This Prepared Life
Welcome to This Prepared Life, a podcast for women where preparedness feels peaceful, practical, and possible. Hosted by Allison Michael, this show is about creating a calmer, more resilient life through everyday preparedness and intentional living. Inside the episodes, you’ll find realistic food storage tips, Allison’s Three Layer Food Storage system, preparedness skills, homemaking rhythms, and encouragement to help you care for yourself and your family with more confidence and less overwhelm. From emergency preparedness and food preservation to homemaking and building a well-stocked pantry, this podcast offers practical guidance to help preparedness feel more natural in your everyday life. Whether you’re filling your first pantry shelf or have been preparing for years, you can expect simple action steps, honest conversations, and a reminder that preparedness does not have to come from fear. Here, we believe in being prepared, not scared — one pantry shelf, skill, and intentional step at a time.
This Prepared Life
Garden 101 - Getting Started - Ep18
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Let's talk gardening! This is part two of the Garden 101 series. Today let's talk about starting a garden. Where to put your garden, different things to consider as you pick a space, from sunlight to accessibility, and so much more. I also touch on how to garden if you don't have space at all. You do not have to have land to garden!
Subscribe for Food Storage, Everyday Preparedness, and Homesteading.
Jump in with my free Preparedness Planner. This 25-page PDF will guide you in core areas of preparedness and how to get started. https://www.thispreparedlife.com/prep-planner-pdf
Feel free to reach out with questions. I love chatting with you.
Find me at:
Website www.thispreparedlife.com
Membership Community https://www.thispreparedlife.com/community
Courses and Digital Products https://www.thispreparedlife.com/store
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thispreparedlife/
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@thispreparedlife
Products I Use https://www.thispreparedlife.com/links
Freeze Dryers https://affiliates.harvestright.com/1335.html
Thank you for your support! I receive a commission when you use my links.
Contact me via my website or via mail at:
Allison TPL
P.O. Box 195
Ponderay, ID 83852
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/justin-lee/high-hopes
License code: DAARCXIEKOU7IZTO
Welcome to this Prepared Life podcast where homestudying and the apocalypse meet. I'm Allison, your host. Hi, and welcome to this prepared life. I'm Alison, your host, and we are continuing today our series on gardening. And today I really wanted to just do a big picture overview for people who are starting from zero. So this is I am choosing a garden space or I have never gardened before, and I am starting that out. And this episode is probably going to be pretty short and to the point. I hope that you enjoy it. So one of the most important things when choosing a garden space is the amount of sun that that space gets. There are some plants that grow well in shade, but most plants really need full or almost full sun to thrive. So typically, um, I mean, depending on your house and trees and all of that good stuff, but typically the bus sites are usually on the south or the west side of a house. Uh, you want to start paying attention. Where does the sun shine the most at different points throughout the day? When we started planning our garden, we moved into our house in October and I started taking pictures of the spot that I wanted to put my garden so that I could map out the earliest parts in spring that that got sunshine, which areas got shade. Um, there was a large pine tree that we had to cut down. So mapping that out and knowing which sites of your yard get full or almost full sun is one of the most important things. The second important thing is drainage. Plants don't like to sit in standing water. So if you live in a really wet climate, uh, we moved from the Pacific Northwest, super wet all the time. Planting your garden and tilling your soil at the bottom of a hill or a low, low area of land is probably not the best spot. So you want to make sure what is the soil like at different points of the season in this area. And the third thing is trees, limited competition from trees. So trees, one, not only cast shade throughout the day as the sun moves, but two, tree roots take a lot of water. So if you plant your garden and there's a big tree right over on the side of it, those tree roots have spread out as far as the width of the canopy of the tree. And so they are taking just that valuable water that is in the soil for themselves where you want it for your garden plants. So pay attention to trees and shrubs and what's around your garden. Number four is access to water. Plants need water. And is there a water spec near your garden? Are you gonna have to haul water? Um, how easy is it to run a hose? How easy is it to set up drip irrigation or soaker hoses or a sprinkler? So take your access to water into account. And you really don't want to be hauling water unless you have to. And another thing to think about is the accessibility. Organic gardens require a large amount of mulch and compost and amendments. And if you have a large garden but you're unable to, you know, get a dump truck to dump your compost near it, you're gonna have to haul that. If you had a tractor, it's not quite as hard. But all of our past gardens, before we moved here to this house, we did not have a tractor. So we were wheelbarrowing or filling a dump trailer that our riding lawn more pulled with compost and shoveling. And that was a lot of work. So think about the accessibility of bringing in just these needed items to your garden. You have your space, it has great sun, there's no trees shading it, it has good drainage, it has water, you can bring in your compost. Now you need to think about what type of a garden do you want to plant? Um, do you want to plant rows? Do you want raised beds? Uh both have pluses and minuses, and you're gonna need to do a lot of research on that. Rows are really easy to organize. You till the ground, you plant your rows, and and you go. Uh, they are not as space efficient. So that is something to think about. Um, raised beds, there's less weeding, they warm up faster in the spring, but you have to build them and you have to fill them with something. And uh you can go online and use a calculator for how many square yards it takes to fill a raised bed. And I think you will be surprised. It's actually quite a lot that it takes to fill a raised bed. So pluses, minuses, you got to figure that out on your own, but think about what you want that to look like. And for those of you who you have watched your yard and mapped it out and you don't have a spot that you could put a garden, or maybe you're renting and you you can't till up the ground and your landlord has said, no, we can't do that. Um, you can still garden. We gardened in every single rental house we lived in, and it just looked different than garden. So one thing you can do is spot garden. Use the space you have. Is there a small two foot by four foot spot over in this flower bed that maybe you could plant tomatoes or lettuce, or maybe there's another spot over under a tree that's super shady, but some peas are gonna grow there because they like cool weather. So maybe your garden isn't all in one spot, and instead you have little tiny spots that are growing food for your family. So look at your yard with um just a different perspective and where is there some unused space that you could possibly plant a vegetable there? Another thing that we have done at multiple different rental houses is container gardening. And um I think you'll be surprised at what can grow in a container. A lot of things can grow in a container. You can get dwarf plants that are specifically made to grow in containers, and those are great. You have a balcony, you can plant a tomato plant, and maybe you have a little pot with some lettuces. Uh, you can grow things if you do not have a yard. And our very first garden ever was a community garden plot. We were living in student housing and we couldn't till the garden, you know, big shared yard with a ton of other families. So I went and got us a community garden plot, and I don't think we harvested one thing from that garden, but I learned so much in that community garden space. So just think outside of the box. A couple other things to think about is do you need to test your soil? Um, or do you want to test your soil? And I have not tested my soil here at this garden. I probably should, but I haven't because that can give you just a clear picture of what you do need to be adding. Do you want to rototill or not rototill? Are you gonna do a back to Eden garden? Or are you gonna dig by hand? Like, how are you going to make your plot of grass into garden? So there's so many different methods for doing that. And start researching those in the winter so that come spring you have your plan. And then another thing to research is just different amendments. Uh, I add compost to my garden every spring and every fall. We also use mulch and I choose to use straw. If you can get seed-free straw, that's great and that's the best, but that's also expensive. So um I use straw because it has less seeds than hay, but it still does have some seeds. And straw is mulch works itself into the soil over time, so you're also adding organic matter. So those are some things to think about when planning your garden and where your garden is gonna go. You also need to think about fencing. Do you have wildlife you need to keep out, or kids, or pets that you need to keep out? So those are some things to think about planning your garden and just really sit out and look at your yard and look at your space and think about what your family eats and what you want to grow and where it would be best to do that. Thanks so much for listening today. And until next time, remember, every little thing matters, and a goal without a plan is just a wish. If you have questions, you can find me on Instagram at this prepared life. I'd love to connect with you over there. You can also find me on the internet at www.thispreparedlife.com. And if you enjoyed today's podcast, I would love it if you would leave me a review on Apple Podcasts.