National Gardening Day In A Locked-Down World

Covid-19 has struck and nothing is the same. Most people these days would agree with that statement, but it’s not entirely true. Nature has continued on unchanged. There are many people who believe Covid-19 welled up from Nature as a cleansing plague to right all our environmental wrongs. It is hard to establish that as fact as Nature does not have intent – it just does its thing. And what it’s doing now is producing Spring. Spring means it’s gardening time and so we mark National Gardening Day on April 14th.

April here at ARBICO is usually a busy time, but this year is especially busy. People are becoming more and more tuned in to where their food comes from and interested in producing it themselves. The same can be said for growing flowers and other plants simply for their beauty. We are rising to the demand (while maintaining safety protocols) and will continue to serve a need that we fully believe in. We have what you need to get going – seeds, seed starting, soil and more. I encourage anyone who is a beginning gardener to read some of the past blogs on soil before you plant; simply type in “soil” in the search on the blog page. Healthy soil is essential to a healthy garden.

Gardening while social distancing should be a pleasure and not a chore. For many veteran gardeners, being with their plants is their Zen time and being alone there is their preference. This man explains it well. But, for those of you who are unsure, I offer some ways to celebrate National Gardening Day in this unusual time we’re in.

Look into a Garden Club: My mother was a member of a Garden Club and I remember days spent at flower shows, touring magnificent gardens and waiting for those first Spring flowers to pop out. While I may not have fully appreciated everything she showed to us at that time, it ultimately gave me an overall appreciation for the beauty of growing things. Garden Clubs are still as relevant today as they were back then. Rookie gardeners, especially, may find the wealth of information and experience amongst the members extremely helpful. Join up, give them a call or send an email. Here is their website, from which you can find a club near you.

Go to a local nursery/garden center: I want to emphasize local; they are still open and desperately need your business. Spring is when they make the biggest chunk of their money and, like many other businesses, there’s just not enough people showing up. So skip the chaos of big box stores and stroll leisurely through your neighborhood nursery. If you are concerned about running into people; call and ask for their advice on the best time to visit (Here is how one nursery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina is adapting to serve their customers). While you’re there, buy a gift certificate and send it to a lucky someone (new homeowner, avid gardener, or someone who is gardening-curious). A gift card lets them purchase at the proficiency level they are comfortable with and provides some money in the till for the nursery.

Gardening as exercise: If you have been stuck idle at home, your body is probably craving exercise. Gardening is a form of exercise that can be adapted to most anyone’s physical capabilities. You’ll probably hear more from me on this on National Gardening Exercise Day, June 6th. But, for now, I’d like to suggest you get the kids out there digging and playing. Here is a link to a site that is chock-full of ideas for activities. National Gardening Day is the perfect excuse to get them into the yard.

What if you don’t have a yard to garden in? Apartment dwellers don’t despair – there are still ways to get your garden on:

Drummond Castle Gardens, Perthshire, Scotland

Tour gardens remotely: Many of the most famous gardens in the world have virtual tours that allow you to experience them from afar. Get away from the news and Facebook and experience their beauty. See what you’d like to grow or where you’d like to go. Check these out here. Share the tours with the kiddos; you could fold the beauty of the gardens into a fun geography lesson with this really cool 3D interactive Earth.

Garden indoors: With the possible exception of large trees, you can grow most anything indoors that grows outdoors. Some plants may be particularly tricky, but there are thousands of options that can easily be adapted to container growing. Or just plant a bunch of cute little plants in quirky planters – your mood and décor will be instantly elevated. And you can order everything you need from the comfort and safety of your home.

Find a community garden, CSA or nonprofit that you can get food from: If you cannot grow your own food, the next best thing is to tap into those people that are growing in your community. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has been around for 25 years, but every year it gains in popularity. With this program you are actively supporting farmers through the growing season. More on how it works here. Community Gardens in your area can be found through a little simple Googling. Look into nonprofits; there are people out there doing fascinating things. For instance, here in Tucson there is a group of refugees that gleans unwanted produce and citrus. More on them here.

No matter who or where you are, I encourage everyone who is able to just go outside and enjoy Nature’s garden on National Gardening Day. Whether you have a national park or a vacant lot in your backyard, there are ecosystems you can enjoy. For me, simply sitting on the balcony and observing the birds gives me that small, but necessary, Nature fix.

And now for a fun little game: What’s your tree sign? I didn’t know, either. But now I know I’m Ivy, the Equalizer. I’ll say that some of it is spot on and some of it is way off, but I will not say which is which. You can play here.


Happy National Gardening Day, everyone!


Submitted by Pam

Prepping Your Spring Garden For Success

1.) Plan Your Garden

Sketch, Plot and Plant

First things first, you should pick seeds and transplants that will do well in your area. There are tons and tons of seed outlets online offering the common, the obscure and the useless. Do your best to match your crops’ preferences with the local climate and the types of soil media at your disposal. In other words, make decisions early on that will make your life easier later on. Browse our full catalog of organic and heirloom seeds here.

Creating a basic sketch of the cultivation area(s) helps to visualize the space prior to planting. This is an easy method to design a space-efficient garden bed, properly space plants and estimate what you’ll need to grow through the year (fertilizers, amendments, beneficial nematodes, etc.). A piece of graph paper can be a gardener’s best friend. The grid pattern makes it easy to plot plantings and pair plants that offer benefits to one another. Examples of this include planting legumes (nitrogen fixers) nearby nitrogen-needy plants like cruciferous vegetables and using aromatic herbs to keep pests away from their favorite plants. Try ARBICO's free Garden Journal to start planning your spring garden.

2.) Build Your Soil

Get Your Hands Dirty!

Soil is the soul of our gardens. It forms the garden’s foundation for the following months (or years). Soil prep starts with knowing what you’re growing and how you want to grow it. You’ll want to think about plant preferences, possible pitfalls, local pests and crop types. Some common soil amendments and additives include the following:

• Earthworm Castings
• Humic Acids
• Biochar
• Phosphorus 
• Wetting Agents/Surfactants

The natural ingredients in organic fertilizers break down over time, freeing up additional nutritional content and making it available to your plants later in the season. This slow release nourishes the plants with what they need when they need it instead of giving them a drink from the firehose. Most of this breakdown also feeds naturally occurring (or introduced) microorganisms helping maintain soil structure and more closely resemble the natural soil biome. 

3.) Place Sticky Traps & Buy A Notebook

Note-Taking Doesn't Stop After School

Often underestimated, sticky traps are a simple and pain-free way to monitor pests in the garden. Yellow traps attract the widest range of insects and are superb for establishing a baseline for ongoing control. They help us spot things early, reduce plant damage and plan for success moving forward in the season. 

Now that the traps are placed, get a notebook and make notes of what gets trapped and when. Pests or beneficials give us insights into what to expect and how to move forward. Keeping a log of information is one of the easiest things to improve our gardening efforts season on season. 

Found a bug, but don’t know what it is? Let us help you ID it!

At the end of the day, gardening should be a fun experiment. You're not going to get it perfect the first time, but consistent improvement is remarkably achievable. Following the steps above should get your garden started on the right foot and move you closer to the eagerly awaited harvest. Gardening gives us a chance to grow with our plants, so let’s take advantage of this spring season for just that!