit and nut trees, all a part of the long-term abundance plan for our property.

*By the way, that bridge project has been on hold, but I finally made the first moves last week.

Needless to say, we all look forward to the difference this project will make on our farm!

Here’s another example that you may connect with more…

Our property has a 90 foot long bank barn directly across the driveway from our house, to the southwest.

As you may have already guessed, the south side of that barn (an amazing microclimate!) is out of sight out of mind for us when we step out of our house.

Yes, this is a major design flaw in the layout of the property, and we have plans to change that. But for now, it’s reality.

What microclimate lover wouldn’t want to plant along the sunny side of a 90 foot long concrete wall! Figs, anyone? That space is likely an entire hardiness zone warmer than the rest of our property.

But for us, because accessing it requires travelling around a 90 foot long 30 foot tall structure, it subconsciously became a zone 3 space despite being only 30 steps away.

That was not by intention.

The point is this… The organization of structures on your property affects how often you notice a space during the regular “goings-about” on your property.

So before deciding where to place your garden or where to plant those blueberry bushes, notice where your default walking patterns are on your property, what spaces you notice very day, and what spaces you miss. What can you see out your kitchen window, and what is hidden behind your garage? Where do you gather when spending a peaceful evening outdoors?

Use the information you gather, along with categorizing your crops into groups, to determine what to plant where.

Keep the highest maintenance items or most frequently harvested crops accessible, and you’ll set yourself up for an easier garden and more success.

Happy gardening!

-Laverne

👉 P.S. If you’re interested, here are 3 ways I can help you in your garden this year:

1. Grab my $7 workbook, Plan Your Garden: A Guide to Less Overwhelm & More Success

It’s a workbook that guides you through designing a garden that fits your life so you can grow more food for your family with less work.

2. Work with me 1-on-1 to design your garden or edible landscape

If you feel stuck designing your garden or edible landscape, or you want another set of eyes on your property to help you sort through the possibilities and ideas, I offer property visits as well as remote consultations. Click here to learn more.

3. Upgrade to a paid subscription

A paid subscription gets you…

• A monthly garden plan telling you exactly what to do each month to grow food year-round (specific to zone 6 but adaptable to zones 5-7 or beyond).

• Access to my always growing library of garden resources, including growing calendars, pest solutions, and more.

• 15% off edible perennials in my online store, (I ship anywhere in the US).

• Garden troubleshooting -the ability to directly ask me or our gardening community all your gardening questions.

Subscribe now

I simply started drawing my garden and listing the plants as the came to mind, only being sure the same crop wasn’t at the same place 2 years in a row.

My epic embarrassing kale failure was a revelation moment, but around the same time, I also learned a similar concept that’s changed everything for me.

It’s shortened my design time, helped me understand priorities, and made the endless work of homesteading and gardening 10x more efficient.

It’s the concept of zones, derived from permaculture.

Zones are bit like concentric circles with your house at the center. If your house is zone 0, your property has 5 concentric circles around it.

The plants and elements of your land you use most often are placed in zone 1, directly outside your doorstep and in the first circle outside your house, and those used least often are place farthest away.

The reality is, these are not circles, and the divide between each is often fuzzy. Their shape and the elements in each varies based on your property and your goals, but the concept still stands.

Here’s how it works:

Zone 0 - Your House

The place you eat, sleep, relax, and generally spend most of your time. If you’ve been gone, it’s the first place you walk into. If you need rest, it’s likely where you go. If you need food, you’ll step into your kitchen. And where do you store most of your belongings? In your house.

This is the hub of your entire property, the space everything else is designed around.

Zone 1 - Intensive care

If you step out your doorstep in the morning, what do you first encounter?

I remember the year my wife planted parsley along our front walk. I’d been taught parsley was a breath freshener, so every time I left the house I’d grab a sprig to chew on.

Zone 1 should include those plants you want to access frequently… the sage you want to quickly add to your dinner, the peppermint leaf you want to grab for your tea or to freshen your breath, or the lettuce you want to harvest for your sandwich while preparing lunch.

Herbs, salad greens, maybe a cherry tomato plant or two…

Even your entire kitchen garden, perhaps your chickens or rabbits or your compost bin, as well as your greenhouse or seedling propagation could be considered zone 1 elements.

This is never the same for everyone. Ask yourself what you want the most access to and what you need to visit the most frequently. Anything that requires daily visits or quick spontaneous visits from the kitchen should be considered for zone 1.

How big is a zone?

There’s no hard and fast rule, but Bill Mollison (father of permaculture) used to say if you visit a zone 1 plant first thing in the morning when the dew is on the ground and your slippers get wet, it’s too far away.

The reality is, the larger your property, your family, or your homesteading goals, the larger your zone 1 will be.

Zone 2 - Semi-intensive

Moving a little further from your house, this space may include your staple vegetable crops, perhaps more specifically the space-extensive vegetables or vegetables requiring less maintenance like mulched corn or winter squash or canning tomatoes.

It could also include perennial edibles like fruit trees and bushes, and maybe even nut trees. Small animals like chickens, rabbits, or perhaps pigs or a milk goat could also fit into zone 2, although larger livestock typically makes better sense in zone 3 even when it requires frequent visitation.

Zone 3 - Main Crops & Livestock

Larger crops like cash crops (if you’re a small farm), crops you’re growing for livestock, or perhaps even storage crops for your family may belong in zone 3. This also often includes pasture and larger livestock, even though you may visit them daily for milking or rotation.

If you’re on a larger property like I am (17 acres), this could be the largest portion of your property. If you’re on a small property, this may be very small or non-existent.

Zone 4 - Semi-wild/gathering

Zone 4 is a semi-wild, semi-managed spaced focused on foraged crops, timber, wild food gathering, and perhaps recreation.

On my property, I consider our black locust plantings (for firewood harvest) as zone 4, perhaps our campsite in the woods, and maybe the deer plot I dream of starting.

Again, on a small property and depending on your goals, this may be very small or non-existent.

Zone 5 - Wilderness

Zone 5 is meant to be a totally unmanaged wilderness zone, left for observation, foraging, and habitat for wildlife (pest control).

And yes, if you’re on a small property, YOU CAN STILL DO THIS! Even a small corner or a boundary line of your property left unmanaged can do wonders both for your observation skills and also for creating habitat for beneficials.

Try it and let it change you!

What are you questions regarding zones? Have you laid out your property using these concepts?

Leave a comment

Do you still feel stuck knowing how to design your garden or homestead?

📞 I offer garden + edible landscape design consultations if you need help designing your garden or edible landscape. Apply here for a consultation.

*I also made a simple STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE for designing your vegetable garden to help you get clear on your goals, your methods, and what exactly you want to grow. It’s the same process I take my 1-on-1 coaching clients through.

***Paid subscribers, you get this for free in the Garden Resources Library.

🌿 Here’s what this guide will help you do:

✔ Clarify your real gardening goals (food security, stress relief, savings, health, income & more)
✔ Decide what to grow based on what you actually eat
✔ Match your garden size to your time, energy, and resources
✔ Avoid burnout from over-planting
✔ Design a garden that works with your lifestyle—not against it
✔ Learn how location, sunlight, water access, and storage affect success
✔ Identify potential problems before they happen

📌 You’ll also find practical advice on:

• Time management

• Soil & organic materials

• Water access

• Storage space

• Climate & sunlight

• Tools & budget

If you want to follow the same process I use for my 1-on-1 coaching clients … you can have it TODAY for only $7!

I want this!

Happy gardening!

-Laverne

As my garden and skills became known to the public, I had countless gardeners stop me and ask for advice.

Some even hired me to consult on their property.

And as I’ve talked to new gardeners and homesteaders, a few themes emerged.

Here are 3 noteworthy mistakes I often see beginners making in their garden:

Mistake #1: Not placing your garden close to your kitchen

I have an embarrassing garden story…

The first year of my market garden, I planted a kale patch in the far corner of my 1-acre plot. Behind the sweet corn, behind the winter squash, behind the tomatoes.

When mid-summer came, that kale was covered in weeds, struggling with pest pressure, and generally left unharvested.

And then I heard someone say, “Plant the crops that require the most care closest to your house.”

At that moment, I knew the mistake I made. And I knew why the kale got ignored.

If you’ve heard the quote “The farmer’s footsteps are the best fertilizer”, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The more you see something, the more attention it gets.

It's a big problem when society sees a vegetable gardening as less beautiful than a lawn, and therefore deems its best location in the back corner or your property.

But “out of sight” also means “out of mind.”

If you want gardening to be easier, place your garden 2 steps from your kitchen rather than 100.

It’ll change the way you garden AND the way you use the food from your garden. It’s ONE thing you can do to make almost everything else easier.

*And if you’re uncomfortable with the appearance of your garden and want creative ideas for how to incorporate into your landscaping, check out this book.

Mistake #2: Growing too much

I did it too.

During my first market gardening stint, I set aside one acre from my father-in-law’s field for vegetables.

No tractor, no tiller, just a few hand tools. And one entire acre. Just me and my wife.

And then I bought sheep.

And a cow.

And when we drank all her milk, I bought another cow.

And then we had too much milk and bought calves to nurse the cow.

And then I bought pigs. And then decided to breed them instead of butcher then and so I bought a boar.

Oh, and I forgot the 30 laying hens and the half dozen geese. And the 800 broiler chickens.

Not to mention a young daughter and 2 dogs.

Do you feel exhausted yet?

I do. Is it any wonder I burned out?

I was an idealist 25 year-old aspiring homesteader trying to live the dream. But in demanding all my ideals come true NOW, I burned out and watched many of them get pulled out from under me.

Even we experienced homesteaders and gardeners are guilty of this.

If you want to grow your confidence as a gardener, start small and learn to succeed before doing it all.

Remember this:

Mistake #3: Making everything too hard

I grew up on a farm. My mom had two big gardens. Every year I saw seeds placed into the ground sprout and turn into real meals for our table.

I can only imagine what may have gone through my mind had I never seen a tiny carrot seed or kale seed for the first time until I was 23, the first year I had my own garden.

This little speck will become a carrot???!!! Really? There’s no way!

I’d better check it every day, touch it, talk to it, water it, examine it with a microscope, and maybe set up my trail cam to keep an eye on it.

I get it. It’s like having a new baby… If it’s your first, every new movement or sound gets recorded. If it’s your third or your fifth… Wait, he started walking? When did that happen?

It reminds me of a Frog and Toad story:

Toad wants a garden. He plants seeds and says, “Start growing.” He walks up and down, puts his head close to the ground, and says, “Start growing!” Then he reads them a story. The next day he sings songs to them. The next day he reads poems, and the next day he plays music.

His seeds are still not growing.

“What shall I do?” he cries, and falls asleep, weary from his hard work.

“Wake up!” says Frog, “Your plants are growing! You will have a very nice garden, Toad!”

“Yes,” said Toad, “But you were right, Frog. Growing a garden is very hard work.”

Remember this…

Seeds want to sprout.

Sprouts want to grow.

Compost wants to compost.

When you put that seed against soil and give it moisture, it’s genetically programmed to grow. When you pile that organic material in your bin, it’s designed to break down.

No amount of overthinking will change that.

But overwatering will.

Over examination by disturbing the soil to check on your seed will.

Give the seed what it needs, and then let go and let nature do what it’s already wanting to do.

Gardening is more about creating the environment for something to grow than it is about forcing that something grow.

I don’t know about you… but that takes a load of my mind.

Have you made any of these mistakes?

Do you catch yourself trying to do too much in your garden?

Or do you feel stuck knowing where to locate your garden, what to plant, or what gardening methods make sense for you?

I made a simple STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE to help you get clear on your goals, your methods, and what exactly you want to grow. It’s the same process I take my 1-on-1 coaching clients through… And TODAY you can have it for only $7!

***Paid subscribers, you get this for free in the Garden Resources Library.

🌿 Here’s what this guide will help you do:

✔ Clarify your real gardening goals (food security, stress relief, savings, health, income & more)
✔ Decide what to grow based on what you actually eat
✔ Match your garden size to your time, energy, and resources
✔ Avoid burnout from over-planting
✔ Design a garden that works with your lifestyle—not against it
✔ Learn how location, sunlight, water access, and storage affect success
✔ Identify potential problems before they happen

📌 You’ll also find practical advice on:

• Time management

• Soil & organic materials

• Water access

• Storage space

• Climate & sunlight

• Tools & budget

If you want to follow the same process I use for my 1-on-1 coaching clients … you can have it TODAY for only $7!

🎁 What you’ll receive:

✔ Instant digital PDF download
✔ Easy-to-follow planning framework
✔ Printable reflection pages
✔ Lifetime access – reuse every season

I want this!

Prefer to work with me one-on-one?

📞 I also offer garden consultations to anyone needing help creating a design for their garden or edible landscape. Apply here for a consultation.

Happy gardening!

-Laverne

P.S. Paid subscribers, you should have received your February garden calendar on February 1! If you’re not a paid subscriber, your can still access this calendar by upgrading to a paid subscription and finding it in the Garden Resources Library.

February is when things get real! This is the month for serious seed starting to begin.

Here’s your February task list:

🌱 Seeds to Start Indoors

Early February (first week):

• *If you missed this in January, it’s not too late…

• Seed onions, shallots, and leeks - These need 10-12 weeks before transplanting. Start them now for early April pl…

Read more

The screen in front of me littered with rectangles, alternately shaded, each filled with names and numbers.

Every square foot of my garden planned with EXACT planting dates, harvest dates, and immediate successions to keep it as productive as possible.

Can you guess if I followed it???!!!

If you’re a gardener, you know the unknowns of weather, busy schedules, and family. You guessed it, there’s no way in heaven I followed that thing!

Today I’ve simplified my garden to a simple whiteboard drawing photographed and stored on my phone.

But how did I get from there to here while still growing 40+ varieties of vegetables, producing more per square foot every year, and also reducing my labor?

When I sat down to plan my garden this winter, I was struck by a realization. My mind was thinking in simple categories. In fact, I had every vegetable mentally placed in a category, and without thinking I began grouping those vegetables by category as I determined their location in my garden.

I’ve finally started putting words to this…

Here are the 4 categories I think in:

1. Full season low maintenance crops

2. Full season high maintenance crops

3. Half season crops

4. Quick crops

Let me explain…

1. Full season, low maintenance crops (virtually set-it-and-forget-it)

Planted in spring, remaining in the ground most or all season, and harvested mostly at once late in the season, these crops are also space-extensive, both widely spaced at planting and covering a large area at maturity. In my garden, they fill 1/3 of my entire space.

1. Winter squash

2. Potatoes (except new potatoes)

3. Sweet potatoes

4. Popcorn

5. Flour corn

6. Dry beans

7. Sunflowers

8. Sweet corn (sometimes)

These are my most popular storage crops and a large portion of my family’s winter diet. Because of their low maintenance, I keep these crops farthest away from my house.

I begin the season with a cover crop, tarped area, fully mulched area, or any combination. By June, I terminate the cover crop or remove the tarp or mulch and seed directly into the soil. When plants are at least a few inches tall sometime in June, I mulch the entire plot with hay, straw, leaves, or whatever I have access to (potatoes get mulched at planting). Then I virtually forget about them until fall.

If you prefer tillage or row gardening (vs. beds), these crops are more conducive to that system than other crops. They are not conducive to living paths (perhaps with the exception of corn… ask me how I know!), often resulting in a giant weed jungle by season’s end! Their sprawling and spreading habits make mowing and managing living paths nearly impossible.

2. Full season, high maintenance crops (the frequent givers)

Similar to #1, these are full or long season crops mostly planted in the spring, but unlike #1, they require frequent harvest or maintenance throughout the season.

1. Tomatoes

2. Peppers

3. Eggplant

4. Okra

5. Cucumbers

6. Summer squash

While these are widely spaced, typically transplanted crops that also work great in a fully mulched garden, they require frequent trellising, pruning, and/or harvest for much of the summer. Place them in your back forty and they’ll turn into a strangled mess of rotten fruits. But place them close to your house where you can watch and care for them and harvest every day, you’ll be posting daily selfies of your harvest!

3. Half season crops (perfect for double succession)

While some gardeners plant these crops only once, in my region (zone 6 central PA) I can easily grow a second crop after an early planting.

1. Carrots

2. Beets

3. Cole Crops (Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, etc.)

4. Turnips

5. Peas

6. Onions & Shallots

7. Garlic

8. Sweet corn (sometimes)

9. Summer squash (sometimes)

10. New potatoes

When designing my garden, I space these crops near each other. I list two crops per bed, the first for spring and the second for fall.

For example:

• Bed 1: Carrots/Beets

• Bed 2: Beets/Carrots

• Bed 3: Onions/Cabbage

• Bed 4: Peas/Broccoli

• Bed 5: Garlic/Carrots

Most of these crops are semi-cold hardy (except corn, squash, and potatoes), meaning they can be planted in early spring before the last frost (early April in my region), and also harvested in late fall after the first frost (Oct/Nov in my region). This extended season allows for an easy double crop.

I mulch only some of my half-season crops… garlic, and sometimes the more widely spaced cole crops and corn, and occasionally peas and onions. Others like carrots and beets are tightly spaced within a bed, malking mulching difficult and less necessary because the leaf canopy soon covers the bed. I prefer planting these directly into compost spread on top of a bed, and then lightly cultivated with a collinear hoe to keep out weeds.

4. Quick crops (3 weeks from seed to harvest???)

These crops are in the ground as little as a few weeks, and many times I’ll succession plant every 2-3 weeks.

• Lettuce, spinach, and other greens

• Some herbs (specifically cilantro for summer harvest)

• Radishes

• Salad turnips

For example, I’ll seed lettuce and greens every 2-3 weeks throughout the summer to keep us in a steady supply of salads. Baby leaf greens take only 3 weeks from seed to harvest during summer, and may bolt before a second harvest during hot weather. Head lettuces may be in the ground only 4-6 weeks from transplanting to harvest.

I virtually never mulch these crops, preferring instead to plant them directly into a compost mulch and cultivating lightly with a collinear hoe for weed control. They grow a quick canopy that covers the soil and acts like a mulch.

I plant all these crops together in a bed, leaving empty spaces at spring planting so I can succession plant before the earliest quick crop is harvested. As the summer goes on, I’m continually harvesting quick crops and thus opening spaces for more successions.

That’s it! Four basic categories, simple garden planning.

But there are some nuances…

How do I manage crop rotation?

Notice each category has multiple plant families, making crop rotation simple. A bed with carrots in the spring gets beets or cabbage in the fall, while the bed with beets in the spring can get carrots in the fall.

A space with winter squash one year can get sweet potatoes the next, and a space with corn this year can get winter squash next.

Multiple plant families within each category allow me to keep a dedicated garden plot or bed for each category year after year.

How do I time plantings for the half season crops?

Some half season crops are harvested as early as June, while others are in the ground until late July. This can affect which half season crop can be planted afterwards.

For example, when onions are harvested in late July, the ensuing bed prep may mean it’s too late to plant a good fall storage carrot. So I’ll choose either a shorter season carrot, or a transplant like cabbage or broccoli.

Do all crops fit these categories?

You’ll notice crops I didn’t mention, that don’t quite fit, or that could fit multiple categories:

• Leeks: generally long-season, depending on variety and size you like them, but because of tighter spacing are not as conducive to the mulched beds of full-season, low-maintenance crops. I’ll generally plant these with the half-season crops but give them a full season.

• Celery & Celeriac: Similar to leeks above.

• Scallions: could be a short or long season, depending on the variety and how big you like them.

• Summer squash: rarely survives an entire season in my garden, succumbing to disease, so I treat it like a half-season crop.

• Sweet corn: I succession plant every 2 weeks. My earliest sweet corn is finished early enough for a second crop, and my latest planting (early July) can often follow a spring crop, but the middle plantings of sweet corn are more challenging for successions with half-season crops.

• Kale & Chard: can easily yield an entire season without replanting, but sometimes a second planting will give you a healthier, more productive plant in the fall. Kale & chard could fit either half-season or full-season high-maintenance.

• Potatoes: Short-season, early potatoes are a perfect half-season crop when planted in April and harvested as new potatoes in late June or early July, or when planted in early July for fall potatoes.

• *Perhaps certain varieties of beets or carrots or broccoli (depending again on their days to maturity, how many side shoots your broccoli continues to produce, etc.)

Remember, not every crop fits perfectly, and not every crop is listed here! So I think about how I’ll treat each crop, when I’ll plant it, how I’ll space it, how long I’ll leave it in the ground, etc. and then determine which category aligns the most closely.

This isn’t designed to solve every garden riddle, but instead, it’s meant to make the entire garden riddle easier to solve!

Try it this year

As you plan your annual vegetable garden, try listing all your crops under the correct category.

1. Full season low maintenance crops

2. Full season high maintenance crops

3. Half season crops

4. Quick crops

Then start by placing quick crops and full-season high-maintenance crops closest to your kitchen, half season crops further away, and full-season low-maintenance farthest away.

Want more help planning your garden?

I made a BRAND NEW guide to help you Plan Your Garden for Less Overwhelm & More Success.

***Paid subscribers, you get this for free in the Garden Resources Library.

🌿 Here’s what this guide will help you do:

✔ Clarify your real gardening goals (food security, stress relief, savings, health, income & more)
✔ Decide what to grow based on what you actually eat
✔ Match your garden size to your time, energy, and resources
✔ Avoid burnout from over-planting
✔ Design a garden that works with your lifestyle—not against it
✔ Learn how location, sunlight, water access, and storage affect success
✔ Identify potential problems before they happen

📌 Inside the guide you’ll find:

• Guided reflection questions to help you visualize your ideal garden

• Worksheets to define your priorities

• Practical advice on:

  • Time management

  • Soil & organic materials

  • Water access

  • Storage space

  • Climate & sunlight

  • Tools & budget

🌻 Who this is perfect for:

• Brand new gardeners who want to start right

• Experienced gardeners who feel overwhelmed or burned out

• Homesteaders who want their garden to truly support their family

• Anyone tired of wasting money on seeds they never plant

🎁 What you’ll receive:

✔ Instant digital PDF download
✔ Easy-to-follow planning framework
✔ Printable reflection pages
✔ Lifetime access – reuse every season

I want this!

Want to work with me one-on-one?

📞 I also offer garden consultations to anyone needing help creating a design for their garden or edible landscape. Apply here for a consultation.

Happy gardening!

-Laverne

P.S. Paid subscribers, be on the look out for your February garden calendar coming out in just a few days, the morning of February 1!

Rows of corn, tomatoes, and beans… all the goodies we wanted for our freezer. Peppers, cucumbers, squash, lettuce - the whole shebang.

By August, we had harvested... well, let’s just say we kept the local grocery store in business. I was embarrassed.

Hours of work down the drain. Endless effort lost to the wind.

If you’ve been there, you know the feeling… the frustration that comes from doing everything “right” but getting nothing in return.

What I and everyone else said “should” happen didn't.

I’ve learned a few things over my 15+ years of organic gardening.

It's one thing to grow a few vegetables for your family. That's great. I want everyone to do it, even if it’s one tomato plant in your front bed.

But it's another thing to grow a legitimate amount of food for your family. Food that has you saying good-bye to the grocery store. Food that eliminates the need to stock up before that winter storm. (Because you're already stocked up!)

Most gardening advice out there is for the first. But my focus is on the second.

👉 Here’s what helped me grow legitimate amounts of food for my family…

Focusing on production over perfection

I’d seen the pictures on Instagram and Pinterest. I wanted my garden to match that.

So I cleaned up all the edges, took out every weed, and posted my own pictures of my perfectly spotless garden.

But beneath all the photos, I was stressed. Overwhelmed. Feeling like a failure. Why couldn’t I keep my garden like those in pictures?

And then I realized… My weedy patch of squash fed more humans (and animals!) than every Instagram garden I viewed that day.

The Instagram garden isn’t the garden that actually feeds my family.

What feeds my family is production, not perfection.

So I changed my mindset…

Weeds are a problem when they increase work or stifle production. Crooked rows are a problem when they decrease efficiency.

I LOVE the beautiful Pinterest-perfect garden, and those neat weed-free rows give satisfaction to my soul. But I no longer feel like a failure when the weeds show their heads. And I know that feeding my family comes first; and feeding my soul comes second.

Selecting the right varieties (or maybe ignoring seed catalog descriptions?)

Seed companies want to sell, and some specifically, ahem… are notorious for introducing every vegetable like a world champion on stage.

I used to endlessly browse seed catalogs, circling every third variety and then re-browsing and crossing out until my list was pared to a manageable size.

Even then, I was left with 5 varieties of dry beans, 10 tomatoes, and a half dozen summer squash.

I was hooked on pretty looks and enticing tales, not on tried-and-true production.

As my family and business grew, I realized the dainty African watermelon with a cute story didn’t produce like the watermelon from the Amish store down the road.

So I culled the fancy varieties, and I culled the seed catalogs notorious for luring me in. Three seed companies, and only tried-and-true, dependable, adaptable, disease-resistant varieties.

I quit going for good stories and looks and started going for production.

Here’s how I choose varieties today:

1. Look for words like “high-yielding”, '“productive”, “disease-resistant”, and “adaptable.”

2. Stick with seed companies that perform real trials and give reliable descriptions about how a crop actually performs. I like Johnny’s, High Mowing Organic, and Osborne Seeds.

3. Test varieties and stick with proven winners. Read the story here of how I tested 5 different cucumber varieties and found a proven performer for my property.

Focusing on soil instead of plants

I confess… I know very little about plants.

But I know how to care for soil.

I’ve transformed rock-solid soil so hard the swing of a pick axe wouldn’t enter more than the length of my fingernail (no, I don’t have world-record fingernails!) to soil so dark and loose and deep it grew 10-inch long carrots without being tilled.

I transformed soil that couldn’t grow a cover crop mix to more than a few inches of pale yellow growth to soil that grew a kale plant nearly as tall as I am (I’m not a pigmy, FYI).

Here’s the picture to prove it:

Soil, soil, soil… If there’s a hill I die on, it’ll be this one.

Soil is the ONE thing that will make everything else easier or unnecessary in a garden.

When I understood that concept, my garden started actually producing legitimate quantities of food. I’m talking $100,000 plus of value on significantly less than one acre. Plus enough vegetables to keep my family of 7 out of the grocery store.

This is not an exaggeration. I mean it when I say, “Focus on the soil.”

Soil is the lifeblood of the garden, our economy, and our life. Without it, we die.

Here’s how I care for the soil today:

1. Disturb it as little as possible. It’s less work, and it’s kind to the earthworms and microbes that build soil. I like to till once when I start a garden, using the opportunity to incorporate compost or organic matter, and then I never till deeply again.

2. Keep it covered as much as possible. Nature covers soil, and so do I. Not only does covering soil reduce watering and weeding efforts, but it protects the microbiology that feeds and builds your soil, while also adding organic material that builds your soil over time. I use hay, straw, leaves, grass clippings, dead plant material, compost, living plants, or whatever I have access to. There’s no one right way to do this.

Learning succession planting and winter gardening

The first year I gardened for market, I planted 100 lettuces on one day and zero for the next 50 days.

A short 6 weeks later I was hit by the reality of my mistake. A sudden 100 lettuces to sell today, but zero for the next two months.

Not the way to legitimately provide my customers with food! And certainly not the way to feed my family.

The need for successions smacked me on the eyebrow.

My first succession plan was a complicated spreadsheet only my statistician friend could read. By today, my plan is so simple my 8 year-old could understand it. (And that includes my winter gardening plan, which is simply a time-specific succession plan with a few protective strategies.)

Gone are the days of salad bars for a week straight followed by lettuce famine the next three months. I’ve now learned how to keep our family in consistent food year-round. No, that doesn’t mean every vegetable is available every week (that gets boring!), but it does mean any given week will offer a mix of greens or herbs plus more starchy filling vegetables, everything you need to build a complete vegetable menu (provided you have a bit of flexibility!).

Here’s the basic succession plan I follow:

• Carrots - spring and fall

• Beets - spring and fall

• Radishes & turnips - spring and fall

• Cole crops (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi) -spring and fall

• Green beans (bush) - spring and fall

• Sweet corn - 4-6 plantings every 2 weeks starting from frost free date

• Lettuce & greens - every 2-3 weeks

• Summer squash - 2 plantings at frost free date and early summer

Growing for calories

The mixed herb bed in the front yard with a giant tomato plant in the center, nasturtiums dancing along the edges, and a few colorful lettuce heads might be cute, (and I love seeing anyone growing even just a few vegetables… so kudos to you if that’s the step you’re taking. No judgment!) but it won’t keep your family alive if the grocery store closes.

Calories get a bad rap, I know, but the reality is that calories keep us alive. Without calories I’d fall over like a dead tree in a forest.

My three favorite calorie crops hands down are potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squash because of their productivity, storability, and flexibility in the kitchen. But beets, carrots, kolhrabi, corn, dry beans, and more crops could also fit this category.

Nearly 1/3 of my current family garden plan, which is approaching 1/4 acre in size, is devoted to winter squash, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.

I know, I mean business in my garden! And my goal is to provide every vegetable we need for the entire year.

Designing for efficiency

My mom had two huge gardens. Each garden was divided into long straight single rows with wide paths between, wide enough to cultivate regularly with a rototiller.

My first garden was the same.

But as I sought ways to grow more food in the space I had, I came across concepts like Square Foot Gardening and others growing densely in a small area. And I realized it made no sense to devote three-quarters of the garden space to walking paths.

So I reversed the model, designed wide beds with narrows paths and realized I could get 3x the yield in the same space!

Now, in 30-36 inch wide beds, I can grow…

• 5 rows of carrots

• 4 rows of onions or beets

• 3 rows of lettuce heads

• 2 rows of cabbage, corn, peppers, or eggplant

• 1 row of tomatoes with spring radishes or turnips along the edges

I also design for efficiency in other ways:

• Automate irrigation. I like these Orbit irrigation timers for simple automation.

• Mulch everything except closely spaced crops (carrots, greens, etc.). Covering soil means less watering, less weeding, and less work.

• Design layout according to crop needs. Crops that need special attention like row cover for frost or pest protection go in the same bed. Plants requiring the same type of trellis may go next to each other. Frequent harvest crops like okra, summer squash, and greens will be planted close to the house, while single harvest crops like winter squash, dry beans and sweet potatoes can go near the back 40.

• Trellis the climbers. Cucumbers, beans, peas, and tomatoes are trellised to save space and make harvest easier.

Changing my eating habits (no one likes to hear this one)

I didn't grow up eating winter squash. My mom grew one type of winter squash, the PA Dutch Crookneck Pumpkin, for pumpkin pies. That's it.

Acorn squash, spaghetti squash, delicata squash…??? That was French to me.

But in only a few years of gardening I quickly learned that winter squash is a staple for year-round eating.

Tough as nails in storage, a filling part of your meal, and with so many uses, my family regularly eats winter squash every month from fall to spring.

There's mashed squash, custard, cubed squash with rice and sausage, and probably our favorite… butternut harvest stew (Grab this cookbook for the recipe! *This book transformed our eating!)

But my garden providing me with food meant I needed to adapt my diet to what my garden provided. No more tomatoes in January. No more spinach in July. Less rice from the grocery store and more winter squash, potatoes, and sweet potatoes in January.

If I couldn’t eat what my garden gave me, it’s provision was pointless.

Planting more perennials

The 20 foot patch of red raspberries in front of my house yields enough berries for daily fresh eating for two months every year plus extra for the freezer. The work it requires? Once a year mowing and once a year mulching/fertilizing.

That’s it. Talk about a workhorse. Plant once, harvest for years.

That’s easy gardening that keeps right on giving even when I stop.

When time and energy are my limiting factors, perennials transcend my limits and continue sharing their abundance even when I have little to share with them.

That’s the beauty of perennials, and it’s why I believe they’re an absolute necessity for anyone who wants to produce legitimate quantities of food sustainably and without burning out.

As someone already said so well, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

This is my current learning curve. I already harvest persimmons, hickories, walnuts, hazelnuts, grapes, elderberries, raspberries and lots more from plants started years ago (mostly by my wife , who is evidently more intelligent in these areas than me, but it’s finally rubbing off!)

The path forward:

Growing a few vegetables and growing legitimate amounts of food are two completely different skills.

And most gardening advice out there? It’s for the first, not the second.

Growing a garden that provides more food requires different skills:

• Choosing production over perfection

• Selecting the right varieties

• Focusing on soil, not plants

• Learning succession planning and winter gardening

• Growing for calories

• Designing for efficiency

• Changing eating habits

• Planting more perennials

Want help growing more food?

I made a BRAND NEW guide to help you Plan Your Garden for Less Overwhelm & More Success.

***Paid subscribers, you get this for free in the Garden Resources Library.

🌿 Here’s what this guide will help you do:

✔ Clarify your real gardening goals (food security, stress relief, savings, health, income & more)
✔ Decide what to grow based on what you actually eat
✔ Match your garden size to your time, energy, and resources
✔ Avoid burnout from over-planting
✔ Design a garden that works with your lifestyle—not against it
✔ Learn how location, sunlight, water access, and storage affect success
✔ Identify potential problems before they happen

📌 Inside the guide you’ll find:

• Guided reflection questions to help you visualize your ideal garden

• Worksheets to define your priorities

• Practical advice on:

  • Time management

  • Soil & organic materials

  • Water access

  • Storage space

  • Climate & sunlight

  • Tools & budget

🌻 Who this is perfect for:

• Brand new gardeners who want to start right

• Experienced gardeners who feel overwhelmed or burned out

• Homesteaders who want their garden to truly support their family

• Anyone tired of wasting money on seeds they never plant

🎁 What you’ll receive:

✔ Instant digital PDF download
✔ Easy-to-follow planning framework
✔ Printable reflection pages
✔ Lifetime access – reuse every season

I want this!

📩 I send weekly tips to help you grow more food with less frustration. Subscribe here if you haven’t already. Or upgrade to a paid subscription for a monthly garden calendar (zones 5-7), my ever growing garden resources list, 15% off everything in my online store, and the ability to ask me your gardening questions for 1-on-1 feedback.

🌱 I also grow edible perennials at Hickory Run Homestead - plants that produce food for 20+ years without the annual planting cycle. If you’re tired of starting from scratch every spring, check them out here.

📞 I also offer garden consultations to anyone needing help creating a design for their garden or edible landscape. Apply here for a consultation.

Happy gardening!

-Laverne

Quick reminder that you have until Sunday night to use the code GARDENCOACH to get 15% off edible perennial plants and anything else in my online store!

Shop Now!

As a homestead father providing for a family of 7, I’m always looking for more food with less work. That’s where perennials come in…

Pawpaws and persimmons… carefree fruit trees that bare delicious, nutritious fruits you won’t find in the grocery story.

Elderberries, raspberries, Juneberries… easy-to-grow, no fuss backyard fruits that can easily be incorporated into any landscape, urban or rural.

Comfrey, bee balm, yarrow… Pollinator attracting, tough-as-nails perennials that’ll brighten up your garden and give you some of the best herbal teas around.

These perennial edibles carry incredible untapped potential for our food system.

Plant once. Harvest for years.

So go ahead and browse the website, pick a few things to try, and get your order in before Sunday night for that 15% discount.

As always, feel free to reply to this email if you have questions or trouble deciding what you works in your space.

Happy shopping!

-Laverne

Buy Edible Perennials