Gardening Resources for Large to Small Plots

Whether you are planning a container garden on a balcony or a one-acre plot in the back forty, preparation is so important.  It honestly can determine how satisfying your harvest is.  I thought I'd share some resources with you that have been extremely helpful over the years.

Books:

• Square Foot Gardening has been very helpful when we only had a tiny space to work with.
• The Backyard Homestead is a great book to get you dreaming and is extremely encouraging to see how much food you can grow in the space that you have.
• Easy Garden Projects to Make, Build, & Grow shares 200 do-it-yourself ideas that have many fun weekend project ideas to give your garden a personal touch.  I learned about the Three Sisters from this book and it's something we do each year now.
• Successful Berry Growing is an old book I stole from my parents that has been a fun read and very helpful.  We plan to grow berries and kiwi along the garden fence starting this year.
• Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening is a must-have reference.

Online Resources:

• Smart Gardener is a free, online garden journal that keeps everything organized for you.  You can design your plot, calculate how much of each veggie you need to grow depending on how many people you are feeding, it will have a to-do list for you, and gives many helpful tips.  I love this site!
• Back to Eden.  Talk about inspiration!  You won't be the same after watching this.
• Zone-by-zone to-do lists from Organic Gardening.  A great reference to stay on track.

Seeds and Tools:

There are so many choices out there.  I'd love to hear where you like to find seeds.  Here are places I  have shopped from and love:

• Seed Swappers.  Save some seed, and swap some, too!
• Annie's Heirloom Seeds is where I bought this year's stash.  I have used them in the past and have been very pleased.
• Pinetree Garden also carries great heirloom seeds.  Go in with some friends to place a large order and save on shipping.
• Johnny's Selected Seeds has a sale on seed blockers right now.  I ordered one and can't wait to try it out this year.

Do you have a favorite gardening resource?  I'd love to hear about it.

I'm sharing this at Simple Lives Thursday.