3. It’s All in the Soil
Healthy soil hosts a web of life from tiny one-celled bacteria, fungi and protozoa to the more complex nematodes and small arthropods to earthworms, insects, and small vertebrates. These organisms interact beneficially with plants.

By-products from growing roots and plant debris feed soil organisms. Soil organisms help plants by decomposing organic matter, cycling nutrients to make them more available to the plant, enhancing soil structure and porosity and controlling the populations of soil organisms, including crop pests.

Healthy soil means healthy plants.

The way to healthy soil is to add compost and not till the ecosystems, the webs of life, to shreds.

Buddhists, who do not believe in killing sentient creatures, manually crumble soil, so that earthworms are not killed. Farmers use tractors pulling tillers and most gardeners use rototillers to turn the soil. I use a shovel rather than till.

Compost is just earth that has been made from decayed organic matter. It is called black gold because it is a sure-fire medium for producing healthy plants. Nothing is more valuable to a gardener and it’s free. It solves the problems of what to do with dinner scraps and yard debris and it helps everything grow abundantly.

4. Buying Seeds, Starters, Bulbs and Seedlings
Shop around and buy a good variety of seeds. If seedlings don’t come up in the time it says they will on the back of the package and you haven’t had super crazy out-of-season weather, then just plant something else there.

Epictetus, a Greek Stoic philosopher born in A.D. 55, said, “Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.”

True now as it was then. Have back-up seeds.

Some plants, like lilies and rhubarb, grow from bulbs. You can get these, as well as seedlings, at the farmers’ co-op or a nursery.

You will want to buy seedlings for crops that require a longer growing season than you have or for crops you want a head-start on. Seedlings can grow in a greenhouse before the ground outside warms up enough to allow anything to sprout.

When you buy your seedlings, you will need to “harden them off,” which means to help them acclimate to the cold world so they don’t just freeze to death.

Plants by their nature need to be planted in the ground and do not like a lot of change. They easily die of transplant shock, so it is important to try to keep as much of the old soil on them as you can and introduce a similar environment if possible, added by a bit of fish emulsion or liquid B-12.

Keep them watered and out of the wind at first. Hardening off involves setting them outside for progressively more hours each day until they have been able to weather a few of the coldest nights you are getting.

Once they have proven strong enough to endure that, you can plant them in the garden.

Ask around and check customer reviews to learn about your local nurseries for buying seedlings. Once you have been gardening awhile, you will learn to recognize an unhealthy plant and to look for certain types of pests hiding on them, but until then, you’ll just have to go to a reputable place and ask the person near you.

It’s not exactly easy to find organically grown seedlings. You can of course grow your own seedlings indoors. But unless you are around 24/7 or have greenhouse conditions in your home, it is a ridiculous amount of work. I buy what I can get and hope the soil and sun detoxifies whatever the plant’s previous owner has done.