Put Those Stardew Valley Skills To Use

It's time to grow your own food

When my husband and I bought our first home, I had a dream of turning the small, humble backyard into a stunning flower and vegetable garden filled with an array of colorful dahlias, zinnias, tomatoes, and peppers. A slice of cottage-inspired paradise in the middle of suburbia. I even started a blog to document the process and bought seeds from Floret in hopes that they would turn into something magical. That stunning cottage garden never turned into reality. I made a couple of attempts at starting seeds but had no idea what I was doing and the one cherry tomato plant we bought didn’t produce much. I had no real plan, just pretty Pinterest pictures. By the end of 2020, I had given birth to our third child and we knew we would have to move within the year so I gave up on that dream garden.

Our new home included a much bigger fenced-in yard with lots of potential. It was one of the reasons why we fell in love with the house, and I knew I wanted to try a garden again, but this time, taking small steps instead of jumping on Pinterest and getting too far ahead of myself. We started with two affordable 4x4 garden beds and filled them with starter plants like a cherry and Roma tomato, basil, cucumbers, and squash. I watched videos and learned how to tend a garden properly. I found myself looking forward to the mornings, walking out to my tiny garden with coffee in hand to see how the plants were doing. Stress and anxiety didn’t seem to follow me out to the tomatoes and marigolds. I ended up with plenty of small harvests that year, and I discovered a fulfilling hobby that taught me patience, improved my mental health, and the joy of growing my own food.

The next year, my husband built two 4x8 garden beds plus two smaller ones for our girls. I tried seed starting properly this time with a couple of warming mats, lights, and actually hardening off the plants before transplanting. The garden was full of color and I had enough cucumbers to make large batches of pickles, enough tomatoes to freeze bags full for the winter, and such an abundance of basil that I blended much of it up with olive oil and stored it in the freezer. This past year, we added another bed and installed gravel around the sectioned-off garden. I tried several new varieties and started to add more flowers like cosmos, zinnias, and nasturtiums. Slowly, year by year, that dream cottage garden has started to flourish. I am now starting my fourth year of gardening, and there is much I still need to learn and a lot I want to add all around our front and backyard, like a flower garden filled with perennials and colorful cottage favorites.

Now is the perfect time to start your own garden, no matter how small, so I wanted to take you all with me as I start my 2025 garden and tell you the basics I’ve learned over the past few years. I’ve also started a gardening series on my TikTok so be sure to follow along on my other channels as well.

What do you need to get started gardening? Before anything else, look up your location’s first and last frost dates. You can find this on The Old Farmer’s Almanac or a simple Google search. This will let you know how long your gardening season is. You will also want to know your hardiness zone. In the United States, you can find this on the USDA plant hardiness website. This will be useful when trying to figure out what can be grown as perennials in your area.

No matter if you have the space for a large garden or not, I encourage you to start small. Don’t let your eyes be bigger than your stomach. If you do have the outdoor space, start with one or two 4x4 raised beds. If you only have space for a patio or balcony garden, you can grow plenty of food in an elevated bed that’s no longer than 4 feet long and 1 or 2 feet wide.

Try seeds and starter plants. There are plenty of plants that are easy to grow and are best grown by direct sowing seeds. These include lettuce, spinach, radishes, and carrots. Especially in your first year, there are plants that you might want to get as starters from your local nursery and gardening group. Those include things like tomatoes, peppers, and marigolds. I now start nearly everything from seed, but I always grab a few starters from my local nursery and swap starters with one of my husband’s co-workers and his wife.

When it comes to growing food, make sure you are only growing what you actually love to eat and cook with. I love tomatoes but I only grow cherry and paste tomatoes because I know no one in my family will eat slicer tomatoes. I love seeing all the different eggplant varieties, but I don’t like to eat eggplants so I don’t grow them.

Good soil is going to be your best friend. Put down that Miracle-Gro and grab the compost instead. YouTube and TikTok are both helpful tools when deciding what kind of soil mix to go with, but don’t try to overcomplicate things as you're just beginning to learn. Personally, I like to use a mix of compost, peat moss (I know I need to find a better alternative), vermiculite and/or perlite. I also add in some worm casting when I’m planting.

Now that we have the basic first steps covered, let’s get to what I’m currently doing in my garden. I’m located in zone 6b and have a last frost date of April 25th so I’m currently starting seeds that have a longer growing period that need to start 10-12 weeks before my last frost. I pulled out my warming mats, growing lights, and washed up all my old pots, trays, and cups for seed starting. If you buy starters, always save those little pots, it will save you money in the future! I grabbed from organic seed starting mix from my local nursery (my favorite place in the world!) and added a few things like worm castings and vermiculite. Here are the seeds I’ve started so far:

• Utah Celery

• Giant Musselburgh Leeks

• Rosemary

• Black Eyed Susans

• Purple Coneflower

• Plum Antique Viola

• Champagne Bubbles Iceland Poppies

Soon, I’ll be starting plants like peppers. I’ll be sharing a gardening newsletter once a month, sharing some tips, the progress of my garden, and answering some questions too. It is important now more than ever to learn how to grow your own food and find the joy in gardening!