I’ve never considered myself much of a gardener. Like many folks, my methods in the past usually involved buying some plants each spring at my local home center or hardware store, planting them (without any soil prep) and then pouring blue liquid fertilizer on them. Most of the time, the plants would look pretty good for a few weeks and then inexplicably die. “I just don’t have a green thumb”, I would lament.

In the last few years, I made a commitment to grow a green thumb - and for the first time in my life I have a really gorgeous garden. It occurred to me that you, dear readers, might like to know what has changed and what I have learned...

First of all, choosing the right plants for the particular season in which you are working is essential. Most “budding” gardeners begin their first beds in the spring, install some lettuce, spinach and Brussels Sprout sets from the feed store and then wonder why they wither and die as soon as the weather begins to warm up.

Here’s a super important gardening factoid: Many vegetables grow best in full sun in the heat of the spring and summer, but many others surprisingly do not. Natural instincts would suggest that lettuce and spinach are warm-weather veggies since that’s when we would most like to eat them, but that is not true. Almost all leafy greens (including those wonderful Brussels Sprouts) prefer cooler weather and will even thrive in winter, especially here across the south.

On the contrary, comfort foods like squash, potato and okra, which make wonderful soups and other cold-weather meals, actually love the baking heat of a southern summer. Go figure! So be sure to choose plants and varieties that fit your season. Just because it’s on the rack at the feed store or home center does not mean that it’s the right time to plant it in your region.

Secondly, I have come to realize that soil preparation is almost as important as choosing the right plants, perhaps more important. For my beds, I use a mixture of leaves, compost and organic garden soil mixed with the black gumbo of my yard. Then I follow up planting with plenty of hardwood mulch and (or) straw to help my soil retain moisture and micro-organisms. That top-dressing keeps the soil cooler so that the worms and other critters stay closer to the surface and do their job of helping my plants to grow.

Then instead of pouring fertilizer onto my plants, with ingredients in it that I can’t even pronounce, I practice organic methods that are better for my body and work in harmony with nature. I encourage biological diversity, as my buddy Randy Johnson says. In other words, I don’t kill the worms, bugs and bees that inhabit my garden but instead work with them to encourage natural synthesis.

Lastly, I embrace a circle of friends who love gardening as much as I do and will share their knowledge with me and visa versa. And now, as I have gained my own experience, I have begun to pass it on to my friends and family. What could be more organic than that?

-Andrea :)