Cheat Sheet #1 - The Classic

If you buy a Startin’ Garden, this Cheat Sheet will help you get to know your plants, and have a quick-referencing guide to keeping them alive. The Classic includes beans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, marigolds, basil, and pumpkin.

The Early Days:

If you haven’t planted yet, wait until the danger of frost has passed. You can find out what date this is expected to be by Googling “USDA Zone [your city].” Once you find out your USDA Zone (Southeast Michigan is Zone 6), Google “Zone [yours] frost date.” This will tell you when we expect to be free of frost danger. You can plant after this!
Check the seed packet (if applicable) for plant spacing and planting depth. A good rule of thumb is to plant as deep as twice the thick- ness of the seed. Water immediately—you want the soil to be well-saturated so that the first inch of soil is moist. In this early stage, plants need constant moisture—water at least every other day, but if the weather is hot, water daily (mornings/evenings is the preferred time to water, but whatever). Let the soil dry out (but just barely) between waterings—too much water/standing water can rot the delicate roots. Once plants get established and have grown 1-2 sets of true leaves, they won’t need such frequent watering. (TLDR: keep plants warm, water daily, lots of bright light)

The Seedling Days:

Seedlings are plants that have their “true leaves.” Most seeds sprout and immediately present “starter leaves” that act like emergency solar panels to sustain the plant as it gets its roots established. The true leaves will be shaped differently than the starter leaves. Once seedlings have 1-2 sets of true leaves, they will be more self-suffient in the garden, and will only need watering every other day unless it’s super hot (rain showers count as watering!). They will also need nutrition. If you have good soil, they may be receiving as much nutri- tion as they need. It doesn’t hurt to add some liquid fertilizer to support your growing plants’ needs (especially if your seedlings are not yet in the ground).

If you need help figuring out where to plant each item, Google “square foot gardening [plant name].” This will tell you how many of this type of plant you can plant for every square foot.

If you see that cold weather is coming (under 50 degrees), consider protecting your seedlings with a bedsheet, sheet of plastic, or cloch- es until the temperature rises again. (TLDR: seedlings are stronger and need less fussing-over, but they need more space and have a bigger appetite.)

The Garden Days:

This is the part that loses many gardeners: the mundane. Once plants are comfortably established, but before they are ready for harvest, it’s easy to “check out,” and accidentally forget that your garden still needs you. In this stage, it will still need regular watering, but may- be as infrequently as every few days. Plus, you’ll want to begin looking out for pests (including the cute ones, like bunnies and deer).
The marigolds in your garden are there as a pest deterrent! Basil, too—and other herbs like it—has a strong

smell that can deter some predators.

Keep an eye on your plants as they move through various stages: growth, flowering, and fruiting (if applicable). Keep track of any issues, and use Google or reach out to find solutions!

Get to Know Your Plants

Peas (1/sqft):

Peas are spring plants, so they will likely be your first harvest! Peas are big climbers whose tendrils like to hold onto thin-gauge items like wire fencing or other nearby seedlings! Make sure you provide them a trellis or wire tomato cage to grab onto as they grow. To encourage bushier plants that give you more peas, pinch off the tops of the plants (pinch right above a set of leaves). Bonus, pea shoots are delicious, so when you prune your peas you get an instant tasty snack! Sugar snap peas are ready to harvest when a pod forms about the thickness of a pencil. Pop it off the vine and eat it raw or in a stir fry!

After a few weeks, the quality of the peas provided will begin to decline. Stop harvesting and let the pods dry on the vine. When they are dry, or if they fall to the ground, collect them and let them continue to dry on your kitchen counter. Throw away any that mold. When you are sure that seeds are completely dry, store them in an envelope to plant next year. Snip the vines off at ground level (leave the roots), and take the vines out of your garden to make room for your tomatoes to use the trellis.

Cucumbers (2/sqft):

Cucumbers like it HOT. They are a bit like your friend that won’t go swimming with everyone else and will only put their feet in—they are picky about water and would rather have too little than too much. They just want to sunbathe. That’s not the only thing cucumbers are precious about: they fall apart if you disrupt their roots, so if you’re going to start them indoors and transplant them, consider using a bio- degradable pot or toilet paper tube. When it’s time to transplant, just plant the entire thing, tube and all. Cucumbers are also climbers by nature. Make sure your cucumbers have something to climb—a trellis, fence, or even another plant!

A common cuke problem is incomplete pollination. This results in cucumbers that look more like prawns, or are scrawny and disfigured. To avoid this, play matchmaker! Grab a soft-bristled paintbrush and go out in the morning when the blossoms are open. Use the paintbrush to gently collect pollen from one flower and brush it into the center of another. The reproductive organs are in the center of the flower, and there are actually male flowers and female flowers! Don’t worry too much about identifying which is which—just get that pollen all up in everything and you’ll be good. Watch out for bees, however—they also know that the flowers are open in the morning hours!

Basil (4/sqft):

Here’s another babe who likes it hot. Basil is native to Mediterranean climates, so it grows in dry, crummy soil, and will take all the abuse the sun can mete out. Basil contains a compound that repels some bugs, which makes it a great choice as a companion for other kinds of plants. To harvest basil and encourage it to continue growing, pinch off the top part (or the end of any branch) as close to the next lowest set of leaves as possible. Where you pinch, two new branches will grow! This helps the basil plant grow bushier and stronger, and you get more basil!

Green beans (4/sqft):

Beans prefer being planted directly in soil rather than starting indoors and being transplanted, but transplanting is usually not a death sentence. Otherwise, beans are generally low maintenance and high productivity. Pole beans produce more vigorously than bush beans, but either variety can be stimulated by harvesting. Or, avoid harvesting altogether, wait until the entire plant has dried out in the fall, and voila! You’ve grown dried beans for soups and chilis. You’re an agricultural genius.

Pumpkin (1/sqft):

Pumpkins and other squashes take up a lot of space in the garden with their large leaves, but those leaves also serve an important function: helping keep the ground cool so that moisture doesn’t evaporate away, and keeping the ground shady so that weeds don’t crop up. Follow a similar pollination plan to cucumbers (see above). and watch your pumpkin grow! Pumpkins are ready when the stems begin to turn brown. When you harvest, make sure you leave a few inches of stem attached. This makes the pumpkin last longer and discourages rot.

Tomato (1/sqft):

Oh tomatoes. Tomatoes are needy, emotional eaters who are prone to issues, don’t always play nice with others, but we put up with all of it because they’re beautiful. Tomatoes need support to stand on their own two feet — make sure you offer them a cage or trellis to support their weight as they grow. They are heavy feeders who need lots of nutrients from the soil. Fertilize often for best results! Harvest when tomatoes are no longer green, give slightly with a squeeze, and are fragrant!

Marigold (9/sqft):

Marigolds are your adaptable, cheerful, sunny best friend. They don’t mind being crowded, their blos- soms are edible, they help protect your garden from pests both by repelling them AND by attracting beneficial insect predators. Plus, they bring a blush of bright color to your garden bed!

General stuff to know:

Plants are not juts good for us, but can be good for the environment too. They breathe in carbon dioxide (yes, that “carbon,” the green- house gas that everyone is trying to get out of the atmosphere), and transfer it out of the air and into the soil, where it stays. That’s right— plants actually remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Disrupting the soil—tilling it, diggin in it—releases some of the captured carbon, and breaks the connections inside the soil’s structure that allow nutrients to pass from soil to plant roots. Trying our best not to disturb the soil (unless we have to, and even then, as little as we can) keeps the carbon in the soil (which the plants love!), and allows nutrients to be more “bioavailable” to feed your plants. This means that you won’t need to use a bunch of added fertilizer: healthy, undisturbed soil will quickly begin feeding your growing plant.

It’s also important, especially in a raised bed garden, to follow the rule of “no bare soil.” This means that after you plant, you cover the soil with mulch (don’t cover the plants!). This can be leaves, grass clippings, wood chips, or compost. Mulch helps keep the soil cool so that the water you give it doesn’t simply evaporate away the moment the sun starts shining. Mulch also suppresses weeds that might compete with your desired plants for nutrients or water. Mulch won’t eliminate weed risk, but often makes managing weeds much easier, and makes better use of the water you give your garden.

When different kinds of plants are grown together in the same space, it’s called “intercropping.” This is different than row-cropping like big farms might do, and different from the way other home gardeners might say, “this is my tomato area...this other area is my lettuce area...” Rather than keeping like crops apart, intercropping is a way to completely utilize your avaiable space, and take advantage of the ways that plants can help each other as “companions.”

For any questions, you can always reach out to me! getstarted@thestartingarden.com

I also recommend joining a local gardening group (in Ypsilanti, Garden Party is a fantastic group! They meet at Dawn Farm, and your registra- tion fee gives you access to hundreds of free plants along with friends and support in your gardening journey) in person or on a social media platform of your choosing. You can learn a lot just by watching what other people do and the questions they ask!

Recommended resources:

The Vegetable Gardener’s Guide to Permaculture by Christopher Shein
No-Dig by Charles Dowding
Down to Earth with Zac Efron, Netflix, season 2 episode 2, “Regenerative Agriculture”
Kiss the Dirt, Netflix
Sustainable World Radio, podcast. especially Episode 153, “Gardening the Permaculture Way: How to Create an Abundant Perennial Garden.”