Happy Earth Day! Let’s get ready for planting a garden.

* Disclaimer: I received Organic Seeds from High Mowing Seeds from my participation in the Stonyfield YoGetter Blogger Program. All opinions expressed in this Earth Day inspired post are my own.

It’s Earth Day! Have you started planning your garden yet?

We are excited to celebrate Earth Day by getting ready to plant our vegetable garden. Planting a garden every spring truly welcomes spring and then summer to New Hampshire for us. It takes a long time for it to truly feel like spring. When spring finally arrives the earth becomes soft enough to plant, the air is warmed by the sun and the rain no longer brings a chill but refreshment and we feel great anticipation for the bounty that our organic garden will bring to us.

We are ready for the fresh bounty of vegetables that our garden will give us!

A vegetable garden will bring your family nourishment and bring togetherness as you sow the seeds and care for the plants together. My kids take delight in playing in the soft earth, searching for worms, and hiding each seed or seedling in its hole, carefully pressing the earth around it and asking it to grow. We watch our garden each day and water it waiting for the first signs of green to come poking through the soil.

What vegetables will you grow in your garden?

We started our garden, two large raised beds and container gardens when our kids were themselves like tiny seedlings beginning to sprout. This year we hope to add more room to allow our cucumbers, squash, pumpkins and maybe even watermelons to have room to spread their curly vines and large umbrella like leaves. We will plant spinach, and lettuce, tomatoes, beets, carrots, beans and more. . . a variety of rainbow colored freshness that will be devoured. The sweet gifts juicy tomatoes and spinach that tastes like it has already been buttered will fill our bellies. We will pick peas and eat them right from the vine. We will have water fights with the hose as we drench the garden, thirsty and ready to grow.

Getting ready to label our garden.

We will mark our garden with freshly labeled stones collected in small kid sized wheelbarrows and painted by kid sized paintbrushes. We will label them carefully so we know which vegetables will come peeking out of each row and carefully lay them in their garden beds.

Marking our garden carefully with each little handpainted stone

Tips for planting a vegetable garden

As you can tell gardening brings our family joy. Starting a garden can seem like a daunting task or hard if you don’t have space to grow a lot. Here are some simple tips to get started.

1. Select a spot for your garden. Your garden can be a simple container garden, raised beds or, rows dug in a plot of earth

2. Choose which vegetables you want to plant. We have always used High Mowing Organic Seeds which is an awesome seed company based in Wolcott, Vermont.  We absolutely love the High Mowing Organic Seeds Philosophy:

High Mowing Organic Seeds

“At High Mowing Organic Seeds, we believe in re-imagining what our world can be like. We believe in a deeper understanding of how re-built food systems can support health on all levels – healthy environments, healthy economies, healthy communities and healthy bodies. We believe in a hopeful and inspired view of the future based on better stewardship for our planet. Everyday that we are in business, we are growing; working to provide an essential component in the re-building of our healthy food systems: the seeds.”

High Mowing Seeds are all organic and Non-GMO Verified which makes them a perfect choice for our family. High Mowing Seeds also has a great variety of organic herb seeds and organic flower seeds.

Recycled Stonyfield yogurt cups make the perfect container for starting seedlings!

3. Start your seeds inside so they are ready to plant. When starting seeds we often like to start them early and we love to use recycled Stonyfield Yogurt Cups as well as recycled egg cartons from our family farm Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs to start our seeds.

4. As soon as the earth is ready you can transfer your seedlings to your garden or you can plant each seed directly in the garden.

5. Add water and sunlight and watch your garden grow!

6. I am still a novice gardener and am learning every year about proper spacing and when to plant. High Mowing Seeds has some great resources to check out HERE so that your garden will succeed.

Seeds Galore from High Mowing Seeds

Now that you’ve seen how our family gets started with gardening I’d love to hear more about your tips and your favorite vegetables to grow! Happy gardening and Happy Earth Day!

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