My garden is officially planted! Luckily, the forecast decided to stop raining long enough for my garden plot to fully dry allowing me to finally plant my seeds! Going into this project, I was planning on only planting half of my garden plot as this is my first year planting my own garden, and I had much to learn. However, I may have been a little over enthusiastic as I ended up utilizing all of the square footage in my garden. Since my last post, all of my seeds and plants are officially in the ground! As I mentioned in my previous post, I utilized this Garden Planner to plan where I wanted all of my vegetables to be planted. One thing I found interesting was the variety of depths each vegetable had to be planted at. For example, tomato plants need to be planted quite deep as each tiny bump on the stem of the plant will turn into roots. As for things like lettuce or basil seeds, they only have to be a few millimetres under the soil.

Recently, the algorithm from the different social media sites I use have been showing me more gardening content. I have especially seen an increase on both Instagram and Tik Tok. I enjoy watching these videos as they are so easily digested as they are always under 1-minute-long, and present useful snippets of information. I have been saving these videos to refer back to. That is one feature I appreciate from these social media apps, being able to have all of your liked or saved content compiled into one easy to access area. Tik Tok specifically allows you to create categories within your saved videos which organizes your content which I appreciate. This prevents you having to scroll through hundreds of videos you have saved, and instead just locate the personalized category you are looking for.

Some useful videos I have come across:

• Early season tomato pruning tip
• When should you harvest peas
• Importance of thinning vegetables
• What to do with strawberry runners
• How to properly plant tomatoes
• Easiest vegetables to grow
• How and why to top pepper plants

I have already used some of the useful tips from the above videos. I am excited for my plants to continue to grow so I can find more videos to apply to my garden. Specifically, I am very excited for my strawberry plants to grow, however, I know a lot of people have trouble with birds stealing all of the fruit before they have a chance to harvest. One tip I read was to paint small rocks red which will deter the birds once there is fruit on the plant. I think I will be trying that tip out once my plants begin to grow. I also have purchased netting that can cover my strawberry plants to try and protect them from birds as well. This netting can also be used as a support for my taller plants, like my peas, tomatoes, and peppers. Because these plants tend to grow quite tall, they require support. If the netting doesn’t work as a support, I also have a few cages and trellises prepared to use as well. In addition, I also separated my strawberry plants from the rest of my garden as they are perennials and I would not want to rototill over them next spring.

What are my next steps in my gardening journey?

• Water – It is a general rule of thumb that plants in the ground require about 1 inch of water per week. It is also best to either water in the morning or in the evening.
• Weeding – This will likely consume much of my time in my gardening journey moving forward.
• Fertilizer – Usually a balanced fertilizer is applied every three to four weeks throughout the growing season. One tip I have come across is using egg shells in the garden as the calcium from eggshells moderates soil acidity while providing nutrients for plants.
• Harvest – Unfortunately, I will not likely be able to harvest any vegetables by the time EDTC 300 ends. However, I will definitely have to make one final post at the end of the growing season summarizing my first time gardening experience!