There’s this funny little thing that happens when garden season starts.

The house slowly becomes background noise.

The laundry gets a little louder. The dishes multiply when no one is looking. The floors collect soil, grass, dog hair, seed starting mix, and whatever mystery debris came in on your boots. The kitchen becomes a landing zone for seed packets, harvest bowls, half-finished coffee, garden scissors, and random plant tags you meant to deal with three days ago.

And somehow, every gardening season, we all act shocked by it.

I see the jokes all the time. The ones about letting the house fall apart because the garden needs you. The memes about piles of laundry and dirty dishes once planting season begins. And listen, I get it. I really do. There is something very funny and very true about being outside “for five minutes” and coming back in three hours later covered in soil with absolutely no idea what time it is.

But I also think there’s a point where the joke starts feeling a little too real because I don’t actually want to spend my whole summer bouncing between garden overwhelm and house overwhelm.

I don’t want to have the most beautiful tomato plants outside while the inside of my house feels like a full-day recovery project. I don’t want to avoid the kitchen because the sink is packed. I don’t want the laundry to get so dramatic it starts feeling like a second unpaid job.

I definitely don’t want to feel like I have to choose between being a good gardener and having a home that feels somewhat calm to come back to.

That’s where this week’s digital download came from.

The Garden Season Home Rhythm Checklist is a simple, low-pressure reset for keeping the house from swallowing you while the garden is calling.

It is not a deep-cleaning schedule. It is not a “how to keep a spotless home while growing a perfect garden” situation. Please, no. We don’t need another impossible standard dressed up as productivity.

This is more of a rhythm.

A small way to keep the basic things moving so garden season doesn’t turn into a cycle of ignoring the house for four days and then spending an entire day trying to crawl out from under it.

For me, it’s the little things that make the biggest difference.

Starting a load of laundry before I head outside.
Clearing the sink before bed.
Sweeping instead of pretending I’m going to vacuum.
Pulling something out for supper before the day gets away from me.
Switching the laundry over before it becomes a damp little problem.
Putting tools away before I fully collapse on the couch.

Nothing groundbreaking. Nothing fancy.

Just the kind of small, boring, deeply helpful rhythm that makes tomorrow easier because the truth is, garden season already asks a lot from us. There are seedlings to harden off, beds to prep, weeds to pull, plants to move, flowers to deadhead, pests to watch, harvests to handle, watering to remember, and somehow the weather is always doing something rude.

It makes sense that the house slips.

But I’m learning that I do not need to abandon one part of my life to enjoy another.

I can be a gardener and still want a clear sink.
I can grow food and still want laundry that does not threaten my peace.
I can spend hours outside and still give myself a softer place to land when I come back in.

That is the heart of this week’s download.

It includes a morning reset, a before-bed reset, a garden-to-house transition checklist, a “house is starting to yell at me” reset, and a simple weekly rhythm for keeping both the garden and the home from becoming too much at once.

It’s flexible. It’s forgiving. It’s meant to be used in real life, on real garden days, when your hands are dirty, your hair is doing whatever it wants, and you are trying to remember whether you watered the seedlings or just thought about watering them.

This one is for anyone who loves the garden deeply but also knows that life inside the house still needs tending because a home is part of the growing season too.

Not in a perfect, polished, everything-in-its-place kind of way.

In a “let’s make this a little easier to come back to” kind of way.

This week’s digital download is available inside the Growers Vault for paid subscribers. It’s a gentle little tool to help you build a garden season rhythm that supports your home, your garden, and your own energy.

One small reset at a time.

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Throughout the Month (Free + Paid Subscribers):

Garden Notes — shorter posts, updates, observations, and little moments from the garden as the seasons unfold.

Seasonal Inspiration — ideas, experiments, planting plans, and gentle encouragement to help you keep growing in a way that feels good and doable.

Monthly Roundup — a behind-the-scenes look at what I’m planting, working on, learning, and loving in the garden, plus resources and recommendations to support your season.

A growing garden library: The vault continues to grow over time, giving paid subscribers a collection of tools and resources they can come back to through every season.

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There is a certain kind of garden-season humour that shows up every year.

You know the one.

The memes about the house falling apart as soon as planting season begins. The laundry piles taking over the hallway. The sink full of dishes. The floors looking like someone dragged half the garden through the back door because, technically, someone did. The joke is usually that once the garden calls, everything inside the house gets abandoned until fall.

Listen, I get it. I really do.

There are few things more intoxicating than those first proper garden days. The sun finally has some strength again. The soil is workable. The greenhouse is full of starts. The perennials are waking up. The tulips and daffodils are doing their little spring performance. There are beds to clean up, seeds to sow, plants to harden off, pots to move, weeds to pull, plans to change, and entire areas of the garden that suddenly need attention all at once.

Garden season has a way of making everything feel urgent.

Suddenly you are outside for “just ten minutes” and somehow three hours have passed, your coffee is cold, you forgot you started laundry, and there is a tray of plants sitting in a spot where you absolutely did not mean to leave it.

It happens.

But there is also this weird little culture in the garden community that almost celebrates the complete collapse of everything else.

It reminds me a bit of mommy wine culture, where the joke starts as something relatable, but then it gets repeated so often that it turns into a whole identity. Like the only way to be a real gardener in spring is to fully sacrifice your house, your routines, your meals, your laundry, your dishes, and your sanity to the garden gods.

… I don’t think I want that.

I love the garden. I love being outside. I love losing track of time with my hands in the soil. I love when the whole day gets swallowed by planting and moving things around and watching the beds slowly turn into what I imagined all winter but I don’t love waking up the next morning to a sink packed full of dishes.

I don’t love dirty laundry piled to the ceiling.

I don’t love walking through the house and feeling like every room is silently judging me.

I don’t love spending an entire day catching up on chores because I let everything slide too far while I was outside pretending the inside of the house no longer existed.

There is a difference between living in a house during garden season and letting the house become another project that eventually overwhelms you and I am saying that as someone who would rather be in the garden.

Always but I have learned that a little bit of rhythm inside the house gives me more peace outside in the garden.

That is the part we don’t always talk about.

When the basics are somewhat handled, I can enjoy the garden more. I am not kneeling beside the kale thinking about the dishes. I am not potting up tomatoes while mentally calculating how many loads of laundry are waiting for me. I am not trying to enjoy a slow evening watering the beds while knowing the kitchen looks like a raccoon hosted a dinner party.

It is not about having a spotless house.

Absolutely not.

I am not interested in pretending garden season is the time for sparkling baseboards and perfectly folded towels. There are days when sweeping is good enough. There are days when the clean laundry lives in a basket longer than it should. There are days when the floors are not vacuumed, but they are swept enough that they no longer look haggard. There are days when dinner is simple, the counters are mostly cleared, and that is the win.

I think there is freedom in lowering the standard without abandoning the whole thing because sometimes the choice is not between a perfect house and a neglected one. Sometimes the choice is between doing the tiny thing now or dealing with the giant thing later.

Putting a load of laundry in before heading outside.

Starting the dishwasher before bed.

Sweeping the kitchen instead of hauling out the vacuum.

Wiping the counter while the coffee brews.

Folding one basket instead of letting four become a mountain.

Doing the dishes after supper instead of leaving them to harden into tomorrow’s problem.

None of these things are glamorous. None of them are going to become viral garden content. No one is making dreamy reels about unloading the dishwasher before transplanting cabbage.

But these little rhythms support the life that supports the garden.

That matters.

The garden is not separate from the rest of our lives, even though it can feel like it in spring. It is part of the whole ecosystem of home. The beds outside, the kitchen inside, the laundry, the meals, the muddy boots, the seed trays, the harvest baskets, the dishes from chopping vegetables, the towels from washing off dirt, the floors that always seem to collect soil no matter how careful we are.

It is all connected and maybe that is why letting the house completely fall apart doesn’t always feel as funny as the memes make it seem.

The joke works because there is truth in it. Garden season does pull us outside. It does make indoor chores feel wildly inconvenient. It does make us look at a laundry basket and think, “I could do that, or I could plant the beans.”

Sometimes, yes, plant the beans but also, start the laundry first.

The beans will survive the ten-minute delay.

That is what I am learning.

The garden can wait ten minutes.

The plants can wait while I load the dishwasher. The weeds can wait while I switch laundry. The tomatoes can wait while I sweep the kitchen. The beds can wait while I make the house feel a little less chaotic before I disappear outside.

It doesn’t have to be a full reset. It doesn’t have to be a deep clean. It doesn’t have to become another elaborate system with colour-coded charts and a cleaning routine that looks like it was designed by someone who does not garden.

For the cost of one garden centre impulse buy, you’ll unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly garden downloads, practical mini guides, paid essays, and access to The Growers Vault full of resources designed to help you grow a more abundant, low-effort garden without overcomplicating it.

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It can be simple.

Morning basics before the garden.

Evening basics before bed.

A little reset so tomorrow does not start in yesterday’s mess.

That is enough.

I think this matters because so many of us garden because it calms us. It grounds us. It gives us somewhere to put our energy, our grief, our stress, our restlessness, our creativity, our need to feel like something good is still growing.

But if the garden becomes the reason the rest of life feels harder, then something is off.

Not wrong.

Just off.

The goal is not to choose between a beautiful garden and a livable home. The goal is to build a rhythm where both can exist without one swallowing the other whole.

A home does not have to be perfect to feel peaceful.

A garden does not have to consume every spare minute to be abundant.

And being a serious gardener does not mean proving you can ignore every indoor responsibility until the first frost.

I think we can let garden season be messy without romanticizing total chaos.

We can laugh at the muddy floors while still sweeping them.

We can joke about the laundry while still doing a load.

We can spend most of the day outside and still give ourselves the kindness of waking up to a kitchen that does not immediately make us want to walk back out the door.

Because that is really what this comes down to for me.

It is not about housework.

It is about not making tomorrow harder than it needs to be.

It is about knowing myself well enough to admit that I feel better when the sink is not packed full. I feel better when the laundry is moving. I feel better when the floors are somewhat handled. I feel better when I can come in from the garden tired, dirty, sun-warmed, and happy without feeling like I have returned to a second disaster.

The garden gives a lot but it also asks a lot and during the busiest parts of the season, I think it is easy to give everything to the garden and leave nothing for the version of ourselves who has to come back inside.

So maybe this is my small rebellion against the garden-season chaos culture.

I am still going to lose track of time outside.

I am still going to leave muddy shoes by the door.

I am still going to have days where the garden wins and the house gets the scraps.

But I am also going to keep finding those small rhythms that make life feel easier.

A load of dishes.

A load of laundry.

A swept floor.

A ten-minute reset.

Tiny things that make the next day softer because I do not want to spend garden season catching up on the house.

I want to spend it living in both places.

Inside and outside.

Home and garden.

Soil and sink.

Laundry and lettuce and maybe that is not as funny as the memes but it feels a lot better to wake up to.

Keep Planting!

Beccalynne✨

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

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There is something about the end of spring that feels a little dramatic in the garden.

One minute, we are watching for the first tulips, checking the soil every other day, wondering if the peas are ever going to come up, and celebrating every tiny green thing like it personally saved us. Then suddenly, the garden shifts. The daffodils are gone. The weeds have found their confidence. The cool-season crops are either thriving, bolting, or being side-eyed by the weather. The summer plants are waiting their turn, and somehow every bed looks like it is asking for a decision.

Spring always starts gently and then ends with a clipboard.

This year, that feeling has been even stronger for me because spring lingered a little longer than usual. I can feel it in the garden. I can see it in the beds. The cool-season crops had more time to settle in. The garden did not feel rushed in the same way it sometimes does, where we go from snow to heat in what feels like nine minutes and everyone is suddenly pretending we had a real spring.

This year, we did.

And I loved it.

I loved watching the spring garden take off because I have never truly done a proper one before. I have grown bits and pieces in spring. A few greens here. Some radishes there. Peas when I remember them. But this was the first year where it felt like I gave spring its own space instead of treating it like a waiting room for tomatoes and squash.

There was something really satisfying about that.

There is a special kind of joy in seeing cool-season crops settle into chilly soil and actually do what they are supposed to do. There is a steadiness to a spring garden when it works. The lettuce looks soft and hopeful. The radishes feel quick and rewarding. The peas feel like a small promise. The onions, herbs, greens, and brassicas make the garden feel alive before the big summer plants have even moved outside.

It felt good to have food growing early.

It felt good to see the garden doing something before summer took over but it also taught me something I probably needed to learn the practical way.

I don’t think I will be planting out a big spring garden again.

At least, not in the way I did this year.

Not because I did not enjoy it. I did. I loved that it worked. I loved that spring had its own moment. I loved seeing the garden wake up through actual crops instead of just flowers and weeds with ambition but I can also see where it interferes with the switch over into summer.

This is the honest part.

A big spring garden sounds lovely in theory, especially when winter has been long and everyone is desperate to grow something but when those crops are still sitting there, still producing, still taking up space, and the summer plants are ready to go in, the garden starts to feel a little crowded in the brain.

Suddenly you are not just planting summer crops. You are negotiating with spring.

You are looking at a bed of lettuce and wondering how much longer it gets to stay. You are trying to decide if the radishes are done enough. You are side-eyeing peas because they are beautiful, but the beans are waiting. You are wondering where the pumpkins and zucchini are supposed to go when the beds are still full of crops that technically did nothing wrong.

That is the tricky part.

The spring garden did not fail me. It actually did the opposite. It worked well enough that it made the summer transition a little more complicated and maybe that is why reflecting at the edge of summer matters so much. The garden teaches us more through experience than through planning. I can make all the winter garden plans I want, but until I am standing there in late spring, looking at thriving cool-season crops while summer starts breathing down my neck, I do not really know how that plan feels.

This year, it felt productive.

It also felt like a bit too much at once.

I have learned that I like flow in the garden. I do not like everything coming ready at the same time. I do not like the feeling of racing to harvest one season so I can make room for the next. I like when the garden moves in waves. A little here. A little there. Enough to eat. Enough to enjoy. Enough to feel abundant without making the whole thing feel like a chore.

Because I cannot control the weather.

None of us can.

I can’t decide whether spring will be long or short. I cannot decide whether May will be gentle or rude. I cannot decide whether the heat will arrive early and push everything faster than I expected. But I can decide how much pressure I put on the garden during a season that is already unpredictable.

And what I am realizing is that I like these same crops in fall.

Maybe even more.

Fall greens, fall radishes, fall brassicas, fall herbs, fall peas if the timing works. There is something about growing cool-season crops as the garden is winding down that feels easier to me. In spring, those crops are competing with the excitement and urgency of summer planting. In fall, they feel like a soft landing.

They don’t feel like they are in the way.

They feel like they belong to the slow-down.

That is not to say I will never grow spring crops again. I absolutely will. I know myself better than that. By March, I will be staring at seed packets like a woman with no memory of her own conclusions but I think I will grow spring differently. Smaller. More intentional. More tucked in. More like a gentle start than a full garden season I have to move out of the way.

Maybe spring can be for early greens, a few quick roots, some herbs, and the crops that don’t make the summer transition feel like a game of musical chairs.

Maybe fall can be where I lean harder into the cool-season abundance.

That is the kind of thing you only learn by doing it.

This is the time of year when the garden starts moving faster than our original plans. Beds fill in. Plants get bigger than expected. Some things fail quietly. Some things surprise us. Some things we planted with full confidence in April now look suspiciously like a mistake and before summer really takes over, it is worth pausing long enough to ask what spring actually taught us.

Because spring is not just the warm-up season. It is the season that shows us where the gaps are.

It shows us which beds warm up first. It shows us where water sits too long, where soil dries out too quickly, where bulbs carried the early season, and where we need better follow-up plants once they fade. It shows us which plans were practical and which ones were mostly a beautiful idea in our heads during winter when everything felt possible and nothing needed to be weeded yet.

Spring also showed me something else I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I had not slowed down enough to really look at the garden.

Once the tulips, daffodils, and violas started fading, there was a surprising lull.

Not a lack of growth. Not a lack of green. Just a lack of flowers.

It is one of those things that is easy to miss when you are planning a garden in winter. On paper, it can feel like there will be flowers everywhere. In real life, bloom times matter more than we think.

For a few weeks, the garden felt like it was waiting.

The spring flowers were finishing. The early summer flowers had not quite arrived yet. Everything was healthy, growing, and doing what it was supposed to do, but there was a noticeable gap between seasons.

Now I know I need to look for flowers that can fill that period after the tulips, daffodils, and violas fade, but before the early summer blooms really come in. I am not looking to completely redesign the garden. I am just looking for plants that can bridge that quiet space so the garden has a little more flow from one season into the next.

That is one of the reasons I love reflecting on a season before rushing into the next one. The garden is constantly giving us clues. Not just about what failed, but about what is missing. Sometimes the biggest lessons are not the things that went wrong. Sometimes they are the empty spaces between the things that went right.

A spring garden reflection does not have to be complicated. This is not about judging the garden or turning every bed into a performance review. It is about noticing what actually happened.

What bloomed first?

What made you happy every time you walked by it?

What came back stronger than expected?

What disappeared?

What did you keep meaning to fix but never got around to?

What part of the garden felt easy?

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That sounds strange because most of us start gardening with the opposite energy. We want the beds. The trellises. The seeds. The flowers. The fruit. The herbs. The compost system. The perfectly planned little garden map that makes us feel like we know what we’re doing before we’ve even stuck a shovel in the ground.

I get it because I was absolutely that person in my own way.

I wanted to try everything. I wanted in-ground beds and raised beds and perennial beds and flowers everywhere and food tucked into every possible corner. I wanted the garden to be beautiful, productive, meaningful, sustainable, low effort, abundant, and somehow not make me lose my entire mind in May.

Which is adorable because the garden doesn’t care about the version of yourself you invented in February.

The garden will humble you by June and after years of moving things, removing things, changing my mind, rebuilding beds, working with old compacted soil, dragging plants from one spot to another, trialling raised beds, abandoning some ideas, and coming back to others. I have a much clearer idea of what I would do differently if I were starting again.

I wouldn’t build the dream garden first.

I would build the useful garden first.

That is probably the biggest shift for me.

When I first started gardening seriously, I thought the dream garden was the point. I wanted the feeling of it. The beauty. The overflowing beds. The cottage garden softness. The food garden abundance. The whole romantic image of it.

I still want those things. I still love those things but now I know the dream garden only works if it also fits your actual life.

It needs to fit your soil, your water, your energy, your budget, your climate, your household, and your ability to maintain it in the middle of a heat wave when you are tired, sweaty, overstimulated, and wondering why you planted so many things that need attention.

If I were starting over, I would spend more time asking, “What do I need this garden to do for me?” before asking, “What do I want this garden to look like?”

Because looks can come later.

Function needs to come first.

I would start with the soil much sooner.

I know this is obvious coming from someone who talks about direct composting constantly, but I really do think soil should have been my first obsession.

Not the beds. Not the layout. Not the seed order. Not the perfect plant list.

The soil.

We garden on land that has a history. Our garden sits over the old barn and shop areas from the original homestead, while the house and septic were built where the original gardens once were. We still dig up metal, glass, old tools, bits of steel, and pieces of that former life. It makes the garden feel like it has memory, but it also means we have had to be careful with new beds. I do not casually shove my hands into new soil here because there is always the chance of finding something sharp.

That kind of land teaches you patience very quickly.

Some areas of our garden have been worked for years now and they feel alive. The soil is easier to dig. The structure is better. The plants settle in faster. Worms show up. Water behaves differently. Things just feel more established.

The newer areas still feel like work.

That is the part I wish I had understood earlier.

A garden bed does not become a good garden bed just because you outline it, plant in it, and call it done.

It becomes a good garden bed because you keep feeding it.

You keep adding organic matter. You keep roots in the ground. You chop and drop. You mulch when you can. You stop treating the soil like a dead medium that only exists to hold up plants. You start treating it like the whole foundation.

If I were starting again, I would direct compost sooner. I would bury kitchen scraps in garden beds sooner. I would use more chop-and-drop from the beginning. I would stop waiting for some perfect compost system to magically make me a “real” gardener.

I would skip the part where composting feels like a separate chore.

The garden can make its own soil if you let it.

I would still bring in materials when I needed them. I am not pretending every garden can run on vibes and banana peels. But I would have trusted the process of feeding the soil in place much earlier.

No bins. No turning. No overthinking. Just putting organic matter back where I want life to happen.

That would have saved me so much mental clutter.

I would grow fewer things, but grow them better.

This is painful to admit as a seed person.

Because seeds make us delusional in the most charming way.

A seed packet is basically a tiny paper envelope full of confidence. You hold it in your hand in March and suddenly you are a person with endless space, endless energy, perfect timing, and no pest pressure.

Then May arrives.

Then June arrives.

Then everything needs to be planted, watered, hardened off, thinned, supported, weeded, moved, protected, or apologized to.

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My garden has never really fit into one neat category.

It is not strictly an in-ground garden. It is not a container garden. It is not a raised bed garden either. It is all of those things at the same time, depending on the plant, the space, the season, and how much bending I am willing to tolerate.

Some plants belong in the ground.

Some plants need to be contained before they start acting like they own the entire property.

Some plants are better in pots because they cannot handle my climate through the winter.

Some things are in raised beds because I want easier access, better control, or I am trying something new.

I think there is a lot of pressure online to choose a gardening identity. You are an in-ground gardener. Or a raised bed gardener. Or a container gardener. Or a balcony gardener. Or a homesteader. Or a cottage gardener. Or a food gardener. Or a flower gardener.

But most ‘real’ gardens are not that clean and tidy.

Most ‘real’ gardens are a mix of what worked, what survived, what was affordable, what was already there, what you changed your mind about, and what you are still trying to figure out.

That is exactly what my garden is.

It is practical. It is a little experimental. It is always changing. It is built around the way I actually live, not around one perfect garden system I decided to follow forever and the more I garden, the more I realize that is a good thing.

In-ground growing will probably always be my favourite way to garden.

There is something about growing directly in the soil that feels more permanent to me. More rooted. More connected to the property itself. My original in-ground beds are still some of my favourite spaces in the garden because they have had years to become what they are.

The soil has improved over time. The plants feel established. The beds feel like they belong here.

That is one of the reasons I removed most of our raised beds last year and brought those spaces back down to ground level. I loved the feeling of my original beds, and I wanted more of that throughout the garden.

I wanted less separation between the garden and the land.

I wanted the beds to feel like they were part of the property, instead of sitting on top of it.

I wanted roots to be able to go deeper. I wanted the soil life to keep building. I wanted the garden to feel more natural and less boxed in and I am still happy I made that decision.

There is something really satisfying about watching an in-ground bed mature over time. It starts off rough, compacted, uneven, or underwhelming, and then slowly, with organic matter, roots, weather, worms, chop-and-drop, direct composting, and the general chaos of gardening, it starts to become better.

That is the kind of progress I love.

It doesn’t happen all at once. It’s not always pretty right away but after a few years, you can see the difference. You can feel it when you dig. You can see it in how the plants grow. You can tell when a bed starts holding moisture better, supporting more life, and producing with less fuss.

That is why I love in-ground growing. It feels like building something that lasts.

… But I Am Not Against Raised Beds

Removing most of my raised beds did not mean I suddenly decided raised beds were bad.

That is where garden conversations can get a little too dramatic for me.

Sometimes people talk about garden methods like you have to pick a team and defend it forever. Raised beds versus in-ground beds. Pots versus soil. Traditional composting versus direct composting. This method versus that method.

Meanwhile, most of us are just outside trying to keep the tomatoes alive, remember where we planted the carrots, and convince ourselves we definitely have room for one more perennial.

I prefer in-ground growing, but I still use raised beds.

Right now, I have six raised beds.

Three of them are cedar beds that my husband made for our strawberries. I raised the strawberries because I was tired of bending down to pick them. That is the reason. That is the whole deep garden philosophy behind that choice.

My back said, “absolutely not,” and I listened and I truly love them raised up. The strawberries are easier to pick, easier to manage, and easier to enjoy. I don’t have to crouch down in the patch and do the weird garden squat while trying to find ripe berries under leaves.

It is more comfortable. It is more convenient. It works.

That matters.

A garden shouldn’t just be designed around what looks good in photos or what makes the most sense in theory. It should also be designed around how you use it. If raising the strawberries means I actually enjoy harvesting them more, then that is a good garden choice.

I also have two metal raised beds from Vegega that I am working with for content, and I am excited to see how they fit into the rest of the garden. They are practical, tidy, and useful, and I like having a defined space to experiment with.

Then there is the long raised bed along the fence, which may or may not be dropped back down to ground level this fall. For now, it is planted out with cool crops for spring, and it is doing what I need it to do.

That is another thing I have become more comfortable with.

Not every garden decision has to be permanent.

Some beds stay. Some beds move. Some beds get removed. Some beds get rebuilt. Some beds exist for a season or two while you figure out whether they actually belong there.

That is fine.

The garden is allowed to change.

I am allowed to change my mind.

Pots Have Their Own Job in My Garden

Then there are the pots and I really do love a good pot.

I know container gardening can become its own huge topic. There are endless tips, charts, formulas, soil mix recipes, container size guides, drainage discussions, and plant-specific rules. Some of that information is useful, but I also think it can make growing in pots sound more intimidating than it needs to be.

The way I simplify it is this:

You can grow almost anything in a pot if the pot is big enough.

That does not mean every plant will thrive in a tiny decorative container. It doesn’t mean you can put a squash plant in a coffee mug and expect a harvest. But if the container has enough room, good drainage, enough nutrients, and consistent water, pots can do a lot more than people think.

I use pots all over my garden, but I use them with purpose.

Some pots are for beauty.

Some pots are for food.

Some pots are for plants that cannot be trusted in open ground.

Some pots are for things I want close to patios, decks, and sitting areas because I like being surrounded by plants where we actually spend time.

A good pot can soften a hard edge. It can make a sitting area feel lush. It can bring flowers, herbs, food, colour, scent, and texture into places where I do not necessarily want to dig a new bed.

I love pots around our patios and decks because they let the garden spill into our living spaces. They make everything feel a little more alive. I can mix food and flowers together without overthinking it. Herbs, nasturtiums, alyssum, dahlias, calla lilies, basil, edible flowers, trailing plants, whatever feels right for that spot.

There is something really charming about a patio full of pots that are not trying too hard.

A little useful. A little pretty. A little chaotic. Very much my speed.

Pots are also plant jail and I mean that lovingly - Some plants are in pots because they need boundaries.

Jerusalem artichokes are one of those plants.

I love them. I love the idea of growing perennial food crops. I love plants that come back, feed us, build resilience, and make the garden feel more abundant without needing to be replanted every single year.

But Jerusalem artichokes are also enthusiastic.

Very enthusiastic.

The kind of enthusiastic where you plant a few and suddenly they start making long-term plans for the entire yard.

So mine are in pots.

I still get to grow them. I still get to enjoy them. I still get the benefit of having that perennial food crop in the garden, but with a little more control.

Same with some mints.

I love mint, but I don’t need mint taking over the garden like it has a five-year expansion plan and a tiny clipboard.

Mint is wonderful in the right place. In the wrong place, it becomes less of an herb and more of a lifestyle decision you did not consent to.

So pots make sense.

They let me grow the aggressive, spreading, ambitious plants without handing them the keys to the property.

A pot is not just decoration. Sometimes a pot is a boundary and some plants need a boundary.

Pots also help me grow tender plants without making fall miserable

I also use pots for plants that cannot overwinter in my climate.

Dahlias and calla lilies are the big ones for me.

I love them, but they are not plants I can just leave in the ground and expect to see again next spring. In my climate, they need extra care if I want to keep them and I have learned that I’m much more likely to manage that extra care if they are already in pots.

I know some gardeners love the whole fall routine of digging, drying, labelling, storing, checking, dividing, and organizing tender bulbs and tubers. Respectfully, I am not always that gardener.

I like dahlias. I like calla lilies. I like beautiful plants. I don’t always like adding another complicated fall task to my life when the season is already winding down and I am mentally halfway inside with a coffee, pretending the garden does not need me anymore.

So pots help.

They make the process easier. They give me the option to move plants, protect them, or store them without turning it into a full excavation project.

That is the kind of gardening decision I appreciate more and more.

The one that gives me beauty without creating a system I will resent later.

The Peach Tree in a Pot Still Makes Me Ridiculously Happy. One of the container projects I am most proud of right now is my dwarf peach tree.

It is growing in a 25-gallon pot, and I am genuinely so excited about it.

There is something about growing a fruit tree in a pot that feels almost ridiculous in the best way. Like, yes, I will be growing peaches in a container. Yes, I do believe this is a reasonable thing to attempt. Yes, I will be emotionally invested.

A dwarf peach tree in a pot is exactly the kind of garden experiment that keeps me interested. It is practical, but it also feels a little magical.

The key, again, is that the pot is big enough. A fruit tree needs room. It needs space for roots. It needs good drainage. It needs enough soil volume to hold moisture and nutrients. A tiny pot would not make sense but a 25-gallon pot gives it a real chance.

That is why I keep coming back to the same simple idea.

Container gardening does not have to be complicated, but it does have to be realistic.

A plant with a bigger root system needs a bigger container.

A hungry plant needs feeding.

A thirsty plant needs consistent water.

A long-term plant needs room to become something.

That is not complicated. It is just paying attention.

And right now, that peach tree feels like a reminder that gardens are more flexible than we think.

You don’t always need the perfect orchard space to grow fruit. You don’t always need a huge garden to grow food. You do not always need everything planted directly in the ground to feel like a “real” gardener.

Sometimes you need a big pot, a little curiosity, and the willingness to see what happens.

I Like a Garden That Uses What Makes Sense

The older my garden gets, the less interested I am in making it fit one method.

I want the garden to work.

I want it to feed us.

I want it to look beautiful.

I want it to make sense for our property.

I want it to support the way I actually garden, not the way I think I should garden after reading too many opinions online.

That means in-ground beds for the spaces I want to build long-term.

It means raised beds where access, structure, or convenience makes sense.

It means pots for aggressive plants, tender plants, patio plants, herbs, flowers, food crops, and ambitious little fruit trees.

It means there is no one perfect way to build the garden.

There is just the way that works here and “here” matters.

My climate matters. My soil matters. My property matters. My habits matter. My back matters. My time matters. The way we use our patios, decks, and sitting areas matters.

That is the part I think gets left out of garden advice so often.

People will tell you the “best” way to grow something without knowing anything about your actual life. They don’t know if your soil floods in spring. They do not know if your patio gets blasted with sun. They do not know if your back can handle harvesting strawberries from the ground. They do not know if your raised beds dry out too fast. They do not know if your containers are the only way you can overwinter certain plants properly.

They don’t know your garden the way you do.

So yes, listen to advice. Learn from people. Try new things. Read the books. Watch the videos. Take the parts that help.

Then go outside and make decisions based on your own space.

That is where the real garden happens.

A Mixed Garden Feels More Like Real Life

I think this is why I like having a mixed garden so much.

It feels more like real life.

Real life is rarely one system. It is usually a patchwork of things that work for now, things we are improving, things we are testing, things we are keeping, and things we are quietly planning to change later.

That is my garden.

The in-ground beds are the foundation. They are where I see the long-term soil building, the perennial food crops, the annual vegetables, the flowers, the roots, and the slower kind of progress.

The raised beds are useful where I want structure, height, and easier access. They are not the whole garden, but they still have a place in it.

The pots bring flexibility. They let me grow plants I would not want loose in the ground. They let me decorate our living spaces with food and flowers. They let me grow tender plants without making the whole process harder than it needs to be. They let me try things, move things, and tuck plants into places that would otherwise stay empty.

Together, it all works.

Not perfectly.

Gardens are rarely perfect but it works in a way that feels right for me and that is what I care about more now.

I do not need my garden to prove a point. I do not need it to fit a label. I do not need every bed, pot, and path to make sense to anyone else from a quick photo online.

I need it to function.

I need it to feel good to use.

I need it to keep teaching me.

I need it to keep giving me reasons to walk outside and check on something.

Some days that is an in-ground bed full of spring crops.

Some days it is strawberries growing at a height that does not make me regret being alive.

Some days it is a pot of mint behaving itself for once.

Some days it is a dwarf peach tree in a 25-gallon pot, making me feel like I have pulled off something wildly clever even though the entire plan is basically “give it enough room and see what happens.”

That is the garden I love.

A little grounded.

A little contained.

A little raised.

A little potted.

A little experimental.

A lot more realistic than any one-size-fits-all garden method could ever be.

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

2 Ways To Gently Keep Growing With Me:

Become a Paid Subscriber (Unlock the Growers Vault): For the cost of a monthly garden centre impulse buy, you can unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly downloads, private essays, seasonal workbooks, and access to the growing Growers Vault of resources designed to help you build a healthier, lower-effort garden.

Explore the Garden Resources I Share : Seasonal notes, how-to guides, soil-building methods, herb-bed layouts, and the real process of growing a backyard garden with ease. These tools are here to help you grow more confidently without overwhelm.

💬 Feel free to like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack users can find it!

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Literally.

Which feels fitting for Compost Wednesdays, where we dig deep into composting methods, how they work, where they make sense, and what is actually useful for a backyard garden. There are a lot of composting methods out there, and while I have my favourites, I also don’t believe there is one perfect system for every single gardener.

Some people love a hot compost pile. Some people use tumblers. Some people have worm bins tucked into basements, garages, or mudrooms. Some people have three-bay systems and a pitchfork and the kind of compost discipline I simply do not possess.

Then there is direct composting.

My old faithful. My garden’s behind-the-scenes soil builder. The method I come back to again and again because it makes sense for how I actually garden.

Direct composting is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of building a compost pile somewhere else, waiting for it to break down, turning it, managing it, and eventually moving the finished compost back into your garden, you bury organic material directly where you want it to decompose.

Kitchen scraps, garden waste, soft plant material, leaves, spent annuals, chopped stems, pulled weeds that have not gone to seed, all of it can go straight back into the garden.

No bin. No turning. No fuss.

Just food for the soil, placed right where the soil life can use it.

What Is Direct Composting?

Direct composting is the practice of burying organic matter directly into garden beds so it can break down underground.

Instead of making compost in a separate pile or container, you are letting the decomposition happen in place. The worms, microbes, fungi, insects, and all the tiny life forms we rarely see get to work beneath the surface. Over time, that buried material softens, breaks down, and becomes part of the soil.

This is one of the reasons I love it so much. It doesn’t separate composting from gardening. It makes composting part of the garden itself. The garden grows. The garden sheds. The garden eats. The garden grows again.

That cycle makes sense to me and for a backyard gardener, especially one who does not want to manage a full compost system, direct composting can be one of the simplest ways to feed your soil.

Why Direct Composting Works So Well in a Backyard Garden

Backyard gardens don’t always need complicated compost systems.

A lot of compost advice online is written as if every gardener has the same space, the same time, the same physical ability, the same household waste, the same climate, and the same desire to spend their weekend managing a pile of half-rotten plant matter.

I do not.

I want composting to fit into the way I already garden. I want the scraps from my kitchen and the spent plants from my beds to go back into the soil without needing to become another chore on my list.

This is where direct composting shines.

It works beautifully in backyard gardens because it is simple, flexible, and incredibly forgiving. You can do it in an in-ground bed, between rows, under future planting areas, around perennials with care, or in empty beds at the end of the season.

You are not waiting for a compost pile to finish before your garden benefits. You are feeding the soil directly and once you start looking at your garden this way, it changes how you see waste.

A handful of carrot peels becomes future soil. The leaves you trimmed off your tomatoes become organic matter. The bolted lettuce you pulled from the bed becomes food for worms. The annual flowers that have finished blooming do not have to leave the property. They can go back into the same system they came from.

Everything that grows in your garden can go back into it.

That idea has shaped so much of how I garden.

How to Direct Compost

The basic method is almost embarrassingly simple, which is probably why people try to make it sound more complicated than it is.

You dig a hole or trench, add organic matter, chop it up if needed, cover it well with soil, and let the garden do what the garden does.

That’s it.

For kitchen scraps, I usually like to dig a hole deep enough that the scraps can be covered with several inches of soil. This matters because you don’t want food sitting close to the surface. If scraps are too shallow, animals may find them, smells may become an issue, and the whole thing starts to feel less like soil building and more like a raccoon invitation.

Nobody needs that kind of compost drama.

A good general rule is to bury kitchen scraps at least 8 to 12 inches deep when possible. Add the scraps, break up anything large, then cover everything completely with soil. Press it down lightly and move on with your life.

For garden waste, especially softer material like annual plants, leaves, pea vines, bean plants, lettuce, kale leaves, or herb trimmings, I like to chop things into smaller pieces before burying or layering them. Smaller pieces break down faster and are easier for soil life to work through.

You can direct compost in a few different ways.

You can dig individual holes throughout the garden whenever you have scraps. This is probably the easiest way to start. Think of it as feeding the garden one pocket at a time.

You can dig a trench along an empty row or between future planting areas. Fill the trench with scraps and garden waste, cover it with soil, and plant nearby later.

You can bury material in empty beds at the end of the season so it has time to break down before spring.

You can also use direct composting as part of bed building, especially when starting a new garden area. Organic matter buried below the surface can help feed the soil as the bed settles and develops.

There is room to play with it. There is room to adapt it. That is the beauty of this method.

What Can You Bury?

This is where people can get nervous, but I like to keep it practical.

Fruit and vegetable scraps are excellent for direct composting. Peels, cores, ends, skins, stems, leaves, and chopped leftovers from produce can all go into the garden. Coffee grounds, tea leaves, crushed eggshells, and plant-based kitchen waste are also easy additions.

From the garden, you can bury spent annuals, soft stems, leaves, old vegetable plants, pulled weeds that have not gone to seed, prunings from herbs, and finished flowers.

I also like using direct composting with chop-and-drop thinking. If something grew in the garden and it is not diseased, full of mature seeds, or a problem plant I do not want to spread, I want that material going back into the system.

That does not mean I am careless. It means I am trying to keep fertility on the property instead of constantly removing organic matter and then buying something else to replace it.

The garden gives me material all season long. Direct composting gives me a way to return it.

What Should You Avoid Direct Composting?

There are a few things I personally don’t bury in my beds.

I avoid meat, dairy, oily foods, cooked greasy leftovers, and anything that could create strong smells or attract animals. I also avoid diseased plant material if I am worried it could survive and spread. The same goes for invasive weeds, weeds with mature seed heads, and aggressive roots that may regrow.

I’m not interested in turning my garden beds into a science experiment called “Will this terrible thing come back to haunt me?”

Some gardeners may direct compost more broadly than this, and that is fine. But for a typical backyard garden, keeping it mostly to plant-based scraps and healthy garden waste makes the method easier and less stressful.

Composting doesn’t have to be fearless to be useful. You can have boundaries.

For the cost of one garden centre impulse buy, you’ll unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly garden downloads, practical mini guides, paid essays, and access to The Growers Vault full of resources designed to help you grow a more abundant, low-effort garden without overcomplicating it.

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Where Should You Direct Compost?

Direct composting works best where the material has time and space to break down.

I like using empty spaces in garden beds, future planting areas, pathways that will eventually become beds, and sections of the garden that are resting between crops. If I’m planting something immediately, I don’t want fresh kitchen scraps directly touching roots. Fresh scraps are actively decomposing, and that process is better happening a little away from young plants.

Think of direct composting as feeding the soil nearby, not stuffing a salad under a seedling and expecting it to be grateful.

For annual vegetable beds, you can bury scraps between rows or in areas you will plant later. For perennials, you can direct compost carefully around the outer edges of the root zone, keeping enough distance from crowns and main stems. Around shrubs and established plants, I would rather bury small amounts farther out than pile rich, active material right against the base.

In fall, empty beds are a dream for this. You can bury chopped garden waste, kitchen scraps, leaves, and spent annuals, then let everything settle over winter. By spring, the soil often feels more alive and easier to work.

This is where direct composting starts to feel like quiet magic. You bury what looks like waste, walk away, and later the garden feels different.

How Long Does It Take to Break Down?

This depends on the material, the season, your soil life, moisture, temperature, and how small the pieces are.

Soft scraps can break down surprisingly quickly during warm, active months. Tougher stems, thick peels, corn cobs, woody material, and large chunks take longer. In cold weather, everything slows down. That does not mean it is not working. It just means the soil is on a more Canadian schedule, which is to say, “We’ll get back to this after the thaw.”

If you want things to break down faster, chop them smaller before burying them. Mix softer greens with drier browns when you have them. Keep the soil reasonably moist. Bury material where worms and soil life are already active.

But you don’t need to obsess over speed.

Direct composting is not about instant results. It is about building a soil-feeding rhythm that becomes part of how you garden.

Will Direct Composting Attract Animals?

It can if scraps are buried too shallow, if you add the wrong materials, or if animals in your area are already highly motivated little criminals.

The best way to reduce animal issues is to bury scraps deeply, cover them completely, avoid meat and greasy foods, and avoid leaving anything exposed on the surface. I also prefer smaller amounts in different spots over one giant buried buffet.

If you have a serious raccoon, skunk, dog, or rodent issue, direct composting may need to be adjusted. You might use an in-ground composter, bury scraps in protected beds, focus more on garden waste than kitchen scraps, or direct compost only during certain seasons.

This is why I don’t say every compost method is perfect for every garden.

Your garden has its own conditions. Your neighbourhood has its own wildlife pressure. Your soil, climate, layout, and comfort level all matter.

But for many backyard gardeners, direct composting works beautifully when scraps are buried properly.

Direct Composting Is Not a Lesser Compost Method

I think this is the part I care about most.

Direct composting sometimes gets treated like the lazy version of composting, as if it is what you do when you are not disciplined enough for a “real” compost pile.

I disagree.

Direct composting is not lesser. It is just different.

It is an in-place soil feeding method. It mimics the way organic matter naturally returns to the earth. Leaves fall. Plants die back. Roots decompose underground. Soil organisms break everything down and cycle those nutrients back through the system.

The garden does not need everything removed, processed elsewhere, and returned in a prettier form to be valid.

Sometimes the most useful thing we can do is stop interrupting the cycle.

That is the heart of direct composting for me. It is not just about getting rid of kitchen scraps. It is about seeing the garden as a living system that can receive, break down, and reuse what it already produces.

A Simple Beginner Method

If you are new to direct composting, start small.

Pick an empty spot in your garden. Dig a hole around 8 to 12 inches deep. Add a small container of fruit and vegetable scraps. Chop up anything large with your shovel. Cover it completely with soil. Mark the spot if you need to remember where it is.

Then do it again somewhere else next time.

That is enough.

You do not need to overhaul your garden. You do not need to become a compost expert. You do not need to have the perfect ratio of greens and browns written on a chalkboard in your shed.

Just start feeding the soil.

Over time, you will learn where it works best in your garden. You will learn how quickly things break down. You will learn which beds seem to respond well. You will learn how much your space can handle.

That kind of knowledge comes from doing, not from trying to follow someone else’s perfect system.

Composting Should Fit the Garden You Actually Have

That is really what Compost Wednesdays are about.

Not every method works everywhere. Not every gardener needs the same system. A backyard garden is not a farm, a homestead, a market garden, or an aesthetic content set. It is its own little ecosystem, and the composting method you choose should fit your actual life.

Direct composting fits mine because it is simple, practical, and deeply connected to how I see the garden.

I don’t want to remove every scrap of fertility from my beds. I do not want composting to become another complicated chore. I do not want to buy into the idea that feeding soil needs to be expensive, technical, or intimidating.

Sometimes it really can be as simple as digging a hole.

Bury the scraps. Cover them well. Let the worms find them. Let the microbes work. Let the garden turn what is finished into something useful again.

That is direct composting.

And for a backyard garden, it might be one of the easiest ways to begin building better soil right where you stand.

Keep Planting!

Beccalynne🪱

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

2 Ways To Gently Keep Growing With Me:

Become a Paid Subscriber (Unlock the Growers Vault): For the cost of a monthly garden centre impulse buy, you can unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly downloads, private essays, seasonal workbooks, and access to the growing Growers Vault of resources designed to help you build a healthier, lower-effort garden.

Explore the Garden Resources I Share : Seasonal notes, how-to guides, soil-building methods, herb-bed layouts, and the real process of growing a backyard garden with ease. These tools are here to help you grow more confidently without overwhelm.

💬 Feel free to like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack users can find it!

Share

This week’s download is The Plant It or Pot It Decision Sheet and I made this one because I think a lot of garden planning advice skips over one of the most useful questions we can ask before planting something.

Where does this plant actually belong?

Not where would it look cute.

Not where did I panic-place it because it was sitting in a nursery pot by the patio for three weeks because I too am NOTORIOUS for doing this (looking at my horse radish plant…)

Not where did I have an empty gap and decide we were all just going to see what happened.

Where does this plant actually make sense?

Because not every plant belongs in the same kind of garden space. Some plants want deep soil and room to stretch. Some are much better kept contained because they spread like they have a personal grudge against boundaries. Some need better drainage, easier harvesting, warmer soil, winter protection, or a spot close enough to the house that you will actually remember to water them.

This is where gardening gets more flexible than people sometimes make it sound.

You do not have to be only an in-ground gardener. You do not have to be only a raised bed gardener. You do not have to be only a container gardener. Most real gardens are a mix of all three, whether we admit it or not.

Mine definitely is.

I grow in the ground. I use raised beds. I use pots. I have plants tucked into edges, containers around patios, food crops mixed with flowers, perennial foods settling into long-term spaces, and aggressive plants that have been given the firm boundary of a container because I love them, but I do not trust them.

That is the whole point of this week’s download. It is not about choosing one “correct” way to garden. It is about making better decisions plant by plant.

Some things make more sense in the ground.

In-ground planting is usually my favourite for anything that needs room, deep soil, long-term stability, or a permanent home. Perennial foods, fruit bushes, large annual crops, pollinator plants, soil-building plants, and anything I want to grow in quantity usually makes more sense in the ground.

Plants like raspberries, asparagus, rhubarb, skirret, sorrel, kale, cabbage, tomatoes, squash, beans, peas, yarrow, coneflower, salvia, baptisia, and fruit shrubs are good examples of plants that can really benefit from having space to settle in.

The ground gives them room to root deeply. It connects them to the larger soil system. It usually requires less babysitting once the plants are established, especially compared to containers that dry out faster and need more frequent watering.

This is one of the reasons I still love in-ground growing so much. It feels like the garden is part of the land instead of something sitting on top of it. The plants have room to become part of the space, the soil improves over time, and the whole thing starts to feel more connected.

But that does not mean everything needs to go in the ground.

Some things make more sense in raised beds.

Raised beds can be incredibly useful when you want easier access, clearer boundaries, better drainage, warmer soil, or a dedicated space for crops you harvest often.

This is where I like them for things like strawberries, greens, root crops, onions, leeks, herbs, compact food crops, and smaller flowers tucked between vegetables.

Raised beds are especially useful for crops you want to manage closely. If you are harvesting lettuce, checking radishes, pulling carrots, picking strawberries, or tucking leeks into a space you already have, a raised bed can make that easier.

They are also helpful when your native soil is hard to work, compacted, full of debris, or just not ready for the kind of planting you want to do yet and even though I removed most of my raised beds last year because I wanted to bring more of the garden back down to ground level, I still use raised beds where they make sense. I raised our strawberries because I don’t want to bend down as much to pick them. That’s a practical choice. It fits how I actually use the garden.

This is what I want more people to give themselves permission to do.

Use the garden structure that makes the plant easier to grow and easier to harvest. It doesn’t have to be part of one big garden identity.

Sometimes things absolutely need a pot.

There are the plants that need to be potted because they are aggressive, tender, experimental, or just easier to manage when they are not given full access to the entire garden.

Mint is the obvious one. I love mint. I also know mint behaves like it has paperwork proving it owns the place.

Jerusalem artichokes are another one I prefer to manage carefully because they can spread and become a lot. Dahlias and calla lilies make sense in pots for me because they don’t overwinter reliably in my climate and I do not want to dig through garden beds every fall trying to find tubers like I am on some kind of floral archaeological mission.

My dwarf peach tree is in a large pot because that gives me more control. I can manage the soil, the watering, the placement, and the winter protection. Same with tender herbs, rosemary, basil, coleus, and other plants that either need extra care or need to be moved around as the season changes.

Pots are not lesser gardening.

They are a tool.

They let you grow things close to the house. They let you trial plants before committing them to a permanent spot. They let you contain plants that would otherwise take over. They let you create little growing pockets around patios, decks, sitting areas, and spaces where an in-ground bed would not make sense.

A pot can be a boundary, a test space, a convenience, or a tiny garden all on its own.

The point is to match the plant to the space.

I think this is where a lot of garden advice gets too rigid.

People will tell you raised beds are the best. Or in-ground gardening is the best. Or containers are the best. Or no-dig is the best. Or whatever method they currently love is the thing everyone should be doing.

But most gardeners are not working with a blank slate and unlimited money.

We are working with the space we have. The soil we have. The energy we have. The plants we accidentally bought. The perennials we inherited. The patio pots we already own. The beds we built years ago. The weird side-yard strip that gets blasted by sun. The corner that dries out. The spot where the hose barely reaches. The plant that looked small at the nursery and then turned into a shrub with ambition.

So instead of asking, “What kind of gardener am I?”

Maybe the better question is, “What does this plant need, and where will it be easiest for me to care for it?”

That is a much more useful place to start.

If a plant spreads aggressively, pot it.

If it needs to live there for years, plant it in the ground.

If you harvest it often or want clear boundaries, use a raised bed.

If you are not sure what it will do, trial it somewhere manageable first.

This is also a good way to stop creating extra work for yourself because sometimes the wrong planting spot does not become a problem right away. It becomes a problem later.

It becomes mint running through a bed you wanted to keep tidy.

It becomes a tender plant you forgot you had to dig up.

It becomes a thirsty pot shoved too far away from the hose.

It becomes strawberries planted somewhere annoying to harvest.

It becomes a perennial food crop placed somewhere temporary, even though it really wanted a permanent home.

It becomes a plant you technically can grow there, but now it makes your garden more annoying than it needed to be and I say this with love because I have made many of these choices. Some of my garden lessons have been gentle. Some have been a full seasonal lecture.

That is why I like having a simple decision sheet.

Before planting something, you can pause and ask:

What am I planting?

Is it food, flowers, herbs, fruit, or a perennial?

Does it spread?

Does it need deep soil?

Will I harvest it often?

Does it need winter protection?

Will it need to be moved later?

Does it get large?

Does it need a trellis?

Do I actually know how this plant behaves, or did I simply bring it home and decide we would all learn together?

There is nothing wrong with experimenting. I think experimenting is one of the best parts of gardening. But even experiments need a place where they will not make your life harder if they go a little too well.

That is what this week’s download is meant to help with.

The Plant It or Pot It Decision Sheet is a one-page printable you can use before planting something new, moving plants around, or deciding where your latest garden centre purchase should go.

It walks you through what you are planting, how the plant behaves, and whether it makes more sense in the ground, in a raised bed, or in a pot.

It also gives you a quick rule of thumb so the decision does not have to become a full garden spiral because a good garden is not about choosing one right way to grow everything.

It is about putting plants where they make the most sense.

Some things belong in the soil forever. Some things deserve the comfort of a raised bed. Some things absolutely need the attitude adjustment of a pot.

The point is not to make your garden look like everyone else’s. The point is to make it easier to manage, easier to harvest, and easier to keep loving.

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Here it is:

Plant It Or Pot It

121KB ∙ PDF file

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Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

2 Ways To Gently Keep Growing With Me:

Become a Paid Subscriber (Unlock the Growers Vault): For the cost of a monthly garden centre impulse buy, you can unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly downloads, private essays, seasonal workbooks, and access to the growing Growers Vault of resources designed to help you build a healthier, lower-effort garden.

Explore the Garden Resources I Share : Seasonal notes, how-to guides, soil-building methods, herb-bed layouts, and the real process of growing a backyard garden with ease. These tools are here to help you grow more confidently without overwhelm.

💬 Feel free to like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack users can find it!

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There is something funny about growing a garden on land that doesn’t let you forget what it used to be.

Every spring, when we start working in the beds again, the soil gives us another little reminder. A piece of glass. A rusty nail. A chunk of steel. A broken tool. Some strange old bit of hardware that probably made perfect sense to someone seventy years ago and makes absolutely no sense to us now. It is like the ground has its own junk drawer and every time we dig, it decides to show us one more thing.

Our garden sits where the original barns and shops from the old homestead once stood. Before this was our garden, before the beds and trellises and flowers and vegetables, this was working space. It was where things were built, fixed, stored, dragged, broken, patched, and probably abandoned when they had served their purpose. The kind of place where a nail in the dirt was not shocking. The kind of place where tools disappeared into corners and where glass, metal, and scraps became part of the ground over time.

Now, decades later, we are growing food there.

Which sounds a little ridiculous when I say it like that, but that is gardening on old properties. You are never really starting with a blank slate. You are starting with whatever happened before you arrived, whether you know the full story or not.

For us, that story lives under the soil.

We cannot put our hands directly into newer garden beds the way some gardeners can. I see people online casually digging bare-handed through fluffy, clean soil, pulling carrots, planting seedlings, smoothing mulch around stems like they are in a gardening catalogue. Meanwhile, I am over here treating every new bed like it may contain a hidden shard of glass from 1954.

Because sometimes it does.

There is a certain level of trust you build with an old bed over time. The beds we have worked for years feel different. They have been dug through, planted into, amended, fed, mulched, weeded, and turned into living soil one season at a time. We know them better now. We know where the problem areas are. We know what has already been pulled out. We know how the soil behaves after rain, where the worms gather, where plants thrive, and where the ground still feels like it is holding onto something.

But the newer beds are another story.

In those areas, gloves are not optional. A trowel is not optional. Care is not optional. We do not plunge our hands into the soil with romantic garden confidence because the soil has already proven it cannot be fully trusted yet. It may be growing tomatoes and marigolds now, but it still has old shop bones in it.

That is the strange thing about transforming land. It can be beautiful and inconvenient at the same time. It can be meaningful and annoying. It can feel like a gift and a hazard. It can grow some of the best plants you have ever seen while still occasionally coughing up a nail sharp enough to humble you.

When we first started building garden beds here, this ground was not soft, generous, perfect garden soil. It was compacted. It had debris. It had history. It had the kind of buried mess that makes you stop mid-project and say, “What even is this?”

..and that happened often.

We would be digging, making a new bed, trying to shape another growing space and then the shovel would hit something. Sometimes it was a rock. Sometimes it was metal. Sometimes it was glass. Sometimes it was something we could identify, and sometimes it was one of those old homestead mystery objects that looks like it belongs in either a barn, a machine, or a horror movie.

Every find reminded us that this was not just soil. It was a record.

A frustrating record, yes. A record with sharp edges but still a record.

This property belonged to my husband’s family before it belonged to us in this way. His great-grandparents had gardens here, but in the funny twist of it all, the house and septic were built where those original gardens used to be. The place where food once grew became the place where the house now sits and the place where the barns and shops once stood became the place where we are growing food again.

There is something almost too poetic about that.

The old gardens are under the house, and the new gardens are over the old working buildings.

We didn’t choose the easy spot. We chose the spot available to us or maybe the land chose it for us. Either way, we started where we could, with what we had, and slowly turned rough ground into a place that now feeds us, grounds us, and pulls us outside every day of the growing season.

It did not happen quickly.

There is this idea online that building a garden is a weekend project. Lay down cardboard, add compost, toss in some plants, and suddenly you have abundance. Sometimes that can work, and I love a simple method as much as anyone. But some gardens are not weekend projects. Some gardens are long conversations with the land.

Our garden has taken years.

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Years of pulling out debris. Years of improving soil. Years of direct composting. Years of chop-and-drop. Years of planting, observing, adjusting, and learning which areas were ready for more and which ones still needed time. Years of realizing that the ground does not become generous because you demand it. It becomes generous because you keep showing up.

And we did.

We kept showing up with kitchen scraps, leaves, plant material, seedlings, seeds, shovels, gloves, and a sense of humour, which feels necessary when your garden keeps handing you old metal like it is trying to build a robot.

There have been so many moments where I have thought about how odd it is that this place, the place we spend the most time now, started as such a rough piece of ground.

This is where we drink coffee. This is where we check seedlings. This is where we wander at night just to see what changed. This is where I notice the first peas sprouting, the first tomatoes blushing, the first flowers opening, the first signs of trouble, the first signs of abundance. This is where the dog wanders around while we work. This is where we stand and talk about future beds like we are not already surrounded by enough projects.

This is where life happens now and it is built over the old life of the property.

I think that is what makes it feel so special. We are not erasing what was here before. We are growing through it. Around it. Above it. With it, in some strange way.

The buried pieces are not always welcome, especially when they are sharp. I would be very happy to stop finding glass in new beds. I would love a season where the soil does not surprise us with another rusty object from the old shop era. I do not need every garden project to include an archaeological dig with mild safety concerns.

But I also know those pieces are part of the story.

They remind me that this land has been used hard. It has held animals, tools, buildings, work, gardens, family, seasons, and probably a lot of things we will never know. It was not empty before us. It was not waiting in pristine condition for someone to make it beautiful. It was already full.

Full of history. Full of debris. Full of memory. Full of work.

And now it is full of roots.

That part still gets me because despite everything buried here, the garden grows. The soil has changed. The beds that once felt rough and compacted now hold life. Worms move through them. Plants establish. Perennials return. Vegetables produce. Flowers bloom. The ground that once held barns and shops now holds tomatoes, beans, squash, herbs, fruit, flowers, and all the slightly chaotic plans I keep adding every year.

It is easy to look at a finished garden bed and think it was always meant to be there. But I know what it took to make these beds. I know how many times we hit something with a shovel. I know how much debris came out of the ground. I know how careful we still have to be. I know which beds are safe enough to work comfortably and which beds still get treated like they may be hiding a tiny rusty curse.

And still, it is thriving.

That feels important to say.

A garden does not have to start with perfect soil to become something beautiful. It does not need a clean history. It does not need to be easy from the beginning. Sometimes the land you have is compacted, messy, inconvenient, and full of things you wish were not there. Sometimes you inherit problems. Sometimes you inherit somebody else’s buried scraps. Sometimes you inherit a place that makes every new bed a little more complicated than the dreamy gardening books suggest.

You can still build something there.

You can still improve it. You can still feed the soil. You can still plant into it carefully. You can still make it safer, softer, richer, and more alive over time. You can still turn the roughest corner of a property into the place everyone wants to be.

That is what happened here.

We took soil that had been a burial site for the old barns and shops, soil that still gives us steel, tools, glass, and strange little trinkets from another time, and we turned it into a garden. Not overnight. Not perfectly. Not without gloves. But slowly, season after season, with patience and stubbornness and probably more plants than any reasonable person needs.

Now, this is where we spend most of our time.

The garden is not separate from the history of this place. It is layered on top of it. The roots grow through the old story. The beds sit where buildings once stood. The vegetables grow above buried workspaces. The flowers bloom over the scraps of another generation’s daily life.

And maybe that is why it feels so alive.

It is not a garden built on nothing.

It is a garden built on what came before, sharp edges and all.

Keep Planting!

Beccalynne🫶

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

2 Ways To Gently Keep Growing With Me:

Become a Paid Subscriber (Unlock the Growers Vault): For the cost of a monthly garden centre impulse buy, you can unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly downloads, private essays, seasonal workbooks, and access to the growing Growers Vault of resources designed to help you build a healthier, lower-effort garden.

Explore the Garden Resources I Share : Seasonal notes, how-to guides, soil-building methods, herb-bed layouts, and the real process of growing a backyard garden with ease. These tools are here to help you grow more confidently without overwhelm.

💬 Feel free to like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack users can find it!

Share

Someone asked me how to cure root crops and store vegetables without a root cellar, so I spent the weekend writing about it again and if you’ve been around for a while, you probably remember me writing about this last month too. Yes, I am writing about it again because I’ve been thinking about it even more as we head into summer and start planting out our winter storage crops.

This is the part of the season where the garden slowly begins to shift. We are not just thinking about what we can eat fresh in July or August. We are also thinking about what can carry us a little further. Potatoes, carrots, beets, onions, garlic, squash, pumpkins, rutabagas, parsnips, and all those humble storage crops start to matter in a different way.

And I think this is one of those garden topics that sounds a lot more complicated than it has to be because when people talk about storing food from the garden, it can very quickly turn into this dreamy image of a proper root cellar. Stone walls. Wooden shelves. Crates of potatoes. Braided onions hanging from the rafters. Squash lined up like little autumn trophies. Everything cool, dark, humid, and somehow perfectly managed.

Beautiful? Yes.

Realistic for everyone? Absolutely not.

Not everyone has a cold room. Not everyone has a basement. Not everyone has a cellar, a garage that stays the right temperature, or some picture-perfect homestead setup designed specifically for long-term vegetable storage.

Some of us are working with a spare closet.

Some of us are working with a corner of the basement that is almost right but not quite.

Some of us are working with a garage that freezes solid in January and gets weirdly warm in March.

Some of us are working with a shelf in the laundry room, a tote in the mudroom, a box under the stairs, or the back of a pantry that everyone forgets about until someone goes looking for crackers and that should not stop us from storing what we grow.

That is the part I keep coming back to.

Growing food is already enough of a learning curve. We do not need to make the storage part feel like an exclusive club only available to people with underground cellars and old farmhouse infrastructure. If you can grow the carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, beets, squash, or whatever else made it through your season, you deserve to learn how to keep them for longer without feeling like you are doing it wrong.

Because storing food is not about perfection.

It is about buying yourself more time.

It is about stretching the harvest a little further.

It is about learning which crops actually store well in your house, your climate, your garage, your pantry, and your life.

And it is also about understanding that not every vegetable wants the same treatment.

That is where curing and storage come in.

Curing is not fancy. It is just a transition period.

I think curing sounds more complicated than it is.

The word itself makes it feel like some old homesteading ritual that requires exact temperatures, perfect humidity, and a notebook full of measurements. And sure, if you want to get really technical, there are ideal conditions for every crop. There are recommended temperatures and humidity levels and timing windows.

But at its simplest, curing is just giving certain vegetables time to dry, toughen up, heal over, and prepare for storage.

That is it.

Some crops need their outer layers to dry down. Some need their skins to toughen. Some need small cuts or nicks to heal. Some need excess moisture to leave the plant before they can sit in storage without rotting.

Curing is the bridge between harvest and storage.

It is the pause before you tuck things away and it matters because a vegetable pulled fresh from the soil is still carrying moisture, tenderness, and vulnerability. If you take certain crops straight from the garden and throw them into storage, you are more likely to deal with mold, soft spots, sprouting, or rot.

Curing gives those crops a better chance but curing does not mean you need a professional setup.

For a lot of home gardeners, curing can happen on a porch, in a shed, in a greenhouse with airflow, under a covered patio, in a garage, on a table near a window, or in a warm room with good ventilation.

The exact setup matters less than the general idea.

You want airflow.

You want protection from rain.

You want the crop to dry properly.

You want to keep them out of extreme weather and you want to check on them instead of pretending they magically become storage-ready just because you placed them somewhere and walked away.

Ask me how I know.

The biggest storage mistake is treating every crop the same.

This is where a lot of the confusion happens.

We use the phrase “root crops” like they are all one big group, but they don’t all want the same things. Potatoes are not onions. Garlic is not carrots. Beets are not winter squash. Sweet potatoes are their own diva entirely.

Some crops want to be cured.

Some crops do not need curing in the same way.

Some crops like cool and humid storage.

Some crops like cool and dry storage.

Some crops hate light.

Some crops hate being washed.

Some crops need their tops removed.

Some crops store better in sand, peat, wood shavings, or damp-ish packing material.

Some crops would rather sit in a box in the pantry and be left alone.

The trick is not memorizing every perfect condition right away. The trick is understanding the difference between dry storage crops and moist storage crops.

Dry storage crops are things like onions, garlic, winter squash, and cured potatoes. These usually need to dry down or cure before storage, and they generally prefer airflow and lower moisture around them.

Moist storage crops are things like carrots, beets, turnips, rutabagas, and parsnips. These tend to shrivel if they dry out too much, so they usually store better in cool conditions with some humidity around them.

Once you understand that, the whole thing starts to feel less overwhelming.

You are not trying to build a root cellar.

You are trying to mimic the conditions each crop likes as best as you can with what you already have.

That is the whole game.

Potatoes need darkness, airflow, and patience.

Potatoes are one of those crops that make people think they need a root cellar, but they can be stored in other ways if you understand what they are asking for.

After harvest, potatoes need to cure. This helps their skins toughen up and gives small surface damage a chance to heal. You do not want to wash them before storage. Brush off big clumps of soil once they are dry, but do not scrub them clean like grocery store potatoes. That little bit of dryness and intact skin helps them last longer.

For curing, potatoes usually do well somewhere dark, dry, and ventilated for a couple of weeks. A garage, shed, covered porch, basement area, or spare room can work depending on your weather. The key is keeping them out of direct sunlight because light turns potatoes green, and green potatoes are not something you want to eat.

Once cured, sort them.

This is the part people skip, but it matters.

Anything nicked, bruised, soft, or questionable should be used first. Do not store damaged potatoes with your best ones and hope everyone behaves in the box. They will not. One bad potato really can cause problems for the rest.

For longer storage, keep potatoes somewhere cool, dark, and not too dry. A cardboard box, paper bag, basket covered with newspaper, or ventilated crate can work. Avoid sealed plastic because trapped moisture is where things start getting gross.

And check them.

This is not a “put it away and see you in four months” situation. Every couple of weeks, peek through them. Remove anything soft, sprouting heavily, or suspicious.

No root cellar required.

Just darkness, airflow, sorting, and regular check-ins.

Carrots, beets, turnips, and rutabagas want cool moisture, not a dry shelf.

This is where storage gets interesting because carrots and beets are not like onions and garlic. They are not trying to dry down. They are trying not to shrivel.

If you pull carrots and leave them on a dry pantry shelf, they are not going to calmly sit there like a squash. They are going to get limp and sad.

Root crops like carrots, beets, turnips, and rutabagas usually store best when they are kept cool and protected from drying out. Traditionally, a root cellar does this beautifully because it is cool and humid. But if you do not have one, you can fake a small version of that environment.

A tote, bin, cardboard box, or food-safe container can work.

The idea is to pack the roots in something that helps hold moisture without making everything wet and swampy. Slightly damp sand, peat moss, sawdust, wood shavings, or even shredded paper can be used depending on what you have access to. The key word is slightly. Not soaked. Not dripping. Not “accidentally made a bog in my basement.”

Before storing, remove the greens.

This matters because the greens keep pulling moisture from the root. If you leave carrot tops or beet greens attached, the root loses quality faster. Twist or cut the tops off, leaving a small amount of stem rather than cutting into the root itself.

Do not wash them for long storage unless you are storing them in the fridge and using them soon. For bin storage, gently remove excess soil but keep them relatively intact.

Then layer them.

Packing material. Roots. More packing material. More roots.

Try not to let them all touch each other if you can avoid it. This helps reduce the spread of rot if one starts to go bad.

Then store the container somewhere cool.

A basement corner, insulated garage area, mudroom, cold closet, enclosed porch that does not freeze hard, or even a second fridge if you have one can all become part of the system.

Will it be exactly like a root cellar? No.

Can it still work? Yes.

And that is the point.

Onions and garlic need to dry down fully.

Onions and garlic are not crops I would tuck into damp sand.

They need a different approach.

For onions and garlic, curing is about drying the outer layers so they can protect what is inside. If they are stored too fresh or too damp, they are much more likely to rot.

After harvest, they need airflow, shade, and time.

I like the idea of curing them somewhere covered and airy. A greenhouse can work if it does not get too hot and humid. A porch, shed, garage, or table with good airflow can work too. The main thing is not leaving them in direct sun to bake and not leaving them in a wet pile where moisture gets trapped.

Spread them out.

Let the tops dry.

Let the skins get papery.

Let the necks dry down properly.

For onions, this is especially important because a thick, wet neck is basically an invitation for rot. You want that neck to close and dry before you store them.

Once cured, trim the tops if you are not braiding them. Leave a bit of stem. Trim roots if you want, but do not cut into the bulb. Then store them somewhere cool, dry, and ventilated.

Mesh bags, baskets, crates, paper bags with holes, or open boxes can all work.

The biggest thing is airflow.

Onions and garlic do not want to be sealed into plastic. They do not want to sit in a damp basement corner. They do not want to be stored with potatoes if you can avoid it, because potatoes release moisture and gases that can shorten onion storage life.

Again, not fancy.

Just dry, airy, cool-ish, and checked often.

Winter squash and pumpkins are pantry storage crops.

This is one of the reasons I love the idea of growing more storage crops like winter squash.

Because squash does not require the same kind of cold, humid storage as carrots or beets. A properly cured winter squash can often sit in a regular house for months.

That is a huge win if you do not have a root cellar.

Winter squash and pumpkins need to mature fully on the vine, then cure somewhere warm, dry, and airy. Curing helps harden the skin and improve storage quality. You want the stem to stay attached because a broken stem creates a weak point where rot can move in.

Do not carry squash by the stem.

I know the stem looks like a handle.

It is not a handle.

It is a tiny storage security system and we need to respect it.

Once cured, squash can be stored in a cool room, pantry, closet, basement shelf, or anywhere that stays reasonably stable. They do not want to freeze. They do not want to sit in damp conditions. They do not want to be piled so deep that you forget about the ones at the bottom.

I like squash because it feels like one of the more forgiving storage crops for regular homes. You can grow it, cure it, line it up on a shelf, and use it over time without needing to recreate a 1900s farmhouse cellar.

Different varieties store for different lengths of time, though. Delicata does not store the same as butternut. Acorn squash usually does not keep as long as some other winter squash. Butternut is generally a great storage crop. Pumpkins vary depending on variety.

This is where variety choice matters.

If you want to store more food without fancy infrastructure, grow crops that naturally want to store in the conditions you can offer.

That one shift can make the whole thing easier.

For the cost of one garden centre impulse buy, you’ll unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly garden downloads, practical mini guides, paid essays, and access to The Growers Vault full of resources designed to help you grow a more abundant, low-effort garden without overcomplicating it.

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Sweet potatoes need warmth first, then steady storage.

Sweet potatoes are the dramatic cousin in the storage crop family.

They are not regular potatoes. They do not want the exact same curing conditions. They need warmth and humidity to cure properly, and then they want to be stored somewhere that does not get too cold.

This is where a lot of northern gardeners struggle because our houses and garages are not always ideal.

Sweet potatoes need a warm curing period after harvest so their skins toughen and their sugars develop. In a perfect world, that means warm temperatures and high humidity for about a week or more. In a normal home gardener world, that may mean getting creative.

Some people use a warm room.

Some use a greenhouse during warm weather.

Some use a bathroom, laundry room, near a heat source, or a DIY setup with bins and ventilation.

The main thing is that sweet potatoes should not be chilled. Cold damage can ruin their storage quality and flavour. After curing, they usually store best at room-temperature-ish conditions, warmer than regular potatoes.

So if you are growing sweet potatoes without a root cellar, the good news is they do not actually want a cold cellar anyway.

They want warmth at first, then steady, not-too-cold storage.

Which means your house may be better than your garage.

Tiny win.

You can store food in small batches instead of trying to store everything all winter.

This is something I think we need to talk about more.

Not every gardener needs to store six months of food.

Not every harvest needs to last until spring.

Sometimes successful storage means your carrots lasted an extra three weeks.

Sometimes it means your potatoes made it until Christmas.

Sometimes it means your garlic lasted long enough that you did not have to buy any for a couple of months.

Sometimes it means you grew five squash, cured them properly, and ate them one by one through fall.

That counts.

We have this tendency to make food storage feel all-or-nothing. Like if we are not filling a cellar with crates of root crops, we are not really preserving anything.

But storing food can be small.

It can be seasonal.

It can be experimental.

It can be a few bins, a few boxes, a shelf, a tote, a fridge drawer, or a pantry corner.

And honestly, that is probably the better way to learn.

Start with what you actually grow and eat.

Do not grow thirty pounds of turnips if your household has never once been excited about a turnip. Do not plant a huge bed of storage carrots if you do not have a place to keep them yet. Do not grow five types of squash and then realize nobody wants to eat squash twice a week.

Start with your real life.

What do you cook?

What do you reach for?

What crops do you already grow well?

What vegetables feel worth storing?

That is how storage becomes useful instead of just another garden performance.

The fridge counts.

I feel like people forget this.

The fridge counts.

It may not be romantic. It may not be traditional. It may not have the same charm as a root cellar with wooden crates and a lantern glow.

But it counts.

If you have a small harvest of carrots, beets, radishes, turnips, greens, herbs, or green onions, the fridge might be the best storage option. Especially if you are only trying to extend them for a few weeks or a couple of months.

Not every crop needs to be stored in a basement bin.

Sometimes the best option is trimming the greens, putting the roots in a bag or container with a little moisture control, and using them from the fridge.

This is especially true for smaller gardens.

If you are not harvesting bushels of root crops, you may not need a whole storage system. You may need better fridge habits.

That still counts as storing what you grow.

The goal is not to impress the imaginary homesteading council.

The goal is to use the food.

The garage can work, but it needs babysitting.

A garage can be useful, especially for curing or short-term storage, but it is not automatically a root cellar substitute.

Garages can fluctuate wildly.

They can be too hot in early fall.

They can freeze in winter.

They can warm up randomly in spring.

They can have mice.

They can have moisture issues.

They can also be really handy if you understand their limits.

For curing onions, garlic, potatoes, and squash, a garage can work beautifully if it is dry, protected, and has airflow.

For long-term storage, you need to pay attention to temperature swings. If your garage freezes, carrots and potatoes may be damaged. If it gets too warm, potatoes may sprout and roots may soften. If mice can get in, they will absolutely treat your storage crops like a buffet you thoughtfully arranged for them.

Use totes with ventilation.

Use hardware cloth if pests are an issue.

Keep crops off the concrete if the floor gets very cold.

Check often.

And do not assume one garage setup will work the same all season.

A garage in October is not a garage in January.

A garage in January is not a garage in March.

The same space can go from perfect to terrible depending on the weather.

That does not mean you cannot use it. It just means you have to treat it like a flexible tool, not a magic storage room.

Closets, basements, mudrooms, and pantries can all become storage zones.

This is where the “use what you have” part really matters.

You might not have one perfect place, but you may have several okay places.

A cool basement corner for potatoes.

A pantry shelf for winter squash.

A fridge drawer for carrots.

A spare closet for onions and garlic.

A mudroom for short-term overflow.

A garage for curing.

A tote near the back door for roots until the weather turns too cold.

That is a real storage system.

It may not look pretty. It may not be Instagrammable. It may not have matching wooden crates and handwritten labels. But it works because it is based on the conditions each crop needs instead of trying to force everything into one place.

I think that is the mindset shift.

You are not looking for one perfect root cellar replacement.

You are looking for storage zones.

Warm and dry.

Cool and dark.

Cool and humid.

Room temperature and stable.

Short-term fridge storage.

Temporary curing space.

Once you start seeing your house and property in zones, you can match crops to spaces.

That feels so much more doable than trying to build an entire storage room.

Variety choice can make storage easier before you even harvest.

This is another piece that does not get talked about enough.

Storage starts when you choose what to grow.

Some varieties are better keepers than others. Some potatoes store longer. Some onions are bred for storage while others are better eaten fresh. Some squash can sit for months, while others should be eaten sooner. Some carrots hold beautifully in the ground or in storage, while others are better for fresh eating.

If you want to store more food without a root cellar, variety choice matters.

This does not mean you need to overthink every seed packet.

But it does mean that if storage is part of your goal, you can start choosing crops with that in mind.

Grow squash known for keeping.

Choose storage onions instead of only sweet onions.

Grow potatoes that are known to store well.

Choose carrots or beets that are good for fall harvest and storage.

Pay attention to days to maturity so crops are ready at the right time.

Because sometimes we blame ourselves for storage failures when the crop was never meant to store for months in the first place.

Not every vegetable is a long-term storage vegetable.

Not every variety within a vegetable category stores the same way.

This is why I keep coming back to the idea of growing food we actually understand and use. Not in a perfect expert way, but in a practical “how does this fit into my kitchen and my house” way.

That matters.

I wrote about which varieties at the best. Find the article at the bottom of this one.

You still need to check your stored crops.

This is the least glamorous part.

You cannot just put vegetables away and forget about them.

Stored crops need check-ins.

I know. Annoying.

But also necessary.

Every couple of weeks, take a look. Feel for soft spots. Check for mold. Look for sprouting. Remove anything that is going downhill. Use the imperfect ones first. Rearrange if moisture is building up. Open a tote if things feel too damp. Add moisture if roots are shrivelling.

This is the difference between storage and abandonment.

A lot of food waste happens because we store things with good intentions and then forget they exist until we find a tragic mystery puddle in a box.

Nobody needs that.

The more visible and accessible your storage is, the more likely you are to actually use it.

That is another reason I do not think storage needs to be picture-perfect. If the pretty storage system is tucked so far away you never check it, it is not better than a cardboard box you actually look through every week.

Practical wins.

Every time.

Some crops are better left in the ground for a while.

Depending on your climate and timing, the garden itself can sometimes be temporary storage.

Carrots, parsnips, leeks, and some other hardy crops can often stay in the ground into colder weather, especially with mulch or protection. This can be a great option if you do not have indoor space ready yet.

The soil becomes the storage zone for a little while.

Of course, this depends on your winters, your soil, your pest pressure, and whether your ground freezes so hard you would need a pickaxe to harvest dinner. In colder climates, this is not always a full-winter solution, but it can buy time in fall.

And buying time matters.

You do not always have to harvest everything at once.

You can stagger.

You can harvest what you need.

You can leave some crops in place until the weather forces your hand.

Again, this is not about following one perfect rule.

It is about making the harvest fit your actual season.

Storing food is part of learning how to grow food.

I think this is the deeper piece for me.

For a long time, gardening advice can make it seem like the big goal is harvest.

Start the seeds.

Plant the garden.

Keep everything alive.

Harvest the food.

Done.

But if you are trying to grow more of what you eat, harvest is not really the end. It is the middle.

Because after harvest comes curing, storing, preserving, cooking, using, and learning what was actually worth growing.

That is the part I am more interested in now.

Not just “Can I grow this?”

But also:

Will we eat it?

Can I store it?

Does it fit into our meals?

Does it hold well?

Was it worth the space?

Did it make my kitchen easier?

Did it help me rely a little less on the grocery store?

Did I enjoy growing it?

Did it become part of our life, or did it just become another garden chore?

That is why storing vegetables without a root cellar matters. Because most of us are not trying to cosplay as an old-fashioned homestead. We are trying to make our gardens more useful in the lives we actually have.

And the lives we actually have are usually a bit messy.

We have normal houses.

Normal storage problems.

Normal kitchens.

Normal schedules.

Normal “where am I supposed to put thirty pounds of potatoes” moments.

So the solution has to be normal too.

You do not need the perfect setup to start.

This is really what I want people to take from this.

You do not need a root cellar to start storing food.

You do not need every answer before you harvest.

You do not need to grow enough to feed your family all winter for it to matter.

You do not need a cold room, matching crates, or a full preservation plan that makes you feel like you accidentally signed up for a second job.

You can start with a box of potatoes.

A braid of garlic.

A few squash on a pantry shelf.

Carrots packed in a tote.

Onions drying in the garage.

Beets in the fridge.

A small batch of storage crops that teaches you what works in your house.

That is enough.

And next year, you can adjust.

Maybe you grow more squash because it stored beautifully.

Maybe you grow fewer carrots because you hated dealing with the bins.

Maybe you choose a better storage onion.

Maybe you realize potatoes are worth the space.

Maybe you decide your fridge is your root cellar and that is perfectly fine for the scale you are growing.

That is how this becomes manageable.

Not by building the perfect system all at once.

By paying attention.

By starting small.

By letting your own garden and kitchen teach you because the point is not to store food the way someone else does. The point is to store what you grow in a way that works for you.

No root cellar required.

Keep Growing!

Beccalynne🧑🏼‍🌾

Here is more to dive into:

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

2 Ways To Gently Keep Growing With Me:

Become a Paid Subscriber (Unlock the Growers Vault): For the cost of a monthly garden centre impulse buy, you can unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly downloads, private essays, seasonal workbooks, and access to the growing Growers Vault of resources designed to help you build a healthier, lower-effort garden.

Explore the Garden Resources I Share : Seasonal notes, how-to guides, soil-building methods, herb-bed layouts, and the real process of growing a backyard garden with ease. These tools are here to help you grow more confidently without overwhelm.

💬 Feel free to like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack users can find it!

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There is a particular kind of pressure that shows up in gardening every spring, and it usually arrives right around the same time as the seed trays.

It is the pressure to start everything yourself.

Every tomato. Every flower. Every onion. Every herb. Every slow-growing, tiny-seeded, slightly fussy little thing that could technically become a plant if you had the space, the patience, the lights, the trays, the potting mix, the time, and the emotional capacity to keep one more thing alive before the garden season has even properly started.

I understand the appeal. I really do.

There is something deeply satisfying about starting seeds. I love watching a tray go from bare soil to tiny green life. I love the first little signs of germination. I love the greenhouse phase. I love seeing a plug tray fill out and become something sturdy enough to plant. It feels hopeful in a way that only spring gardening can feel hopeful.

But I also think there is a point where seed starting stops feeling like a useful skill and starts feeling like a test.

A test of how prepared you are. How self-sufficient you are. How much space you have. How much you can juggle. How much effort you are willing to pour into every single crop before the garden has even asked that much from you.

This year, I am trying to be more honest with myself about what is actually worth starting from seed and what is perfectly fine to buy as a plant.

Which brings me to the leeks.

I didn’t start my own leeks this year.

I bought them as live plants from Richters, in a twelve-pack, and they are going to be planted into the strawberry beds once they arrive.

It is such a small garden decision on the surface. Nothing dramatic. Nothing revolutionary. Just leeks.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this is exactly the kind of practical gardening choice I want to make more often. The kind that makes sense for my space, my season, my actual kitchen, and the way I really garden.

We do not eat enough leeks in this house to justify starting a whole packet of them.

I like leeks. I want some leeks. I can see myself using them in soups, broths, roasted vegetables, and all the cosy fall meals that make you feel like you have your life slightly more together than you probably do. But I do not need dozens of leek seedlings.

I don’t need a whole tray of them under lights.

I don’t need to start them early, babysit them for weeks, harden them off, find space for them, and then figure out what to do with every extra plant I couldn’t bring myself to waste.

A packet of seeds can feel cheaper at first glance and sometimes it absolutely is. If you are growing a large amount of something, saving seeds, succession planting, or feeding a household that uses a crop regularly, starting from seed can make all the sense in the world.

But that’s not always the full math.

The packet is only one part of the cost.

There is also the tray space. The potting mix. The labels. The grow light space. The watering. The thinning. The time. The mental tracking. The remembering. The potting up if they need it. The hardening off when everything else is also demanding attention at the exact same time.

And then there is the quieter cost of starting more than you can actually use.

That is the part I think gardeners understand instantly, even if we do not always say it out loud.

You start a packet because it seems sensible. The seeds germinate. The tray fills out. Suddenly, you have far more plants than you have room for, and now you are doing that little spring shuffle where you are trying to convince yourself that maybe you can squeeze them somewhere.

Maybe along the edge of that bed.

Maybe in a pot.

Maybe tucked between something else.

Maybe you will give them away.

Maybe you will keep them alive a little longer while you decide.

And then, before you know it, this very affordable seed packet has created a small emotional support group of plants you don’t technically have space for.

This is how gardening gets expensive in ways that are not always financial.

Read more

There is something deeply satisfying about growing food that keeps feeding you long after the lush chaos of summer fades.

Not just the fresh-eating tomatoes and handfuls of beans and cucumbers straight from the garden but the crops that stay. The ones you can pull from a shelf, a crate, a cool corner, or a pantry basket in October, November, January, even deeper into winter, and still turn into something hearty, useful, and comforting.

That is where squash and potatoes really shine but not all squash and potato varieties pull their weight the same way.

Some are beautiful but watery. Some store poorly. Some sound lovely in seed catalogues and then end up taking over half the garden just to produce a few fruits nobody in the house is excited to eat. Some potatoes are perfect fresh from the ground but break down the minute you try to store them. Some squash look ornamental and then sit on the counter until spring because nobody knows what to do with them.

When you are growing food with the goal of feeding yourself beyond summer, variety matters. A lot.

This is one of the biggest mindset shifts in the whole Beyond Canning conversation. Preserving food is not only about what you do after harvest. It’s also about what you choose to plant in the first place. If you want a garden that carries you further into fall and winter, you need crops that store well, taste good after storage, and fit the way you actually cook and eat.

Because a gorgeous harvest is one thing.

A harvest that is still useful in November is another.

If you want food that lasts, start by growing with storage in mind

There is a difference between growing for summer abundance and growing for staying power.

Summer abundance is zucchini every day. Baby potatoes dug fresh for dinner. Delicata eaten within a few weeks. Tender, thin-skinned vegetables that are wonderful in the moment.

Staying power is different. Staying power means winter squash with thick skins and dense flesh. Potatoes bred for storage. Varieties that cure well, hold texture, develop flavor over time, and can sit quietly until you need them.

That does not mean every variety has to be a long keeper. There is still room for the fun ones, the early ones, the novelty ones, the “just because I want to try it” ones.

But if your goal is to build a garden that helps feed your household beyond the peak season, your main crops need to earn that space.

So let’s talk about which squash and potato varieties are actually worth growing when you want your harvest to last beyond summer, store beautifully, and still be useful in the kitchen once the garden starts winding down.

The winter squash worth growing when storage matters

Winter squash is one of the best crops for gardeners who want to grow food with real staying power. It feels old-fashioned in the best way. Cure it properly, store it somewhere cool and dry, and it can quietly wait for months while everything else comes and goes.

Even within winter squash, there is a big difference between “stores okay” and “stores like a champion.”

Butternut squash- If I had to name one squash that consistently earns its place in a practical kitchen garden, it would be butternut.

It stores well. It is widely useful. It roasts beautifully. It turns into soup, mash, pasta sauce, curry, risotto, and tray bakes without a fight. It has enough sweetness to feel cozy but not so much that it becomes limiting. The texture stays reliable. The flavor deepens in storage. It is one of the easiest squash to actually use up.

This is the squash for gardeners who do not want decorative produce. This is the squash for people who want dinner.

If you want a dependable workhorse squash, butternut is absolutely worth growing.

Honeynut squash- Honeynut feels like butternut’s smaller, richer cousin.

It is easier to portion for smaller households, the flavor is deeply sweet and concentrated, and it is one of those rare crops that feels both practical and a little bit luxurious. If regular butternut sometimes feels large or inconvenient once cut open, honeynut solves that problem.

It may not produce giant fruits, but what it does produce is incredibly usable. That matters. A lot. Especially when the goal is not just to grow food, but to eat it.

For small households or anyone who likes a more manageable squash size, honeynut pulls its weight.

Kabocha squash- Kabocha is for the gardeners who love dense, dry, velvety squash flesh.

It is not watery. It is not flimsy. It is rich, nutty, and deeply satisfying. Roasted, it becomes almost chestnut-like. In soups, it makes everything feel thicker and more substantial. It is one of the best squash for people who want flavor and texture that feel serious.

Kabocha is also one of those varieties that can really reward patience. It often tastes even better after a bit of storage. That is exactly what you want in a Beyond Canning crop.

If you like squash that feels hearty rather than delicate, kabocha is a strong choice.

Red Kuri- Red Kuri is one of my favorite examples of a squash that is both beautiful and useful.

It has that rich orange-red skin that makes every harvest basket look dreamy, but it is not just a pretty face. The flesh is smooth, sweet, and great for roasting, soups, purees, and warm fall meals. It has a lovely chestnut-like flavor and usually feels more interesting than your average pumpkin.

It also tends to be more kitchen-friendly than some of the giant storage squash. Not too massive. Not too bland. Not too awkward.

If you want something that feels seasonal and special while still being genuinely useful, Red Kuri is worth growing.

Hubbard squash- Now we are getting into serious storage territory.

Hubbard squash are not always the cutest or the easiest to handle. They can be huge. They can be awkward. They can look like something from a pioneer cellar. But they store incredibly well, and that is exactly why they deserve respect.

This is the squash for gardeners who are thinking long-game. If you have the room, the patience, and the willingness to deal with larger fruits, Hubbard can reward you with months of dependable storage.

The flesh is dense and flavorful, excellent for baking, roasting, and soups. It is not the squash I would recommend for everyone, especially if space is tight, but if your priority is maximum shelf life, Hubbard is one of the heavy hitters.

Buttercup squash- Buttercup deserves more love from practical gardeners.

It is compact compared to some of the giants, but the flesh is dense, sweet, and deeply satisfying. It feels more substantial than delicata and more manageable than Hubbard. It stores well and cooks beautifully.

This is a good middle-ground squash. Rich flavour, good storage, and a size that does not feel like a wrestling match on the counter.

If you want a winter squash that feels very worth the space without becoming excessive, Buttercup is a smart choice.

The squash that are delicious, but not really the long-haul champions

Now let’s be fair. Not every good squash is a storage squash.

Some are wonderful, but they are better for early fall eating than deep storage.

Delicata- Delicata is delicious. I love it. It is sweet, easy to roast, and the edible skin makes prep simple. But if your goal is long storage, delicata is not the hero crop.

It is more of an eat-first squash. Grow it because you enjoy it. Grow it because it is useful in the early fall kitchen. Grow it because it tastes good.

Just do not mistake it for the variety that is going to carry you through winter.

Acorn squash- Acorn is another one that can be lovely but is often overrated when it comes to storage and flavour.

Some gardeners adore it, and that is fine. But compared to the richer, denser storage squashes, it does not always deliver the same payoff. The flesh can be less sweet, less smooth, and less exciting. It can store moderately well, but for the garden space it takes, I would usually rather grow something that earns more enthusiasm in the kitchen.

That is really the test, is it not?

Not whether something can technically be stored, but whether you will still be glad to eat it later.

Pie pumpkins and jack-o’-lantern types - These have their place, but many are not the best use of space if your goal is food storage.

Pie pumpkins can absolutely be useful, especially if you bake a lot or make puree, but jack-o’-lantern pumpkins are often more about looks than flavor. They are usually watery, stringy, and not nearly as satisfying as true winter squash varieties bred for eating quality.

If you want storage food, grow food first. Decoration can come second.

What makes a squash variety worth it for the Beyond Canning garden

For me, a storage squash has to do more than survive on a shelf.

It needs to check more than one box.

It needs to cure well. It needs to store well. It needs to taste good after storage. It needs to fit into real meals. It needs to be something you reach for willingly, not something you feel guilty seeing in the corner by January.

That is the whole point.

A variety is worth growing when it moves from garden to pantry to table without becoming a burden.

That is why butternut, honeynut, kabocha, Red Kuri, Buttercup, and some of the longer-storing Hubbards are so valuable. They are not just productive. They remain useful.

The potato varieties worth growing when you want them to last

Potatoes are one of the most grounding crops you can grow.

There is just something about digging potatoes that makes a gardener feel wildly rich. But just like squash, not all potatoes are equal when it comes to storage. Some are best eaten fresh. Some are perfect for summer salads and new potato dinners. Others are built to cure, rest, and feed you later.

If your goal is to grow potatoes for beyond-summer eating, lean toward maincrop and storage varieties rather than only early ones.

Russet types

Russet potatoes are classic storage potatoes for a reason.

They are dependable, starchy, useful, and deeply familiar in the kitchen. These are your baking potatoes, your mash potatoes, your fry potatoes, your hearty soup potatoes. They are not trendy. They are just useful. Beautifully, repeatedly useful.

If your household actually eats baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, oven wedges, or hearty winter meals, russet types earn their place quickly.

They also tend to store better than many thin-skinned early potatoes, especially when cured properly and kept cool, dark, and dry.

For a practical, pantry-style garden, russets are hard to argue against.

Yukon Gold

Yukon Gold is one of the best all-around potatoes you can grow if kitchen versatility matters most.

This is the potato that bridges the gap between waxy and starchy beautifully. Good roasted, good mashed, good in soups, good in casseroles, good in skillet meals. If you want one potato that can do a little bit of everything, Yukon Gold is hard to beat.

It may not be the absolute longest keeper compared to some dedicated storage types, but it stores well enough for many home gardeners and is so useful in the kitchen that it more than earns its space.

This is the kind of variety that disappears because people genuinely want to eat it.

That counts.

Kennebec

Kennebec is one of those varieties that practical gardeners tend to come back to again and again.

It is productive, versatile, and very useful in the kitchen. Great for frying, roasting, mashing, and general cooking. It stores well and has the kind of reliability that makes it appealing for gardeners who do not want to overcomplicate their potato patch.

Kennebec feels like a no-nonsense choice. The kind of potato you grow because it does what you need it to do.

And that, frankly, is the whole theme of this post.

German Butterball

German Butterball is beloved for a reason.

Rich flavor, creamy texture, golden flesh, and strong storage potential make it a favorite for gardeners who want potatoes that feel a little more special while still being highly practical. This is a potato that performs well in the kitchen without feeling basic. Roasted, mashed, or baked, it has substance.

If flavor is a big priority for you and you still want something that stores well, this one is worth looking at.

Red-skinned storage potatoes

Some red potatoes are better for fresh eating, but certain red-skinned varieties can store surprisingly well and offer a smoother, waxier texture for roasting, boiling, or soups.

These are worth growing if your cooking style leans that way. Not every household needs bins of baking potatoes. Some people reach more for roasted wedges, sheet pan dinners, or stews where the potato holds together better.

That is why usefulness in your kitchen matters more than generic advice.

A good storage crop is not just one that keeps. It is one you know how to use.

For the cost of one garden centre impulse buy, you’ll unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly garden downloads, practical mini guides, paid essays, and access to The Growers Vault full of resources designed to help you grow a more abundant, low-effort garden without overcomplicating it.

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The potatoes that shine fresh, but are not always the best long-term keepers

Early potatoes are wonderful. They are also not usually the stars of long storage.

Thin skins, tender texture, and quick maturity make them lovely for summer eating, but they are often best enjoyed sooner rather than later. That does not mean do not grow them. It just means do not build your entire potato plan around them if your goal is winter food.

Fingerlings

Fingerlings are delicious and beautiful and fun. They roast well and feel fancy with very little effort.

But for a serious beyond-summer storage garden, they are often not the most efficient use of space. Yields can be lower, sizes smaller, and storage more variable depending on the variety.

Grow them if you love them. Absolutely. But maybe grow them as a side character, not the lead.

Very early new potatoes

These are for immediate joy. They are not the backbone of a storage pantry.

And that is fine. Every garden needs some crops that are just for the pleasure of the season. The point is simply to know the difference.

What actually makes a potato variety worth growing for storage

When I think about potatoes for the Beyond Canning garden, I want a variety that can handle a few things.

I want it to store well. I want it to be productive enough to feel worthwhile. I want it to have a texture that fits how we cook. I want it to hold up after curing. And I want it to be something I will still be excited to reach for when the garden is asleep.

That is why varieties like russets, Yukon Gold, Kennebec, and German Butterball stand out.

They are not just potatoes you can grow.

They are potatoes you will still appreciate months later.

Grow what you will actually cook

This might be the most important part of the whole conversation.

The best squash and potato varieties are not necessarily the ones with the most romantic descriptions. They are the ones that match your kitchen.

If your family loves soups, rich roasting squash like butternut, Red Kuri, and kabocha make sense.

If you love tray bakes and easy sides, Buttercup and smaller butternut types are incredibly useful.

If you bake potatoes constantly in winter, grow russets.

If you roast vegetables every week and want a versatile all-rounder, Yukon Gold and Kennebec make more sense.

If you want flavor-forward potatoes that still store well, German Butterball deserves a place.

What is worth growing depends on what is worth eating in your house.

That is the real filter.

Not what seed catalogues make sound exciting. Not what looks best on social media. Not what everybody else says you should grow.

What will you actually cook in November?

What will you be grateful to pull from storage in January?

That is your answer.

A Beyond Canning garden starts before harvest

One of the things I keep coming back to in this series is that preserving food starts much earlier than most people think.

It does not start with jars.

It starts with planning.

It starts with choosing varieties that support the life you want your harvest to have after summer. It starts with asking which crops are going to store, cure, and carry forward. It starts with deciding that the garden is not only for the peak season, but for the slower season too.

That is why variety selection matters so much because once the vines die back and the potato plants flop and the air shifts into fall, you want to know that what you grew is going to keep showing up for you.

Not everything has to last for months.

But some things absolutely should and when it comes to squash and potatoes, the varieties that pull their weight are the ones that give you more than a harvest. They give you meals later. They give you options later. They give you one more way to stretch the abundance of the growing season into something steadier, slower, and more sustaining.

That is the kind of harvest I want.

Not just a full garden in August.

A useful one in February too.

If you want to go back and read the earlier pieces, I’ll link them here too. They are a good starting point if you’re new to curing, storing, or even thinking about growing crops specifically for winter storage.

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

2 Ways To Gently Keep Growing With Me:

Become a Paid Subscriber (Unlock the Growers Vault): For the cost of a monthly garden centre impulse buy, you can unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly downloads, private essays, seasonal workbooks, and access to the growing Growers Vault of resources designed to help you build a healthier, lower-effort garden.

Explore the Garden Resources I Share : Seasonal notes, how-to guides, soil-building methods, herb-bed layouts, and the real process of growing a backyard garden with ease. These tools are here to help you grow more confidently without overwhelm.

💬 Feel free to like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack users can find it!

Share

I got married over the weekend, which still feels strange and lovely to type, and somewhere between all the emotion, family, celebrating, and trying to return to normal life, I found myself thinking about the garden again. Not in a “rush outside and get everything done” kind of way, but in that quiet, grounding way the garden has of pulling me back into the season I am actually living in.

May does not pause just because life gets full.

The plants keep growing. The weeds keep appearing. The seedlings keep asking to be hardened off, planted out, watered, or at least acknowledged. The garden keeps moving forward in its own steady way.

This year, I decided I want to pay closer attention to what it gives back.

Not just in the vague way I usually do, where I know I harvested tomatoes and cucumbers and beans and herbs, but could not tell you what it all added up to if my life depended on it. I want to actually know.

This season, I am aiming to grow 100 pounds of food from my garden.

Not because I think every home garden needs to become a production machine. Not because I believe every cucumber needs to be weighed and documented like it is applying for a passport. And not because I am trying to pretend I am self-sufficient.

I am not.

I still buy groceries. I still forget things in the fridge. I still grow crops because they are pretty, sentimental, experimental, or because I convinced myself in January that this was absolutely going to be the year I became a different kind of person.

But I am curious.

I want to know what my garden can actually do.

Why I’m Measuring My Garden Harvests This Year

I think a lot of us underestimate what our gardens produce.

We remember the big harvests. The baskets of tomatoes. The squash that suddenly appears under a leaf like it has been living a secret life. The armfuls of cucumbers. The beans that need picking every other day in the heat of summer.

Those harvests are easy to remember because they feel dramatic but the little harvests disappear quickly.

The handful of baby kale tucked into wraps. The green onions snipped for dinner. The herbs tossed into pasta sauce. The lettuce leaves picked before lunch. The peas eaten outside before they ever make it into the house. The one cucumber sliced onto a plate. The strawberries eaten warm from the sun.

Those count too.

They count because they fed us. They count because they came from the soil we cared for. They count because small harvests are still harvests, even when they are not impressive enough for a basket photo.

That is part of why I want to track it this year. I do not want the garden’s abundance to vanish into my memory before I get a chance to notice it.

This Is Not About Turning the Garden Into Homework

I know the second we start talking about weighing harvests, it can sound like another thing to manage.

Another chart. Another habit. Another “good gardener” task to keep up with.

That is not what I want this to be.

I am not interested in making gardening feel more complicated than it needs to be. I do not want a system that makes me feel guilty if I forget to write down a handful of herbs or a cucumber I ate standing at the counter.

This is meant to be simple.

Pick the food. Weigh it if you want to. Write it down. Keep moving.

The goal is not perfection.

The goal is awareness.

When you start paying attention, even casually, you begin to see patterns you would have missed otherwise you notice which crops quietly feed you all season.

You notice which plants take up a lot of space but do not really fit the way your family eats.

You notice which crops are worth growing because they are heavy producers, and which ones are worth growing because they are expensive to buy, taste better fresh, store well, support pollinators, or simply make you happy.

Not everything in the garden has to earn its place by weight.

That matters to me.

The Garden Is Practical and Emotional at the Same Time

One of the things I love most about gardening is that it can be wildly practical and deeply emotional at the exact same time.

It can feed your family and still be full of flowers.

It can be useful without being perfect.

It can be productive without becoming rigid.

It can be a place of grief, joy, experimentation, beauty, frustration, and food security all at once.

That is why I like this 100-pound goal. It gives me something fun to measure, but it does not take the meaning out of the garden. A pound of tomatoes is wonderful, but so is a handful of herbs that makes dinner taste better. A heavy squash harvest is exciting, but so are the first peas eaten outside in spring.

A productive crop is not always the most loved crop.

A small crop is not always a failure.

The number is just one way of paying attention and that is really what this experiment is about.

What Counts as a Garden Harvest?

For this experiment, I am counting anything edible that comes from the garden and gets used.

Vegetables count.

Fruit counts.

Herbs count.

Perennial foods count.

Ugly produce counts.

Tiny harvests count.

Food eaten straight from the garden counts.

Food gifted to someone else counts.

Food frozen, dried, stored, or preserved counts.

If it came from the garden and served a purpose, it counts.

I think that is important because home gardens do not always produce in neat, dramatic batches. Most of the time, they feed us in little moments.

A few green onions here.

A bowl of lettuce there.

A cucumber for lunch.

A few beans for dinner.

A handful of herbs while the pasta boils.

That is the rhythm of a real garden.

I want to stop dismissing those small harvests just because they do not look like much on their own.

What I Hope to Learn From This

The 100-pound number is fun, but the real value is in what it teaches me.

I want to know what actually produces well in my garden without being babied. I want to know what handles my soil, my weather, my methods, and my level of effort. I want to know what we actually eat instead of what I imagine we should eat.

Because January garden planning has a way of making us believe we are going to become entirely different people.

Suddenly we think we are going to eat endless radishes, preserve everything, cook with crops we barely use, and make perfect succession planting plans like we do not also have laundry, family, weather, pets, random life events, and the occasional garden centre impulse purchase.

By the end of the season, I want a clearer picture.

What did we eat the most?

What was worth the space?

What surprised me?

What barely produced?

What produced heavily but did not actually get used?

What do I want more of next year?

What can I grow less of?

That kind of information is useful. It helps me make better choices next season. Not based on fantasy garden planning, but based on what actually happened.

Food Security Can Start Small

I know growing 100 pounds of food sounds like a big goal, but I do not see it as an all-or-nothing thing.

I am not trying to replace the grocery store.

I am not trying to prove that a small home garden can do everything.

I am not trying to make gardening feel like a survivalist math problem.

But I do think there is something powerful about knowing your garden can give something back.

Maybe it is not everything.

Maybe it is not enough to fill a pantry.

Maybe it does not dramatically change your grocery bill.

But it can still be something.

A meal.

A side dish.

A snack.

A bag for the freezer.

A squash stored for later.

A handful of herbs.

A bowl of tomatoes.

A little less bought.

A little more grown.

That matters.

Especially when food feels expensive, disconnected, and fragile. There is something grounding about stepping outside and seeing food growing in your own space. Even if it is imperfect. Even if it is small. Even if it is just enough for dinner.

That is still abundance.

The Real Harvest Is What You Notice

I would love to reach 100 pounds this year.

I would love to watch the number climb through the season and see which crops carried the most weight. I would love to get to the end of the year and say, “Look what this garden did.”

But even if I don’t reach it, I still think the experiment will be worth it because I’ll know more than I knew before.

I will know my garden better. I will know our eating habits better. I will know what we used, what we loved, what we ignored, and what deserves a second chance.

That is the kind of knowledge that makes a garden better year after year.

So this season, I am counting the harvests.

The big ones. The tiny ones. The impressive ones. The awkward ones. The ones eaten in the garden before they ever reach the kitchen.

All of it counts.

Because the garden is always giving us information.

Sometimes it gives it in pounds.

Sometimes it gives it in handfuls.

Sometimes it gives it in one perfect tomato eaten over the sink and this year, I want to remember all of it.

I would love to see more gardeners try this alongside me this season.

Not because your garden has to hit 100 pounds or every harvest needs to become a perfect little data point because I think there is something really powerful about noticing what your garden is already giving you.

Choose your own number. Make it 10 pounds, 25 pounds, 50 pounds, 100 pounds, or no number at all. Let it be casual. Let it be imperfect. Let it be something you do because you are curious, not because you need one more thing to keep up with.

I want to see the handfuls of greens, the first cucumbers, the herbs tossed into dinner, the weirdly shaped carrots, the squash that suddenly appears out of nowhere, and the tomatoes eaten before they make it inside.

I want to see what your garden gives back too.

So if you want to join me in this little harvest experiment, I created a simple logbook to help you record it all season long. It gives you a place to write down what you harvest, keep a running total if you want one, and look back at what was actually worth the space when the season is over.

Because the garden is already telling us a story.

This is just a way to write it down.

For the cost of one garden centre impulse buy, you’ll unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly garden downloads, practical mini guides, paid essays, and access to The Growers Vault full of resources designed to help you grow a more abundant, low-effort garden without overcomplicating it.

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I have always been pretty good at growing things one at a time.

A row of beans. A patch of lettuce. A tomato plant that does what tomato plants do. A zucchini that becomes everyone’s problem by August. I can grow a crop, harvest it, feel proud of it, and move on. That part of gardening feels familiar to me now. I understand the rhythm of starting seeds, planting them out, watching them settle in, watering when I need to, and getting a harvest when the season allows.

But this year I am trying to stretch myself a little.

Not in a dramatic, turn-my-garden-into-a-full-time-job kind of way. I’m not suddenly becoming the person who weighs every radish and makes a spreadsheet for every pea pod, although, let’s be real, I’m aiming to grow 100 pounds of food this season just for fun. Mostly because I want to see if I can.

And I am not shy to admit that I need a little help and understanding to get there because growing food is one thing. Growing more food from the same space, with better timing, better partnerships, better use of the season, and fewer wasted gaps is another thing entirely.

That is where I feel like I am right now.

I know how to grow singularly. I know how to harvest and be done with it but I want to get better at seeing the garden as a living, layered, moving system. I want to stop thinking of each crop as its own isolated thing and start paying more attention to what can grow beside it, after it, under it, around it, and because of it.

So I have been reading.

The two books that have been sitting with me the most lately are Grow Together: 50 Planting Partnerships to Boost Your Harvests by Charles Dowding and How to Grow Food: Your Crop-by-Crop Guide to Growing, Cooking, & Preserving by Huw Richards and Sam Cooper.

What I love about reading gardening books at this point in my life is that I am not reading them like a beginner who needs every single answer handed to me. I am reading them as someone who already has dirt under her nails, mistakes in her past, opinions that have been earned, and a garden that has taught me plenty the hard way.

I’m not looking for someone to tell me how to garden from scratch.

I’m looking for little pieces that make me go, oh. That would actually help me.

That is the difference.

Sometimes we outgrow the beginner advice, but that does not mean we outgrow learning. It just means the learning becomes more specific. More layered. More personal. Less about following rules and more about finding the missing links in your own garden.

For me, the missing link is not starting seeds. It is not getting a tomato plant to grow. It is not understanding that beans climb, zucchini sprawls, and lettuce bolts when the weather gets rude.

The missing link is rhythm.

How do I make the most of the spring garden before summer crops take over?

How do I use the space under taller plants instead of leaving it bare?

How do I pair plants in a way that actually makes sense, not in a Pinterest-chart kind of way, but in a real garden, real weather, real harvest kind of way?

How do I stop growing something, harvesting it once, and then staring at an empty patch of soil like the season is over when it is absolutely not over?

That is where Grow Together has been especially interesting to me. I have always had mixed feelings about companion planting advice because sometimes it gets presented like garden astrology. Plant this with that because they are best friends. Never plant these two beside each other because they are enemies. The basil loves the tomato. The carrot hates the dill. The marigold is apparently carrying the entire vegetable garden on her back.

Listen, I love a marigold but I also need gardening advice to have a little more backbone than vibes. What I appreciate about the idea of planting partnerships is that it pushes me to think less about magical combinations and more about practical relationships.

Can one crop shade another?

Can one crop finish before the other needs the space?

Can one plant grow vertically while another stays low?

Can I use quick crops between slower crops?

Can flowers bring in more pollinators while also making the garden feel alive and beautiful?

For the cost of one garden centre impulse buy, you’ll unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly garden downloads, practical mini guides, paid essays, and access to The Growers Vault full of resources designed to help you grow a more abundant, low-effort garden without overcomplicating it.

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Can I stop treating bare soil like an acceptable default?

That is the kind of thinking I want more of this season.

Because if I am trying to grow 100 pounds of food, I don’t just need more plants. I need better timing. I need better use of space. I need to grow food in a way that keeps the garden moving.

The goal is not to cram every square inch so full that I cannot walk through it by July. I have done enough chaotic planting to know that more plants does not always mean more harvest. Sometimes more plants just means more mildew, more pests, more stress, and one very dramatic squash vine trying to claim property rights.

What I want is a garden that is full in a thoughtful way.

A garden where the peas get their moment on the trellis before the heat takes them out. A garden where lettuce, radishes, herbs, onions, and greens can tuck into spaces without becoming the whole personality of the bed. A garden where my tomatoes and squash are not just standing alone like little crop islands, but part of something bigger.

And then How to Grow Food adds another layer because it doesn’t just stop at growing. It carries the thought through to harvesting, cooking, and preserving.

That matters to me.

Because growing 100 pounds of food is fun as a garden challenge, but I don’t want to grow 100 pounds of food that I don’t actually use. I am not interested in producing a harvest that becomes a guilt pile on the counter. I want the garden to connect to our actual life. What we eat. What stores well. What I can preserve without turning August into a canning-based hostage situation.

That is where I think crop-by-crop learning is really useful.

It reminds me that every vegetable has its own rhythm. Some are quick and fleeting. Some are storage crops. Some are best eaten fresh. Some can be frozen, dried, fermented, cured, or tucked away for later. Some are worth growing because they are expensive to buy. Some are worth growing because they taste better from the garden. Some are worth growing because they quietly feed you for weeks without asking for much.

And some are worth skipping because you don’t actually eat enough of them to justify the space.

That last one is a lesson I keep learning.

It is so easy to get pulled into growing things because they are pretty, popular, or because everyone else is starting them in February with great enthusiasm. But the more I garden, the more I want my space to reflect our actual home, not someone else’s content calendar.

This is why I like reading gardening books with my own garden in mind.

I don’t take everything as a command. I take it as a conversation.

I can read about planting partnerships and think, okay, how does this apply to my beds, my drought, my space, my soil, my trellises, my weird little garden experiments?

I can read about growing and preserving crop-by-crop and think, okay, what do we actually eat, what stores well for us, what can I realistically handle, and what would make this season feel abundant without making me resent my own harvest?

That is the sweet spot I am trying to find.

More food, yes.

But not more pressure.

More understanding, yes.

But not more perfection.

More intentional planting, yes.

But not a garden that feels like it needs a project manager and a whiteboard.

I still want my garden to feel like mine. Slightly chaotic. Soil-first. Full of experiments. Full of plants that earn their place and a few that are allowed to stay simply because I love them. But I also want to become a better grower. Not in the polished, expert, everything-is-measured way. More in the quiet way. The way where I notice patterns. Where I learn what follows what. Where I start to understand which crops help me stretch the season and which combinations make the garden feel more productive without making it more complicated.

That is the part that excites me.

Because the 100-pound goal is really just a fun little challenge. A number to chase. A reason to pay attention. A way to make the season feel playful.

The deeper goal is learning how to harvest better from what I already have.

I don’t want to build a bigger garden every time I want more food. I want to understand the garden I have more deeply. I want to use the beds better. I want to think about empty spaces differently. I want to stop seeing harvesting as the end of a crop and start seeing it as part of the next decision.

What gets planted after this?

What could have grown here while this was maturing?

What did this plant leave behind?

What did it teach me?

That feels like the real shift.

I am moving from growing plants to growing systems.

That does sound fancy but it doesn’t have to be. It can be as simple as tucking radishes between slower crops. Starting greens in plug trays so they are ready to go when space opens. Using trellises so vines go up instead of out. Planting flowers where pollinators will actually find them. Choosing crops that feed us beyond one harvest. Paying attention to what stores, what repeats, what fills gaps, and what makes sense for the way we live.

It is still low-effort gardening.

It is just low-effort with a little more strategy and maybe that is what I am craving this year. Not a harder garden. A smarter one.

A garden that gives more because I am finally learning how to ask better questions.

A garden that is not just planted, but planned enough to be generous.

A garden where the books I read do not stay as ideas on a page, but become little experiments in the soil. A pairing here. A succession there. A better use of the trellis. A crop chosen because we will actually eat it. A harvest weighed not because I need proof, but because I want to see what this little patch of earth and effort can do.

I already know I can grow food.

Now I want to learn how to grow food better.

And I think that is the kind of gardener I want to keep becoming. Not the one who has it all figured out, but the one who keeps paying attention. The one who reads, tries, adjusts, and still leaves room for surprise.

Because the garden is never just about what you know.

Sometimes it is about being willing to admit what you are ready to learn next.

Happy Plantings!

Beccalynne.

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

2 Ways To Gently Keep Growing With Me:

Become a Paid Subscriber (Unlock the Growers Vault): For the cost of a monthly garden centre impulse buy, you can unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly downloads, private essays, seasonal workbooks, and access to the growing Growers Vault of resources designed to help you build a healthier, lower-effort garden.

Explore the Garden Resources I Share : Seasonal notes, how-to guides, soil-building methods, herb-bed layouts, and the real process of growing a backyard garden with ease. These tools are here to help you grow more confidently without overwhelm.

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Every time the season starts to shift and seed-starting season comes creeping back in, I swear the internet starts doing that thing again.

The thing where suddenly there are ten thousand posts telling you the right way to start seeds.

You should be soil blocking.

You should not be using plastic.

You should be using plug trays.

You should never use plug trays.

You should be making seed snails.

You should be upcycling everything.

You should be buying better trays.

You should be avoiding this, doing that, switching methods, changing your whole setup, rethinking your entire life over a tomato seedling.

Listen - I love a good seed-starting experiment. I love seeing what other gardeners are trying. I love when people find a method that makes their season easier, cheaper, cleaner, faster, or more enjoyable.

But the second it turns into this is the right way to do it, my soul leaves my body a little because seed starting is not a moral purity test.

It is not a personality exam.

It is not a place where every gardener needs to perform perfection for the internet.

It is literally just the beginning of growing plants and the best method is the one that gives you the results you are looking for.

That is it.

That is the whole thing.

Some people love soil blocking because it uses less plastic, creates beautiful root systems, and feels very tidy once you get the hang of it. Some people love plug trays because they are easy, efficient, and make it simple to start a lot of plants in a small space. Some people use pots because they already have them. Some people use red solo cups because they are cheap, deep, and surprisingly useful. Some people make seed snails because they save space and are fun to experiment with. Some people use old strawberry containers, yogurt cups, takeout trays, milk jugs, bins, or whatever else they have lying around.

And all of those can work.

That is the part I think we forget.

There are so many ways to start seeds, but they only matter if they fit your garden, your house, your budget, your attention span, your storage situation, your lighting setup, and your actual life.

I know a lot of the conversation comes from a good place. I really do. A lot of gardeners care deeply about waste, plastic, buying less, reusing more, and protecting the environment. I care about those things too. My whole gardening style leans heavily into using what I have, feeding the soil, wasting less, and making the garden feel more like a closed loop.

I also think we need to be careful when helpful conversations turn into shame because gardening should not be made to feel impossible because someone else has decided their beliefs are the only acceptable way to grow.

I use what I have.

I use what works.

For me, that means plug trays, pots, bins, and yes, sometimes repurposed strawberry containers for onions. It means I might start something in one container, pot it up into another, move it to the greenhouse for a few days, and then plant it out when it feels strong enough. It means my setup is not always beautiful, aesthetic, or perfectly matched. It means sometimes my garden looks like a nursery aisle, a recycling bin, and a tiny farm had a group project together.

And yet, the plants grow.

Wild how that works.

Let’s get into the types of seed starting methods.

Soil Blocking

Soil blocking is one of those seed-starting methods that has a very devoted fan club, and I understand why. It can be a beautiful system once you figure it out. You press damp soil mix into blocks, pop them out, and start seeds directly in those little cubes of soil. No individual pots needed.

The big appeal is that soil blocks reduce plastic use and can help prevent roots from circling inside a container. When the roots reach the edge of the block, they tend to air prune instead of wrapping around and around. For some gardeners, that means stronger transplants and less transplant shock.

But soil blocking also has a learning curve. The mix has to be the right texture. The moisture has to be right. The blocks need to hold together. They can dry out faster than seedlings in containers. You need trays to hold them, space to manage them, and patience if you are just getting started.

So while soil blocking can be wonderful, it is not automatically the best choice for every gardener.

If you love it, beautiful.

If it makes you want to throw the whole tray into the compost pile, also valid.

Plug Trays

Plug trays are probably my favourite seed-starting method right now because they are practical. They make sense for how I grow. I can start a lot of seedlings in one place, keep things organized, move trays around easily, and then pot up what needs more space.

They are especially handy when you are starting a lot of the same thing, like brassicas, herbs, flowers, onions, lettuce, or anything you want to grow in batches. They are neat without being fussy, and once you already have the trays, you can reuse them year after year if you take care of them.

I like that plug trays give each seedling its own little space. I can see what germinated, what failed, what needs potting up, and what is ready to move on. It keeps the chaos contained, which is saying something because seed-starting chaos is real.

The downside is that plug trays can dry out quickly, especially the smaller cells. Some plants will outgrow them fast. If you leave seedlings in too long, they can get rootbound or stressed. But that is not really a plug tray problem. That is a timing problem.

And timing is part of learning your own system.

Pots

Pots are the classic for a reason. They work.

Small pots, nursery pots, old pots from perennials, washed-out containers, whatever you have. Pots give seedlings more room than small plug trays, which can be helpful for plants that need to grow indoors longer before planting out.

Tomatoes, peppers, basil, coleus, flowers, and larger seedlings often do well when they are potted up into bigger containers after germination. You do not always need to start everything in a large pot, but having pots around makes the whole seed-starting process more flexible.

This is where I think people overcomplicate things. You do not need a perfectly matched set of seed-starting containers to grow strong plants. You need drainage, decent seed-starting mix, light, water, and a little attention.

The plant does not care if the pot matches the tray.

The tomato seedling is not sitting there judging your aesthetic.

The Trusty Red Solo Cup

The red solo cup deserves more respect in the gardening world.

Is it fancy? No.

Is it compostable? Also no.

Does it work? Absolutely.

For plants that need a deeper root run or a little more space before transplanting, solo cups can be incredibly useful. Tomatoes especially do well in deeper containers because you can bury part of the stem when potting up, encouraging more root growth along the buried stem.

The key is drainage. You need holes in the bottom. No drainage, no peace. That is where things can go sideways fast because seedlings do not want to sit in soggy soil.

But with drainage holes added, solo cups can be reused for several seasons if you are careful with them. They stack easily, they are cheap, and they are accessible and that matters.

Not every gardener has the budget to buy specialty seed-starting supplies. Not every gardener has a greenhouse, grow racks, matching trays, or a perfectly planned setup. Sometimes you start with what is in the cupboard.

That counts.

For the cost of one garden centre impulse buy, you’ll unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly garden downloads, practical mini guides, paid essays, and access to The Growers Vault full of resources designed to help you grow a more abundant, low-effort garden without overcomplicating it.

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Seed Snails

Seed snails are one of those methods that feel a little strange until you try them. The idea is usually to roll seeds into a strip of material with soil or paper, creating a spiral that can sit upright in a container. They can save space and make it easier to start certain crops without using a bunch of pots right away.

Some gardeners love them for onions, leeks, herbs, greens, or crops that do not need a ton of space at first. They can be a clever way to germinate seeds in a small footprint.

But again, they are not magic.

They can dry out. They can get messy. They can be annoying to unroll if the roots tangle. Some people will love them. Some people will try them once and immediately return to plug trays with renewed loyalty.

That is the beauty of trying different methods.

You are not signing a lifetime contract.

You are allowed to experiment and then quietly never do it again.

Repurposed Containers

This is where I live most comfortably as a gardener.

I love using what I already have.

Strawberry containers for onions. Old nursery pots. Bins. Trays. Plastic containers with holes added. Anything that can hold soil, drain properly, and support a seedling for a few weeks has potential.

Repurposing containers is not just about saving money, although that helps. It is also about remembering that gardening does not need to start with a shopping list. Sometimes the best seed-starting supplies are already in your house.

That said, repurposed containers still need to function. Drainage matters. Cleanliness matters, especially if you have had disease issues. Depth matters depending on the crop. A tiny shallow container might work for onion seedlings, but it might not be ideal for something that needs more root room.

Using what you have does not mean using things that make your life harder.

It means looking at what is available and asking, “Can this do the job?”

Sometimes the answer is yes.

Sometimes the answer is absolutely not, and that container can go live another life somewhere else.

The Environment Conversation Is Real, But So Is Real Life

I think this is where seed-starting conversations get a little prickly.

Because yes, plastic use is worth thinking about. Waste is worth thinking about. Buying less is worth thinking about. Reusing what we have is worth thinking about. I do not want gardening to become another hyper-consumerist hobby where every season requires a fresh cart full of things we supposedly need.

But I also do not think shaming gardeners is the answer.

A gardener reusing the same plastic plug trays for ten years is not the villain.

A gardener starting seeds in solo cups because that is what they can afford is not doing gardening wrong.

A gardener buying soil blockers because they want to reduce plastic is not being dramatic.

A gardener using old strawberry containers instead of buying new trays is not being cheap. They are being resourceful.

There is room for all of it.

The problem is not that different methods exist. The problem is when people turn their preferred method into a rule everyone else is expected to follow.

That is where I tap out because gardening already has enough variables. Weather, pests, soil, timing, light, space, money, energy, animals, kids, work, life. We do not need to add a layer of guilt over which container we started our basil in.

The Best Seed-Starting Method Is the One You Can Repeat

That is my real test now.

Not what looks best online.

Not what someone else says is the most sustainable.

Not what is trending.

Not what makes me feel like I am performing gardening correctly.

The best seed-starting method is the one I can repeat without making my life harder.

For me, that means plug trays for a lot of crops. Pots for potting up. Bins when I need to group things together. Repurposed containers when they make sense. Sometimes it means trying something new just to see if I like it. Sometimes it means admitting a method is not for me and moving on.

Seed starting should support the garden, not become an obstacle course before the garden even begins.

If soil blocking makes you excited to start seeds, use soil blocks.

If plug trays keep you organized, use plug trays.

If red solo cups are what you have, poke some holes in the bottom and carry on.

If seed snails make your onions easier, roll them up and let them do their little spiral thing.

If old strawberry containers are sitting there ready to be useful, give them a job.

The seedlings do not need perfection.

They need enough.

And most of the time, so do we.

Start Where You Are

I think that is the part I keep coming back to.

Start where you are.

Use what you have.

Pay attention to what works.

Adjust what does not.

That is gardening.

Not the internet version where everyone is suddenly an expert with a rulebook. The real version. The one that happens on kitchen counters, under grow lights, in greenhouses, on windowsills, in reused containers, with labels that may or may not survive the season.

Seed starting is allowed to be practical. It is allowed to be messy. It is allowed to be experimental. It is allowed to look different from someone else’s setup.

Because the goal is not to win the seed-starting Olympics.

The goal is to grow the plants you actually want to grow and if your method gets you there, then it is working.

Happy Planting!

Beccalynne.

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

2 Ways To Gently Keep Growing With Me:

Become a Paid Subscriber (Unlock the Growers Vault): For the cost of a monthly garden centre impulse buy, you can unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly downloads, private essays, seasonal workbooks, and access to the growing Growers Vault of resources designed to help you build a healthier, lower-effort garden.

Explore the Garden Resources I Share : Seasonal notes, how-to guides, soil-building methods, herb-bed layouts, and the real process of growing a backyard garden with ease. These tools are here to help you grow more confidently without overwhelm.

💬 Feel free to like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack users can find it!

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There is a certain type of garden work that makes you feel like you are either very connected to the land or slowly losing your mind.

Removing invasive and aggressive weeds naturally is one of those jobs.

It is not glamorous. It is not usually fast. It does not come with the instant gratification of spraying something and watching it shrivel. It is usually just you, a shovel, damp spring soil, a pile of roots, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing you are slowly winning a very annoying battle.

On our small half acre property, I have dealt with a few weeds that have tested my patience more than others. Bull thistles. Regular thistles. Burrs, which most people know as burdock and Zebra grass. The kind of plants that don’t politely stay where they were put. The kind that show up in property lines, along fences, in neglected patches, in the edges of beds, and anywhere you would prefer to walk barefoot without making direct eye contact with regret.

I get why people reach for the hard stuff. I do. When you are looking at a hillside, a fence line, or an entire patch of aggressive growth, it is tempting to want the quickest possible solution but I cannot imagine spraying my whole property with glyphosate just to deal with plants I technically can remove with time, repetition, a shovel, and a slightly stubborn personality.

It feels like fighting toxic with more toxic.

That is not the way I want to garden.

So this is how I have been removing invasive and aggressive weeds naturally on my property. Not perfectly. Not instantly. Not with a shiny miracle method. Just with observation, timing, persistence, and working with the basic truth that plants need foliage to survive.

Because once you understand that, weed removal starts to feel a lot less like chaos.

It starts to feel like strategy

The simple idea that changed how I deal with aggressive weeds

The biggest thing I keep coming back to is this:

If the plant does not have foliage, it cannot harvest energy to keep growing.

That is the whole game.

Plants need leaves to photosynthesize. They need that energy to feed the roots, strengthen the crown, spread, flower, seed, and come back stronger. So when you repeatedly remove the foliage, pull the young plant, dig out the crown, or pop the taproot before it has a chance to mature, you are forcing that plant to spend its stored energy trying to survive.

If you keep doing that, eventually it runs out.

This is especially true with thistles and burdock.

When they are young, they are much easier to deal with. Their taproots are not as deep. The soil is usually still moist in early spring. You can often pull them by hand, or at least get enough of the root that they don’t come roaring back like some villain in a garden-themed horror movie.

But if you let them mature for a whole season, they become a different beast. That taproot drives deeper into the ground. The plant gets bigger. The leaves get nastier. The seed heads become a problem. Suddenly what could have been a quick spring pull is now a full-body shovel situation.

Ask me how I know.

Start early, especially in spring when the soil is still moist

Spring is the best time to get ahead of thistles and burdock.

Not because spring is magical, although it kind of is but because the soil is usually softer, wetter, and more forgiving. When aggressive weeds first pop up, they haven’t had time to fully anchor themselves for the season.

This is when I like to walk the property line, garden edges, fence areas, and any less-maintained spots with my eyes open. I am not doing a full formal inspection because that sounds awful. I am just wandering around the yard like a person pretending not to be annoyed by what she finds.

Young burdock and thistles are much easier to pull at this stage.

Sometimes you can grab low, pull slowly, and get the whole taproot. That is the dream. Other times, especially with thistles, you need a hand shovel or regular shovel to loosen the soil first. The goal is to disturb the root system enough that the plant cannot just shrug and keep going.

When the taproot comes out clean, it is weirdly satisfying.

When it doesn’t, I still count it as progress because removing the foliage and cutting off growth means the plant has to spend energy trying again.

That matters.

A lot of natural weed control is not about one dramatic moment. It is about exhausting the plant over time.

Never let them seed

This is the part where I become very serious.

Do not let them seed.

Ever.

If you are dealing with thistles, burdock, bull thistles, or any aggressive plant that spreads easily, letting it flower and go to seed is basically signing yourself up for next year’s problem. Maybe the year after that too.

Burdock especially is rude about it.

Those burrs cling to clothing, pets, wildlife, hair, and anything else that brushes past them. They are designed to travel. They are designed to become your problem in more places than one.

So if the plants are already big and you cannot fully remove them right away, at the very least, do not let them seed.

Cut the flowers. Remove the seed heads. Dig them before they mature. Do whatever you have to do to stop them from making more of themselves.

That alone can change the pressure over time because there is a huge difference between removing a few surviving plants and dealing with an entire new generation of them every year.

The shovel method for bigger plants

When thistles and burdock size up, hand pulling is not always realistic.

This is when I bring in the shovel.

For bigger plants, I like to get the shovel down beside the root and push in deep enough to loosen the soil around it. Then I lever the plant up. Sometimes it makes this satisfying popping sound, like the plant has finally admitted defeat.

I love that sound.

With burdock especially, it can feel like popping out a stubborn root vegetable. A very annoying, not invited root vegetable.

If I can remove the whole taproot, great. If I can’t, I still take the crown and foliage. Again, the point is to stop the plant from feeding itself. If it tries to come back, I remove it again.

This is the part people don’t always want to hear with natural weed removal. You may have to do it more than once.

But that does not mean it is not working.

It means the plant still had stored energy and tried again.

So you make it try again.

And again.

Until it can’t.

Using the weeds as green manure

When I pull or dig these weeds before they have gone to seed, I often leave them right where they are to decompose.

Green manure, but make it petty.

If the plant hasn't seeded and I am not worried about it rerooting, I let it break down in place. The nutrients it pulled from the soil can go back into the soil. The organic matter returns. The ground gets covered. The worms and microbes get something to work with.

This is one of those little mindset shifts that makes a big difference for me.

The weed is not just an enemy. It is also biomass.

If I catch it at the right stage, it becomes part of the soil-building cycle.

That feels much more satisfying than bagging everything up and sending it away.

Of course, I don’t do this with mature seed heads. I am not trying to lovingly mulch my garden with next year’s headache. But young pulled weeds, chopped foliage, and plants removed before seed can absolutely become part of the system.

My grass clipping method after pulling and digging

Once I have pulled, dug, and popped out as much as I can, I like to cover the area.

This is where grass clippings come in.

After that first fresh grass cut of the season, I start using clippings as mulch in problem areas. I lay them down thick, usually around 3 to 5 inches if I have enough.

Sometimes that doesn’t happen with the first cut. This is fine. I just keep adding over the season.

A thick layer of grass clippings does a few things.

It covers the soil, which helps suppress new weed seeds from germinating. It blocks light from reaching tiny regrowth. It keeps the soil moist, which supports soil life. It also makes any surviving thistles or burdock work harder to push through.

This is not a perfect, one-and-done solution. Nothing is but it changes the conditions and changing the conditions is a huge part of natural weed management.

If aggressive weeds thrive in bare, disturbed, neglected patches, then my job is to make those areas less open, less easy, and less inviting.

A thick layer of grass clippings is simple, free, and already available on our property.

That is my favourite kind of solution.

How I dealt with a property line full of burdock

Burdock has been one of the bigger battles on our property.

For the last three years, I have pulled, dug, mulched, and popped my way through a property line full of burr bushes and when I say full, I mean the kind of patch where you look at it and briefly consider pretending you did not see it.

But I stayed on it.

Every spring, I pulled the young ones. When the bigger ones showed up, I dug them out. I stopped them from seeding. I used the foliage as green manure when it was safe to do so. I covered the area with clippings. Then I watched for regrowth and dealt with it again.

It was not instant.

But now?

You would never know burdock was once a real issue there.

Some still find their way through because of course they do. Nature loves a loophole but now they are simple to hand pull. They are not a giant patch. They are not taking over. They are not creating a burr nightmare.

That is what success looks like to me. Not total perfection. Just making the problem smaller, easier, and less powerful every year.

Thistles are easier, until they are not

Regular thistles show up here and there on our property, but they’re not usually rampant. They’re annoying mostly because we like to walk around the yard barefoot, and thistles are very committed to ruining that lifestyle.

Most regular thistles are easy enough to pull when they are young. I will grab them with gloves, pull low, and move on with my day. If they snap, I come back later and deal with the regrowth.

Bull thistles, though?

Bull thistles are different.

They are big. They are sneaky. They have a way of hiding until suddenly they look like they have been training for battle.

This year I found five along the property line we share with the neighbour and a few more in our lawn. That told me somewhere nearby, one had not been dealt with and had seeded out.

I have a sneaky suspicion some of it is coming from the neighbour’s side because that fence line borders a horse field and an unmaintained garden bed. It is the kind of area that makes sense for thistles to show up. There are cedars, a strange bed with a juniper, boxwood, lilac, a burning bush tree, and a random cedar at the end.

It doesn’t really bother me in a dramatic way because I know it is probably a pain for them to maintain too. Every property has its weird neglected edges. Ours certainly does.

But it does mean I have to stay on my side of the fence line.

That is also the area where I plan to plant hydrangeas because I am very tired of looking at the gross bottoms of the cedars. If I can turn a weedy, awkward property line into a softer hydrangea hedge, that feels like a win in every direction.

Less thistle pressure.

More flowers.

Less staring at cedar legs.

Zebra grass is its own little nightmare

Zebra grass is one of those plants that makes you understand why people have trust issues with ornamental grasses.

It can behave a lot like Bermuda grass or other aggressive spreading grasses with that awful running growth pattern. It creeps. It threads itself through beds. It shows up where it was not invited. It makes you question every garden decision that came before you.

I spend a lot of time pulling it out of beds as best as I can.

The problem is that with grasses like this, you have to follow the runners. If you just yank what you see above ground, you may not get the whole issue. You have to trace it, pull gently, loosen the soil if needed, and remove as much of the root system as you can.

It is tedious.

There is no cute way to say that.

But in spring, it is at least easier to see and follow. The surrounding growth is not as lush yet, and the soil is usually easier to work with.

Around the yard, I pull as much as I can when I can follow it. In areas where I can’t fully remove it, I at least keep it from seeding and keep weakening it through repeated removal.

Again, the same principle applies.

No foliage. No easy energy. No free ride.

Cardboard is my best friend when starting new beds

When I am creating a new bed in an area where zebra grass or aggressive weeds have been a problem, cardboard is my best friend.

I like laying cardboard down thick in the fall so it can overwinter. Then in spring, I add more if needed and build the new bed on top.

This gives me a much better starting point than trying to dig every single bit of grass and weed root out of a new space. Especially with running grasses, you can drive yourself absolutely wild trying to remove every piece.

Cardboard gives me a barrier. It blocks light. It smothers growth. It buys time for the new planting area to establish without every aggressive weed immediately popping through like it paid rent.

I know cardboard is not everyone’s favourite method, but for my garden, it has been incredibly useful.

Especially because I am not interested in turning every problem area into wood chips or pea stone.

I want the garden to feel soft. I want grass paths. I want living edges. I want the space to feel like a garden, not a hardscaped battlefield.

Which means I need solutions that help me suppress aggressive weeds while still letting the space feel alive.

Why I don’t want wood chips or pea stone everywhere

A lot of weed advice jumps quickly to smothering everything permanently.

Wood chips. Gravel. Landscape fabric. Stone and sure, those things have their place but they are not always the feel I want in my garden.

I don’t want pea stone everywhere. I don’t want to cover every edge in wood chips. I don’t want the garden to become one big mulched zone that feels disconnected from the rest of the yard.

I want grass back in certain areas.

I want softness around the garden.

I want to be able to walk through the space and have it feel alive and comfortable, not like I am managing a commercial landscape installation.

So right now, I am looking into which grass seed mix might help fill in the areas around the garden and push back the zebra grass. The idea is not that grass seed will magically defeat it overnight. It will not but bare soil and thin patches give aggressive weeds an opening.

A healthy, filled-in area has more competition. It gives the zebra grass less room to dominate. It makes the whole space easier to maintain.

That is another big part of natural weed control.

You are not just removing the problem plant.

You are filling the space with something better.

Natural weed removal is not passive

I think sometimes people hear “natural weed removal” and think it means doing nothing.

It does not.

Natural does not mean passive. It doesn’t mean letting everything take over and calling it biodiversity. It also doesn’t mean pretending invasive or aggressive plants are not a problem.

It means choosing methods that work with timing, plant life cycles, soil coverage, and persistence instead of immediately reaching for sprays.

It means being involved.

It means walking your property. Watching what comes back. Learning where the problem areas are. Knowing which plants need to be removed before they seed. Noticing which areas are bare and vulnerable. Repeating the same simple actions until the pressure gets lower.

It is not always easier in the moment but it can be gentler on the whole system and for a small property like ours, it feels possible.

I am not managing hundreds of acres. I am managing a half acre. That means I can walk the property line. I can dig out the bull thistles. I can stay on top of burdock. I can use grass clippings. I can build new beds with cardboard. I can slowly turn ugly fence lines into planted edges.

It is work, yes but it is not impossible work.

The tools I actually use

My natural weed removal system is extremely fancy and advanced.

Just kidding.

It is mostly gloves, a hand shovel, a regular shovel, cardboard, grass clippings, and stubbornness.

A hand shovel is great for smaller thistles, young burdock, and weeds growing in tighter spaces.

A regular shovel is better for larger burdock, bull thistles, and plants with deeper roots or crowns that need leverage.

Gloves are non-negotiable with thistles unless you enjoy suffering.

Cardboard is for smothering and starting new beds in rough areas.

Grass clippings are for covering soil after pulling, suppressing regrowth, and feeding the soil.

That is basically it.

No expensive system. No specialized weed torch. No chemical spray program. No pretending I have a perfectly clean property line because I absolutely do not.

Just simple tools used consistently.

What I do with each problem weed

For burdock, I focus on early pulling, digging the taproot when possible, and never letting it form burrs. If it is young and seed-free, I leave it to decompose.

For regular thistles, I hand pull when young, dig if needed, and watch for regrowth. They are annoying, but usually manageable if I catch them early.

For bull thistles, I use gloves and a shovel. They get big fast and they are not fun to grab. I remove them before they flower or seed, and I check fence lines because that seems to be where they sneak in.

For zebra grass, I pull and follow the runners as much as possible, especially in spring. In new bed areas, I use cardboard heavily. Around the yard, I am working on filling in bare or weak grass areas so it has more competition.

The method changes slightly depending on the plant, but the bigger strategy is the same.

Remove foliage.

Prevent seed.

Exhaust the root.

Cover the soil.

Fill the space.

Repeat.

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It takes time, but time is not failure

This is the part I wish more gardening advice made room for.

If a weed comes back, it does not automatically mean you failed.

It means the plant had energy stored. It means there may still be roots in the ground. It means seeds may already have been in the soil. It means the area may still be open and easy for that plant to return to.

That is not failure.

That is information.

When burdock came back along our property line, I didn’t take it personally. Okay, maybe a little but mostly, I just pulled it again and dug again, and covered again, and watched again.

Now the issue is tiny compared to what it was.

That happened because I didn’t need it gone in one dramatic weekend. I just needed it weaker every season.

Natural weed removal is often a long game but the long game works.

I am not trying to create a sterile, weed-free property.

That does not interest me.

I am not bothered by every dandelion. I am not mad at every plant that shows up without permission. I don’t need the lawn to look like a golf course. I don’t want a property that looks like it has been scrubbed clean of every wild thing.

There is a difference between living with some weeds and letting aggressive plants take over areas where my kids play, where we walk barefoot, where I want to plant food, flowers, shrubs, and healthy perennial beds.

Thistles in the lawn are a problem.

Burdock along the property line is a problem.

Zebra grass running through beds is a problem.

Those are the plants I focus on, not because I need control over every inch of the yard, but because some plants genuinely make the space harder to use and harder to grow in.

That is where I put my energy.

Slowly turning problem areas into planted areas

The best long-term solution, in my opinion, is not just removing weeds.

It is replacing them.

That is why I keep thinking about hydrangeas along the cedar line. That area is currently awkward and weedy and not exactly inspiring. But if I can clean it up, suppress the problem weeds, and plant something that fills the space beautifully, the whole area changes.

The same goes for grass paths around the garden.

The same goes for new beds built over cardboard.

The same goes for planting more perennials, shrubs, ground covers, herbs, and useful plants in places that are currently just open invitations for aggressive weeds.

Nature does not leave bare soil alone for long.

So if I don’t want burdock, thistles, or zebra grass filling a space, I need to decide what I do want there.

That is the real shift.

Not just “how do I kill this?” but “what do I want growing here instead?”

My honest opinion on natural weed removal

Natural weed removal is not always cute.

It is not always fast.

Sometimes it is just you in the yard, sweating, muttering, popping burdock roots out of the ground, and pretending it is a personality-building exercise.

But it works.

It works when you start early.

It works when you stop plants from seeding.

It works when you understand that removing foliage weakens the root system over time.

It works when you use mulch, grass clippings, cardboard, and dense planting to change the conditions.

It works when you stop expecting one perfect solution and start treating it like seasonal maintenance.

On my property, this approach has taken a burr-filled property line and turned it into an area where the odd burdock plant is now easy to pull. It has helped me stay ahead of thistles before they become a barefoot nightmare. It has given me a plan for zebra grass that does not involve spraying everything or burying the garden in stone.

Is it slower than spraying?

Probably but I am okay with that because I am not just trying to remove a weed.

I am trying to build a healthier property.

A softer garden.

A place my kids can run through.

A place where the soil is not treated like an enemy.

A place where the answer to every problem is not immediately something in a bottle.

Sometimes the answer is a shovel.

Sometimes it is grass clippings.

Sometimes it is cardboard.

Sometimes it is three years of casually fighting burdock until one day you look around and realize you actually won and that is my kind of garden victory.

Beccalynne🧑🏼‍🌾

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

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One minute you are casually checking on seedlings, and the next minute there are plants on every windowsill, plug trays in the greenhouse, perennials waking up, weeds making bold choices, and the weather still acting like it has not fully committed to spring.

It is exciting. It is chaotic. It is also the month where a little planning can make the whole garden feel less overwhelming.

May is not just about planting everything as fast as possible. It is about checking in with what is actually happening in your garden. What is ready to go out? What still needs hardening off? What beds need attention? What areas need soil building? What seedlings need a home? What extras can be tucked along a fence, planted around the greenhouse, moved into containers, or passed along to someone else?

This is the month where the imaginary garden plan meets the real garden and the real garden usually has opinions.

That is why I created this short May Garden Workbook. It is not meant to make gardening feel more complicated. It is meant to help you slow the month down just enough to see what needs your attention first.

Inside, you will find simple planning pages for planting out, hardening off, checking garden beds, using extra seedlings, direct composting, growing your own mulch, planning trellises, tracking watering, checking in on perennial foods, and reflecting at the end of the month.

It is practical, low-pressure, and made for real gardeners who are trying to grow food, build soil, work with the weather, and not lose their entire personality to seedling chaos.

Because May does not need to be perfect to be productive.

It just needs a little direction.

✨ Why join as a paid subscriber? ✨ Growing With Beccalynne Paid Subscribers Receive

• Every Monday: Downloadable resources (Paid) — monthly workbook, practical worksheets, seasonal printables, trackers, mini guides, and garden tools to help you plan, plant, compost, preserve, and grow with more confidence.

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Seasonal Inspiration — ideas, experiments, planting plans, and gentle encouragement to help you keep growing in a way that feels good and doable.

Monthly Roundup — a behind-the-scenes look at what I’m planting, working on, learning, and loving in the garden, plus resources and recommendations to support your season.

For the cost of one garden centre impulse buy, you’ll unlock the full Growing With Beccalynne experience — weekly garden downloads, practical mini guides, paid essays, and access to The Growers Vault full of resources designed to help you grow a more abundant, low-effort garden without overcomplicating it.

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I was going to release a May Garden Workbook this week.

And I still am. It’ll come out Monday because I really do want May to have its own little garden reset. May is one of those months where everything suddenly starts moving at once. The beds need attention. The seedlings need homes. The weeds wake up. The perennials start showing us who survived winter. The garden goes from “I’m just checking on things” to “oh, we are fully doing this now.”

But before that comes out, I wanted to add something else here.

My guide.

The one that started so much of this.

The Soil Revolution Guide has been living outside of Substack for a while, and for a long time, that made sense. It was the first real garden resource I created. It was the thing I kept pointing people toward when they asked me how I compost without a bin, how I build soil without overcomplicating it, and how I turned my garden into something that felt more alive without building some giant system I had to maintain forever.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about where my work actually belongs and the answer keeps coming back to here.

Substack has become the place where I write through my garden in real time. It’s where I talk about what I’m planting, what I’m trying, what’s working, what I’m changing, and what I’m learning as I go. It’s where the messy middle of gardening lives. It’s where the essays live. It’s where the downloads live. It’s where The Growers Vault is slowly becoming a full little garden library.

So it makes sense that the guide belongs here too.

Not because I want to break it apart into a dozen tiny posts. I actually really don’t want to do that.

I created this guide as one complete resource because direct composting works better when you understand the whole picture. It isn’t just “bury scraps in the ground and hope for the best.” It’s soil building. It’s placement. It’s timing. It’s understanding what can go where, how to layer organic matter, how to work with your beds, how to stop relying on a bin if a bin has never actually worked for your real life.

I didn’t write it so people could collect little fragments of information and still feel unsure.

I wrote it so you could sit down, read through it, and actually understand how to build healthier soil without needing a compost bin, a three-bay system, a hot pile, a perfect ratio chart, or a second personality dedicated to turning compost.

Because that has always been the heart of this guide.

Healthy soil does not have to be complicated.

Composting does not have to be a whole separate hobby and building a better garden does not have to start with buying more things.

For me, removing the compost bin changed everything.

I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s true. The bin was supposed to be the responsible gardener thing. The proper thing. The “real gardener” thing. But it never worked the way I needed it to. It became another job. Another place to haul scraps. Another system that had to be managed before my garden could benefit from the food waste and garden debris I already had.

When I stopped trying to make the bin work and started feeding the soil directly, everything shifted.

The garden became simpler.

The soil improved.

The worms showed up.

The beds held more life.

I stopped feeling like composting had to happen somewhere else before the garden was allowed to receive it.

That is really what this guide is about.

It’s about taking the loop that so many of us were taught to separate and putting it back together again.

Food scraps can go back into the soil. Plant matter can feed the beds it grew from. Leaves, stems, weeds without seed heads, spent annuals, kitchen scraps, cover crops, green manure, chop-and-drop, all of it can become part of the rhythm of a garden that feeds itself more than we realize.

Not perfectly.

Not in some polished, aesthetic, spreadsheet-level way.

Just practically.

Season by season. Bed by bed. Trench by trench. Scrap by scrap.

That’s why I don’t want to turn the guide into a bunch of individual parts.

There will always be posts here about direct composting. There will always be notes about what I’m burying, chopping, dropping, planting, moving, and trying. I will always talk about soil because soil is the whole thing but the guide itself was made to be read as a full resource.

A place to start.

A place to come back to.

A place to understand the method without feeling like you need to piece it together from random captions, notes, and garden rambles.

Now, it will live inside The Growers Vault for paid subscribers.

That feels right to me.

The Growers Vault is becoming the home for my paid garden resources: workbooks, mini guides, seasonal downloads, planting tools, trackers, and the more practical side of what I share here. It’s not meant to be overwhelming. It’s not meant to become a giant pile of PDFs you forget about. I want it to feel like a useful garden shelf. The kind you can return to when you’re planning, planting, resetting, preserving, composting, or trying to make your garden feel a little more manageable.

Adding The Soil Revolution Guide to the Vault makes that shelf stronger.

It gives the soil-building piece a proper home.

It means paid subscribers can access the guide alongside the rest of the resources I’m creating here.

If you already bought the guide before this move, please know this does not take anything away from you. You still have the guide you purchased, and I am so grateful you supported it early. Truly. That guide helped shape so much of what this space has become.

This is not about replacing that.

It’s about bringing the guide into the same place where the rest of my garden writing and resources now live.

It’s about making Substack the main home for my work.

It’s about keeping things simpler on my end too, because I don’t want my garden business scattered across a bunch of places that no longer feel aligned. I want the work to be here. I want the resources to be here. I want the conversations to be here. I want The Growers Vault to become the place people know they can go when they want practical, soil-first garden help without the pressure to do everything perfectly.

This guide belongs in that.

So before the May Garden Workbook comes out on Monday, I wanted to tuck The Soil Revolution Guide into the Vault.

The guide that started as a simple answer to the question, “What if composting didn’t need to be so complicated?”

The guide that came from removing the bin, feeding the soil directly, and watching my garden respond.

The guide that turned into the foundation of so much of what I talk about here now.

It’s here now.

Right where it belongs.

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Hi friends,

Welcome to my monthly garden roundup.

I’ve been wanting a place to gather all the little pieces of the month that don’t always become a full post on their own. The books I’ve been reading. The publications I’ve been loving. The seeds and plants that have gone into the ground. The things that have arrived for the garden. The posts I’ve published. The notes I’ve been yapping about. The tiny garden observations that feel too small for an essay but too good to forget.

So this is that place.

A monthly field note from the garden, the greenhouse, the seed trays, the kitchen table, and whatever corner of my brain is currently occupied by soil, plants, books, and compost.

Things I’ve Read:

This month’s reading had a very practical, seasonal, “how do I make this garden work harder without making my life harder?” kind of theme. Which feels very April. Everything I read seemed to circle back to the same idea in a different way: use what you already have, plant with more intention, keep food coming in layers, and stop treating the garden like it needs to become one big perfect harvest moment.

Grow Together by Charles Dowding, and it has me really leaning into repeat plantings, succession planting, and thinking more carefully about what can grow alongside something while I’m waiting for the main crop. I’m trying to look at the garden less like empty space that needs to be filled once and more like a living system that can keep producing in layers. What can go in early? What can follow it? What can be tucked in while another crop is still growing? What can feed us now while we’re waiting for the bigger harvest later? That is the kind of gardening brain I’m trying to build this year.

The Money Saving Gardener by Anya Lautenbach, which felt very aligned with where my head is at right now. I’m not interested in turning the garden into one long shopping list. I want to get better at multiplying what I already have. Propagating plants. Dividing perennials. Moving things around. Growing from cuttings. Saving money by paying closer attention to what is already here instead of constantly convincing myself I need to buy the next thing. It gave me that little push to look at my garden and think, “Okay, what can I make more of for free?”

On Substack, I read a few posts that really stuck with me.

I loved “What the Hell Happened to Homesteading?” by because it put words to something I think a lot of us feel around gardening, homesteading, self-sufficiency, and online spaces in general. The piece talks about how the modern homesteading movement shifted from something practical, personal, and skill-based into something that can feel flattened, branded, and performed online. That obviously hits a nerve when you’re trying to talk about growing food in a way that is useful and grounded without turning it into a costume or a fear-based identity.

I also really enjoyed “Stop Planning A Garden. Start Building Your Grazing System Instead” by . This one was such a good little mindset shift. Instead of only thinking about the garden as this future harvest machine, she talks about creating a garden you can eat from daily, casually, and along the paths you already walk. Herbs, berries, greens, peas, rhubarb, little things you can grab on your way through. It made me think about how much food can come from the edges, the paths, the row ends, and the little in-between spaces we forget to count.

Then there was “Everything You Think You Know About Wasps Is Wrong” by - which I loved because I am always here for a garden creature getting a reputation repair. The post looks at wasps as pollinators, pest regulators, and important pieces of the ecosystem instead of just the dramatic little picnic villains everyone wants to swat away. It was such a good reminder that the garden is full of relationships we do not always understand at first glance.

And finally, I read “Fermented Rhubarb with Honey + Salt” by which was beautiful and practical in that slow-seasonal-kitchen kind of way. Rhubarb season can feel so short, and I loved the idea of preserving it by letting it become something else entirely. A little sweet, a little salty, a little tangy, and not just another dessert situation. It made me want to think more about preserving food in ways that are simple, useful, and a little more interesting than only freezing or baking everything.

So yes, the accidental theme this month was basically: plant smarter, use what you have, notice the daily harvests, respect the tiny ecosystems, and stop making the garden more complicated than it needs to be.

What I Planted This Month:

April is officially at the point where the garden is no longer just an idea in my head. Things are actually going into the ground, trays are moving around, the greenhouse is full, and I have reached the deeply familiar stage of spring where every flat surface has become plant real estate.

So far, I’ve planted out kale, cabbage, green onions, lettuce, cilantro, parsley, and potato onions. The potato onions were started in plug trays, moved out to the greenhouse for a couple of days to adjust, and then transplanted out. I’m really excited about those because I’m leaning more and more into perennial and multiplying onions this year instead of treating onions like something I need to restart from zero every single season.

The peas have finally sprouted too, which feels like its own tiny celebration. I am so ready for that trellis to fill in. There is something about peas climbing a trellis in spring that makes the whole garden feel like it has officially woken up. It’s not dramatic yet, but it’s coming. The little green threads are there, and that is enough to get me excited.

In the greenhouse, I still have the dahlias, most of my winter sowing session, and a plug tray full of broccolini, marigolds, nasturtiums, beets, and turnips. Basically, it’s a mix of food, flowers, experiments, and things I probably started with a calm and reasonable plan before April turned into April.

I direct sowed parsnips, carrots, and radishes this week because we have rain in the forecast again for the next week. And honestly, I will take the help. If the sky wants to water my seeds for me, I am not going to argue. Direct sowing root crops right before a stretch of rain feels like one of those small garden timing wins where you get to pretend you are very organized, even if you are mostly just working with what the weather is handing you.

I potted up the peppers, tomatoes, basil, and coleus because they will not be seeing the outdoors for hardening off for a few more weeks. They needed more room, better soil, and a little more patience before they start their outdoor transition. This is the part of spring where the cool-season crops are already moving, but the tender plants are still very much in their “please do not betray me with a cold night” era.

I’ve also been transplanting divisions I picked up from people selling plants locally, including irises, hostas, and tiger lilies. This is one of my favourite ways to build a garden without making it wildly expensive. Divisions are practical. They are usually tough. They come from plants that are already growing well for someone else. And they make the garden feel fuller without needing to buy every single thing new from a nursery.

So that’s where things are right now. A little planted out, a little tucked into the greenhouse, a little direct sown before the rain, and a few secondhand perennials finding their place.

The garden is definitely waking up. So am I. Sort of. Spring gardening is basically just me carrying trays around, checking the forecast, and saying “okay, but where am I putting this?” every fifteen minutes.

What Came in for the Garden

This month, the garden gained a few very exciting things, which means you can absolutely prepare for all the notes, posts, updates, side quests, and “no one asked me but here we are” thoughts that are about to come from them.

The two new garden beds and trellis have arrived, and I am so excited to get them set up. I already know this is going to become its own little garden storyline because I have thoughts, plans, and probably too many ideas for what is going in them. The trellis especially has me excited because I love when the garden starts moving upward. There is something about a planted arch or trellis that makes everything feel more intentional, even if the rest of the garden is still operating on controlled chaos.

The Jerusalem artichokes are also in, and I will be making a note about them soon because I want to compare the ones I started from seed with the tubers I ordered. I have been told that the seed-grown ones may never reach the same size as the edible tubers you would buy or plant from a nursery, and I’m actually really interested to watch that play out. It feels like a fun little garden experiment, and you know I love a side-by-side comparison when there is a chance for the garden to teach me something.

The dwarf peach tree is doing well in its pot, which is very exciting because this is one of my bigger container experiments this year. It is leafing out nicely, and I picked off all the blossoms because I want it focusing on root health this year, not production. As tempting as it is to let a new fruit tree try to give you something right away, I’d rather give it a stronger first season in the pot. So far, everything looks good, and I am cautiously thrilled.

I’m also really excited to share more about my Northern Wildflowers collaboration this season. I found them while looking for perennial foods to winter sow, and it has felt like such a natural fit for the way I garden and the kinds of plants I want to talk about more. You’ll see seeds and plants from them showing up in my notes and posts as they grow, but not in a spammy “you need this now” kind of way. More like, “this is what I planted, this is where it went, this is how it grew, and here is what I think so far.” Gentle, useful, and honest.

And probably the coziest addition this month was a patio set from a friend. It already makes the patio feel more settled into the garden, like it has become a place to sit instead of just a place beside the garden. I love when secondhand things find their way into a space and immediately make it feel warmer. The patio feels a little more like a place to drink coffee, stare at plants, overthink bed layouts, and call it rest. Which, to be fair, is my favourite kind of rest.

In case you missed it…

Posts from this month:

So that was April in the garden. A little reading, a little planting, a little direct sowing before the rain, a few new arrivals, and the familiar spring feeling that everything is somehow moving slowly and too fast at the exact same time.

The garden is waking up in layers now. The cool crops are settling in. The peas are finally making their way up. The greenhouse is still holding the tender things. The new beds are waiting to become their own storyline. The peach tree is leafing out in its pot. The patio feels a little cozier. And I am, once again, walking around with a coffee in one hand and ten new ideas in the other.

April always feels like the month where the garden starts becoming real again. Not finished. Not polished. Not even close. Just real. There are trays to shuffle, weeds to notice, seeds to check on, plants to pot up, and enough tiny green signs of life to convince me that yes, we are doing this again.

And that feels like a pretty good place to end the month.

What’s been inspiring you this month — in your garden, your routines, or your mindset? Let me know in the comments below!

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

Three Ways To Gently Keep Growing With Me:

Become a Paid Subscriber (Unlock the Growers Vault): Get access to my growing collection of downloads—seasonal guides, printable toolkits, trackers, layouts, and bonus resources I’m building for backyard gardeners who want simple, doable systems.

Grab My Guide, The Soil Revolution : A simple guide to direct composting, soil health, and low-effort gardening - perfect if you want richer soil, bigger blooms, and an easier garden.

Explore the Garden Resources I Share : Seasonal notes, how-to guides, soil-building methods, herb-bed layouts, and the real process of growing a backyard garden with ease. These tools are here to help you grow more confidently without overwhelm.

💬 Feel free to like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack users can find it!

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There are a lot of rules around composting.

Ratios to follow. Systems to build. Bins to manage. Things you should never add. Things you absolutely need to get right and if you’ve ever tried to follow all of it, you probably felt like you were doing it wrong more often than you were doing it right.

I know I did.

Direct composting was never something I set out to “switch” to. It was something I ended up doing because the traditional way wasn’t working for me. Not in a real backyard. Not with the amount of material I actually had.

Once I started, I realized a lot of what we’re told about composting just… doesn’t hold up in the garden.

So let’s talk about it.

Myth 1: You need a compost bin to make good soil

This is probably the biggest one.

We’re taught that composting needs a system. A bin, a pile, a setup that lives somewhere in the yard and gets turned and managed.

But soil doesn’t work that way in nature.

Things break down where they fall. Leaves, plant matter, organic material. It all decomposes in place, feeding the soil directly.

That’s exactly what direct composting does. It skips the middle step and brings the process back into the garden beds where it actually matters.

You don’t need a compost bin to build good soil. You just need organic matter and somewhere for it to break down.

Myth 2: You need the perfect green-to-brown ratio

This is one of those things that makes people feel like composting is complicated.

Measuring. Balancing. Trying to get it just right.

But when you’re composting directly in the soil, the balance already exists. The soil itself, the microbes, the surrounding organic matter, all work together to process what you add. You’re not building a pile that has to function on its own. You’re feeding a living system that already knows what to do.

It doesn’t have to be perfect to work.

Myth 3: You can’t compost things like citrus or onions

This one gets repeated a lot.

That certain scraps are “bad” for compost.

But in reality, when you’re burying scraps in the soil, they break down just like everything else. The key is how you do it. Burying them properly, giving them time, and letting the soil life do its job.

I’ve added citrus peels, onion skins, all the things people say to avoid. They disappear just the same.

Myth 4: Composting takes months to be usable

If you’ve only ever used a compost bin, this makes sense but direct composting moves faster because it’s happening where all the life already is.

Moisture, microbes, worms, soil structure. It’s all there, working together.

You’re not waiting for a pile to become soil. You’re feeding soil that’s already active.

That’s why I can go from scraps to usable soil in weeks, not months.

Myth 5: It’s messy, smelly, or attracts pests

This is usually the biggest concern and it comes down to how it’s done.

When scraps are left exposed, yes, you’ll run into issues but when they’re buried properly, covered with soil, and spread out instead of piled up, it becomes part of the system instead of something sitting on top of it.

There’s no smell in my garden. No mess. Just soil doing what it’s supposed to do.

Direct composting isn’t about breaking rules.

It’s about realizing that a lot of the rules were built around systems that don’t always fit the way we actually garden.

You don’t need to manage a compost pile to build good soil.

You can do it right where you grow.

If this way of composting feels simpler, more doable, or more aligned with how you want to garden, this is exactly what I built my guide around. It walks through how I do this step-by-step in my own garden, without bins, without complicated systems, and without overthinking it.

If you’ve been feeling like composting has to be complicated to work, I hope this gives you a different way to look at it.

Because it really can be this simple.

Beccalynne 🪱

💬 Feel free to like or comment on this newsletter so more Substack users can find it!

Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

Three Gentle Invitations to Grow With Me

Become a Paid Subscriber (Unlock the Growers Vault): Get access to my growing collection of downloads—seasonal guides, printable toolkits, trackers, layouts, and bonus resources I’m building for backyard gardeners who want simple, doable systems.

Grab My Guide, The Soil Revolution : A simple guide to direct composting, soil health, and low-effort gardening - perfect if you want richer soil, bigger blooms, and an easier garden.

Explore the Garden Resources I Share : Seasonal notes, how-to guides, soil-building methods, herb-bed layouts, and the real process of growing a backyard garden with ease. These tools are here to help you grow more confidently without overwhelm.

One day you are lovingly tucking tiny basil seedlings into the soil, whispering little encouragements like a normal and balanced person. Then suddenly it is July and the basil is the size of a small shrub, the mint is trying to colonize the neighbourhood, the oregano has opinions, the calendula is blooming every five minutes, and you are standing in the garden with scissors thinking, “I should probably do something with all of this.”

And this is usually where the internet tries to convince you that preserving herbs requires equipment.

A dehydrator.
A freeze dryer.
Fancy racks.
Perfect storage containers.
A dedicated apothecary room with wooden shelves and tiny handwritten labels.

Lovely? Yes.

Required? Absolutely not.

You can dry herbs, plants, and flowers without a dehydrator. People have been doing it forever. Long before we could plug something into the wall and let it hum overnight, herbs were being bundled, hung, laid out on screens, tucked into baskets, dried on trays, and saved for winter.

And I think there is something really grounding about that.

Not everything in the garden needs to become a production. Not every harvest needs a machine. Not every method needs to be optimized to death before it counts.

Sometimes drying herbs looks like tying a bundle of thyme with string and hanging it from a curtain rod.

Sometimes it looks like laying calendula petals on a plate in a dry room.

Sometimes it looks like stuffing a few stems of oregano into a paper bag, forgetting about it for two weeks, and discovering that it worked anyway.

This is your permission slip to dry herbs the simple way.

No dehydrator.
No freeze dryer.
No fancy system.
Just plants, airflow, patience, and a little bit of garden common sense.

Why dry herbs in the first place?

Drying herbs is one of the easiest ways to stretch your garden into the colder months.

Fresh herbs are beautiful, but they are also fleeting. Basil bolts. Dill flowers. Cilantro panics the second the weather gets warm. Mint gets out of hand. Thyme becomes woody. Calendula blooms more than one person can reasonably use fresh.

Drying lets you capture some of that abundance before it slips past you.

You can use dried herbs for cooking, teas, infused oils, bath blends, homemade seasoning mixes, garden gifts, herbal salts, simmer pots, and all the cozy little winter things that make you feel like you were a genius back in July.

And the best part is that herbs are one of the most forgiving things to preserve.

You do not need to can them.
You do not need to freeze them.
You do not need to babysit them for hours.

You just need to harvest them at a good time, dry them somewhere with airflow, and store them once they are fully dry.

That is it.

The best time to harvest herbs for drying

The best time to harvest most herbs is in the morning after the dew has dried but before the heat of the day settles in.

That little window is the sweet spot.

The plants are awake. The leaves are fresh. The oils are still strong. They have not been sitting in full sun all afternoon, getting tired and floppy like the rest of us in August.

For leafy herbs like basil, oregano, mint, lemon balm, thyme, sage, and rosemary, harvest before the plant flowers if you can. This is when the flavour is usually strongest and the leaves are at their best.

But please do not let this turn into another garden rule that makes you feel behind.

If your oregano is flowering, you can still dry it.
If your mint has started blooming, you can still use it.
If your basil is already threatening to bolt because you blinked, harvest it anyway.

The ideal time is helpful. It is not a moral test.

For flowers like calendula, chamomile, lavender, bee balm, and rose petals, harvest when the flowers are freshly opened and dry. Avoid flowers that are already browning, bug-chewed beyond recognition, or soggy from rain.

For seeds like dill seed, coriander, fennel, and anise hyssop seed heads, let them mature on the plant until they are dry or almost dry, then cut the heads and finish drying them indoors in a paper bag.

A quick note on washing herbs

This is one of those areas where people get very intense.

Ideally, you want to harvest clean herbs and avoid washing them if you can. Water adds moisture, and moisture makes drying slower. Slower drying can lead to mould, especially if the herbs are bundled too tightly or dried somewhere humid.

But real gardens are real gardens.

There is dust. There is soil splash. There are bugs having meetings on the underside of leaves.

If the herbs are visibly dirty, give them a gentle rinse in cool water, then dry them as well as you can before starting the drying process. Use a salad spinner if you have one, or lay them on a towel and let them air dry for a bit.

Do not bundle wet herbs and hang them in a dark corner.

That is not herb preservation. That is a science experiment.

Method 1: Hanging herb bundles

This is the classic method, and honestly, it is classic for a reason.

Bundle a small handful of stems together, tie them with twine or an elastic, and hang them upside down somewhere warm, dry, and out of direct sunlight.

Small bundles are key.

I know it is tempting to make giant cottagecore herb chandeliers, but thick bundles trap moisture. Moisture is where the trouble starts. Keep them loose enough that air can move through the stems.

Good herbs for hanging:

Oregano
Thyme
Sage
Rosemary
Mint
Lemon balm
Lavender
Bee balm
Yarrow
Dill
Marjoram
Summer savory
Tarragon

This method works best for herbs with stems sturdy enough to hang and leaves that are not overly delicate.

A kitchen can work if it is not too humid. A pantry, spare room, enclosed porch, dry basement corner, mudroom, or even a clean closet with the door cracked can work too.

You want dry, shaded, and airy.

Not full sun. Not a damp basement. Not above the stove where steam hits them every time you boil pasta.

Depending on the herb and your house, drying can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

The herbs are ready when the leaves crumble easily between your fingers and the stems snap instead of bend.

Method 2: Paper bag drying

This is one of my favourite low-effort methods because it is tidy, practical, and very forgiving.

Place your herb stems loosely inside a paper bag. Leave the top open or poke a few holes in the bag for airflow. You can also tie the stems together and hang the bundle upside down inside the bag, with the stems sticking out the top.

The bag catches falling leaves and seeds while also keeping dust and direct light off the herbs.

This method is especially useful for herbs and plants that drop bits everywhere.

Good candidates:

Dill
Cilantro going to coriander seed
Fennel seed
Mint
Lemon balm
Oregano
Chamomile
Calendula petals
Bee balm
Anise hyssop
Catnip

Paper bags are also nice if your house is not exactly magazine-worthy and you do not want bunches of drying herbs hanging from every doorway like you are running a woodland apothecary out of your dining room.

Although, to be clear, that is also a valid life path.

Method 3: Tray drying

Tray drying is exactly what it sounds like.

Lay herbs or flowers in a single layer on a tray, plate, baking sheet, basket, cooling rack, clean window screen, or mesh drying rack.

The goal is airflow.

If you are using a solid tray or plate, flip or stir the herbs once a day so all sides get exposed to air. If you are using something with mesh or holes, even better.

This method is great for:

Calendula petals
Chamomile flowers
Rose petals
Basil leaves
Mint leaves
Lemon balm leaves
Parsley
Cilantro
Chive pieces
Nasturtium flowers
Edible flower petals

This is also a good method for herbs with leaves you remove from the stems before drying.

Basil, for example, can be a little dramatic when bundled. It has a lot of moisture and can darken easily. Laying the leaves out in a single layer often works better than hanging big basil bundles.

Same with parsley and cilantro.

They dry better when they have space.

Method 4: Screen drying

If you have old window screens, mesh trays, splatter screens, cooling racks, or even a bit of clean fabric stretched over a frame, you can dry herbs beautifully.

Screen drying gives you airflow above and below the plant material, which helps everything dry more evenly.

This is great for flowers and leaves, especially if you are drying a lot at once.

Use screens for:

Calendula
Chamomile
Lavender buds
Rose petals
Mint leaves
Lemon balm
Basil
Parsley
Oregano leaves
Raspberry leaves
Strawberry leaves
Plantain
Yarrow leaves and flowers

Keep the screens somewhere out of direct sunlight. A bright room is fine, but direct sun can fade colour and reduce flavour.

This is one of those methods that feels fancy but can be very low-cost. You do not need a perfect herb drying rack. You need something clean, breathable, and flat.

That is the whole assignment.

Method 5: Oven drying, carefully

You can dry herbs in the oven, but I say this gently: the oven is not always as low-effort as it sounds.

Most ovens run hotter than herbs really want, even on the lowest setting. Herbs are delicate. Too much heat can cook off the flavour and colour.

But if your house is humid or you need a backup method, it can work.

Set your oven to the lowest temperature possible. Lay herbs in a single layer on a baking sheet. Keep the oven door slightly cracked if you can. Check often. This can go from “drying nicely” to “crispy sadness” very quickly.

This works best for sturdier herbs like:

Sage
Rosemary
Thyme
Oregano
Bay leaves

I would be more cautious with basil, parsley, cilantro, and delicate flowers. They can brown quickly.

Think of oven drying as the backup plan, not the default.

Where to dry herbs

The best place to dry herbs is somewhere:

Dry
Warm, but not hot
Out of direct sunlight
Clean
Well-ventilated
Away from steam and heavy kitchen moisture

You do not need a special room. You just need a spot that does not stay damp.

Good drying spots can include:

A pantry
A spare bedroom
A mudroom
A dry basement area
A closet with airflow
A shaded porch
A laundry room when it is not humid
A shelf away from windows
A greenhouse only if it does not get too hot or damp overnight

That last one matters.

A greenhouse can seem like a perfect drying place, but it can swing between very hot during the day and damp at night. That can make herbs fade, sweat, or mould. If you use a greenhouse, use it carefully and check often.

Inside the house is usually more predictable.

How to know herbs are fully dry

This part matters because storing herbs too soon is how you lose the whole batch.

Herbs should be completely dry before they go into jars.

Leaves should crumble.
Stems should snap.
Flowers should feel papery.
Seeds should be hard and dry.
Nothing should feel cool, limp, leathery, or soft.

If you are not sure, give them more time.

There is no prize for rushing herbs into a jar.

Once they are dry, strip the leaves from the stems and store them whole if possible. Whole dried leaves hold their flavour longer than herbs crushed into powder right away.

Crush them when you use them.

This is a tiny thing, but it makes a difference.

How to store dried herbs

Store dried herbs in clean, dry glass jars or containers with tight-fitting lids.

Label them with the herb and the year.

You may think you will remember.

You will not.

Every gardener has played the game of “is this oregano or marjoram?” while sniffing a jar like a suspicious raccoon.

Keep dried herbs somewhere cool, dark, and dry. A cupboard or pantry is perfect. Avoid storing them above the stove, beside the dishwasher, or in direct sunlight.

Light, heat, and moisture are the enemies.

For best flavour, use dried herbs within a year. They usually do not become unsafe after that if they were properly dried and stored, but they do lose strength over time.

Old herbs are not useless, though. If they are faded for cooking, they can still go into simmer pots, bath blends, garden gifts, or even back to the compost.

Closed loop, baby.

Best annual herbs to grow for drying

Annual herbs are the quick wins. You grow them, harvest them hard, dry what you can, and start again next season.

Some of the best annuals for drying are:

Basil
Dill
Cilantro/coriander
Parsley
Summer savory
Chamomile
Calendula
Borage flowers
Nasturtium flowers and leaves
Anise hyssop, often grown as an annual in colder zones

Basil is wonderful dried, though it does lose some of that fresh basil magic. I still think it is worth drying for soups, sauces, herb salts, and winter cooking.

Dill is one of my favourites because you can dry the leaves and save the seeds.

Cilantro is also useful because even if it bolts, it gives you coriander seed. I love a plant that panics and still becomes useful.

Calendula is an absolute workhorse. The more you pick, the more it blooms. Dry the petals for teas, oils, salves, bath blends, or just because they look like sunshine in a jar.

Chamomile is another beautiful one for tea, but you do need to keep picking the flowers.

This is where the garden starts feeling generous in a very small, steady way.

A handful here.
A tray there.
A jar by the end of the month.

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Best perennial herbs to grow for drying

Perennial herbs are where the real low-effort magic starts.

You plant them once, help them settle in, and then they come back year after year. Many of them thrive with regular cutting, which means drying herbs becomes part of normal garden maintenance.

Some of the best perennial herbs for drying are:

Oregano
Thyme
Sage
Mint
Lemon balm
Chives
Garlic chives
Rosemary (if overwintered indoors in cold climates)
Lavender
Bee balm
Yarrow
Catnip
Tarragon
Lovage
Sorrel (for some uses)
Raspberry leaf
Strawberry leaf

Mint and lemon balm are cut-and-come-again queens. They can be cut back several times in a season and still return like nothing happened.

Oregano is another generous one. A good oregano patch can fill jars and still look like you barely touched it.

Thyme dries beautifully and keeps its flavour well.

Sage is one of those herbs that feels like winter cooking waiting to happen. Dry it for soups, roasted vegetables, stuffing, beans, and cozy cold-weather meals.

Lavender is beautiful for sachets, tea blends, bath products, and baking if you use culinary varieties.

Bee balm can be dried for tea, and the flowers are stunning.

Perennial herbs make you feel like you planned better than you did. Which is one of my favourite garden feelings.

Cut-and-come-again herbs

Some herbs are made for repeated harvesting.

The more you cut them, the bushier they get. This is exactly the kind of plant behaviour I support.

Great cut-and-come-again herbs include:

Basil
Mint
Lemon balm
Oregano
Thyme
Parsley
Cilantro, before it bolts
Chives
Garlic chives
Dill, lightly and early
Calendula flowers
Chamomile flowers
Bee balm flowers
Catnip

The trick is to harvest often but not strip the plant completely.

For leafy herbs, cut just above a set of leaves. This encourages branching. For plants like basil, regular pinching can delay flowering and create a fuller plant.

For perennial herbs, avoid taking more than about one-third of the plant at a time, especially while it is still getting established.

Once a plant is mature and thriving, you can be a little more confident.

Mint can handle a haircut.
Lemon balm can handle a haircut.
Oregano can handle a haircut.

Some plants are basically asking for it.

Drying flowers from the garden

Drying flowers is one of those things that makes the garden feel extra generous.

Not everything has to be strictly practical. Some things can just be beautiful and useful.

Good flowers for drying include:

Calendula
Chamomile
Lavender
Rose petals
Bee balm
Yarrow
Borage flowers
Nasturtium flowers
Bachelor buttons
Violas
Echinacea petals and cones

For flowers, harvest when they are dry and freshly opened. Lay them in a single layer on a tray or screen. Keep them out of direct sunlight to preserve colour.

Make sure flowers are fully dry before storing. Petals can hold sneaky moisture, especially near the base.

Dried flowers can be used in teas, bath blends, infused oils, salts, sugars, handmade gifts, or simply tucked into jars because they make you feel like the kind of person who has their life together.

A jar of calendula petals on a shelf does wonders for morale.

A few easy herb blends to make

Once your herbs are dry, you can make simple blends from what you already grew.

You do not need a recipe carved in stone. Start with what you like and what your household actually eats.

A simple garden cooking blend could include oregano, thyme, basil, parsley, and rosemary.

A cozy winter blend could include sage, thyme, rosemary, and a little oregano.

A tea blend could include mint, lemon balm, chamomile, calendula, and bee balm.

An herb salt could be as simple as dried rosemary, thyme, garlic chives, and coarse salt.

This is where drying herbs becomes really satisfying because suddenly those little jars turn into actual food.

They become soup season.
Roasted potato season.
Tea after dinner season.
A little jar of summer sitting in the cupboard.

Common mistakes when drying herbs

The biggest mistake is drying herbs in bundles that are too large.

The second biggest mistake is storing them before they are fully dry.

The third is putting them in full sun because it feels like that should work faster.

Full sun can bleach colour and reduce flavour. Think warm shade, not harsh sun.

Another mistake is drying herbs somewhere too humid. Bathrooms, damp basements, steamy kitchens, or closed containers are not ideal.

And finally, do not forget about them forever.

Yes, dried herbs are patient. But they are still food. Check on them. Smell them. Make sure nothing seems off. If anything smells musty or looks mouldy, compost it.

The garden will give you more.

The low-effort way to make this a habit

You do not need to harvest and dry everything at once.

In fact, it is better if you do not.

Just make it part of your normal garden rhythm.

Going outside with coffee? Clip a handful of mint.
Noticing the oregano is flowering? Cut some back.
Calendula blooming again? Pick the fresh flowers.
Basil getting too tall? Pinch it and lay the leaves on a tray.
Lemon balm flopping into the path? Give it a haircut.

Small harvests add up.

That is one of the best lessons the garden teaches.

You do not have to preserve the whole season in one heroic weekend. You can do a little at a time. A bundle here. A tray there. A jar filled slowly over a few weeks.

That still counts.

Actually, that is probably the most realistic way to do it.

Drying herbs without a dehydrator or freeze dryer is not a lesser method.

It is not the backup plan for people who do not have the right tools.

It is a perfectly valid, old, simple, practical way to preserve what the garden gives you.

You can hang herbs in bundles.
You can dry flowers on trays.
You can use paper bags.
You can use screens.
You can make do with what you already have.

And I think that matters.

Because gardening can get expensive fast if we let every skill convince us we need another piece of equipment before we begin.

You do not need a freeze dryer to save herbs.
You do not need a dehydrator to make tea blends.
You do not need a perfect setup to dry calendula, mint, oregano, basil, thyme, or lavender.

You need a dry space, a little airflow, and the willingness to try.

That is it.

The garden does not need us to be fancy.

It just needs us to notice what is abundant, harvest it at the right moment, and save what we can.

One bundle at a time.

Beccalynne🧑🏼‍🌾

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Meet The Author.

Hi there! I’m Becca, the heart behind Growing With Beccalynne.

From Eastern Ontario Canada, gardening has been apart of me my whole life starting with my great grandpa when I was little. I’ve been building and educating through my own garden since 2018. By day, I run my business as a virtual assistant and creating content for you (@growingwithbeccalynne on all platforms). Here, I pour my love for soil science, creating gardens, growing plants and the joys of creating a low effort garden to love long term.

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