Carleen Madigan, Storey's garden editor and infamous editor/author of our best-selling book
The Backyard Homestead, has inspired her coworkers to get into the gardening spirit — in January!
Carleen has invented Storey's Seed-Starting Support Group. Any coworker (with or without gardening experience) who wishes to participate was invited to join. The group will meet regularly to plan our individual gardens, to buy vegetable seeds in bulk, and eventually to start seedlings in the office.
As Storey employees, we each receive a copy of newly released titles. Recently, we all received the
Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener's Handbook by Ronald Kujawski and Jennifer Kujawski. This is a workbook — the reader enters his or her area's frost dates and zone, and the book helps calculate what plants to start and when. The book also has seasonal (early spring, late summer, and so on) to-do lists and a place for a personalized garden journal, along with all the information a gardener needs to plan, plant, and grow an organic garden.
Carleen and her Seed-Starting Support Group are using their copies as a main resource and will record their efforts and progress in the workbook throughout the gardening seasons.
As you may have guessed, I am a part of Carleen's group, and our first meeting was held earlier this week. We flipped through seed catalogs and made a wish list of what we want to grow and purchase. Some of the seeds we will start indoors based on our zone, our average last-freeze date, and what the
Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener's Handbook suggests. Although many of our vegetable seeds will be planted directly into our gardens and not started in the office as a group effort, we find it to be economical to buy all the seeds in bulk and share. This allows us to grow many varieties and not have a drawer full of seeds left over that may or may not ever be used.
Also, in our first meeting the Seed-Starting Group made a list of the other supplies needed. From that list we determined that several members already have items to contribute, that there are some items we can begin to save (yogurt cups, flat trays, popsicle sticks), and that we only need to buy a few things — soil, mainly.
Not only is this group a good way to learn from others and experiment with new vegetable varieties, but it is also a way to garden without a lot of expenses. For more info on thrifty gardening, read
Dirt-Cheap Green Thumb.
I will report back on the progress of the Seed-Starting Support Group. Let us know if any of you readers have begun gardening in January and/or what future garden plans you have.
To see all our gardening books, click the link below:
Storey's Garden Catalog
— Kristy L. Rustay, Marketing Manager
1 comment:
This is a great idea! Go Carleen!! and go team. Look forward to seeing more posts on your progress.
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