Just Grow Something | Evidence-Based Home Gardening

My Plan Like A Pro Course is Open for Registration: ⁠⁠https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/pro⁠⁠

If you’ve ever gone into a Facebook gardening group and asked, “When am I supposed to plant this?” and then gotten ten different answers, you are not alone.
And if you’ve ever started seeds too early, ended up with giant leggy plants taking over your house, and then still got hit with a late cold snap? Also not alone.
Today on Just Grow Something we’re going to make garden timing feel simple, flexible, and predictable.
I’m going to show you how to build a planting calendar using frost dates as your starting point, then layering in:
• cool-season versus warm-season timing,
• how many weeks to start seeds indoors,
• a buffer for weather variability,
• and how to plan your fall garden by counting backward from your first frost.
This is one of those “once you understand it, you can reuse it forever” skills.
Let's dig in.

If you’ve ever planned a garden that looked amazing on paper and then halfway through summer you thought, “I do not have the time for this,” this episode is for you.
Because a garden can be beautiful, productive, and fun and still be too much if the plan doesn’t match your real life.
Today on Just Grow Something we’re building a low-maintenance garden plan. Not by choosing “easy plants,” but by designing your garden around the things that actually determine how much work it takes: location, layout, watering, weed control, and disease pressure and how that fits into the rest of your actual life.
Low-maintenance does not mean low-yield. It means fewer chores that pile up, fewer “emergency problems,” and a garden that still functions when your life gets busy.
As we go, I’ll give you simple action steps you can do in January to set this up. Because the easiest gardening season is the one you design on purpose.
Let's dig in.
References and Resources:
My Plan Like A Pro Course is Open for Registration: ⁠https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/pro⁠
University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension. “Beginning Vegetable Garden Basics: Site Selection and Soil Preparation.” https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/beginning-vegetable-garden-basics-site-selection-and-soil-preparation
Colorado State University Extension. “Drip Irrigation for Home Gardens.” https://extension.colostate.edu/resource/drip-irrigation-for-home-gardens/
University of Minnesota Extension. “Mulching 101: the secret to a healthy and happy garden.” https://extension.umn.edu/news/mulching-101-secret-healthy-and-happy-garden
Oregon State University Extension Service. “Sheet mulching and lasagna composting with cardboard.” https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/em-9559-sheet-mulching-lasagna-composting-cardboard

If you’ve ever had that one magical week where the garden is giving you exactly what you want - some lettuce, a few carrots, a handful of beans, a couple tomatoes - and then two weeks later you’re drowning in zucchini while everything else is kind of between harvests ...
Today we’re fixing that.
Because the goal for a lot of home gardeners isn’t “the biggest harvest possible on one weekend.” The goal is steady, usable harvests week after week so you’re actually eating from the garden regularly, without a sudden produce avalanche.
So today on Just Grow Something, I’m going to teach you a planning method that revolves around harvest windows.
Instead of only asking, “When do I plant this?” we’re going to ask:
“When do I want to be harvesting this, and do I want it over and over again?”
I’ll walk you through a simple framework and give you a few practical “rules of thumb” for how often certain crops can be re-planted or staggered to keep the harvest going.
Let's dig in!
References and Resources:
My Plan Like A Pro Course is Open for Registration: ⁠https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/pro⁠
University of Missouri Extension — “Harvest all season long with succession sowing” : https://extension.missouri.edu/news/harvest-all-season-long-with-succession-sowing
University of Minnesota Extension — “Climate resilience resources for vegetable growers in Minnesota” (includes a “when to plant for continuous harvest” interval table): https://extension.umn.edu/vegetables/climate-resilience-resources-vegetable-growers-minnesota#strategy-3%3A-reduce-risks-from-warmer-and-drier-conditions-3571512
NC State Extension — Extension Gardener Handbook, Chapter 16 “Vegetable Gardening” (Succession planting: varieties with different maturity, repeat plantings, and filling in after harvest): https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/16-vegetable-gardening

If you’ve ever stared at a seed catalog in January and thought, “I want all of it,” and then somehow ended up with a garden that felt chaotic by mid-summer, today’s episode is for you.
Because most “garden planning” advice starts with the fun part—varieties, colors, wish lists—and then we wonder why the plan falls apart when real life shows up.
So today on Just Grow Something, we’re going to flip the order.
I’m going to give you four questions that can lead you to an actual usable plan. These questions help you decide what to grow, where it goes, when it happens, and how to keep the plan realistic for the space and time you actually have.
And the best part is you can use these four questions whether you garden in a single planter, a few raised beds, or a bigger in-ground plot.
Let's dig in!
References and Resources:
My Plan Like A Pro Course is Open for Registration: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/pro
How to Plan Your Raised Bed Garden, Ep. 269: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/episode/how-to-plan-a-raised-bed-garden-ep-269
Seven Steps to Planning Your Entire Garden Year - Ep. 234: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/episode/7-steps-to-planning-your-entire-garden-year-ep-234

Virginia Cooperative Extension (2025). “Planning the Vegetable Garden.” VCE Publications: https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/426/426-312/426-312.html
Washington State University Extension (2015). “Crop Rotation in Home Gardens” (PDF): https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/2070/2015/08/Crop-Rotation-in-Home-Gardens.pdf
Penn State Extension (2023). “Keeping a Garden Journal.”: https://extension.psu.edu/keeping-a-garden-journal/

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We’ve reached the end of another gardening year. Maybe your garden was spectacular. Maybe it was just so-so. Maybe it was an absolute disaster in certain beds and you’re still a little salty about the squash vine borers.
However it went, this is a powerful moment in the gardening calendar.
Today we’re going to slow down and talk about taking time to reflect on the past season, reset your expectations, and reimagine what you want from your garden next year.
Extension programs and planning guides consistently recommend end-of-season evaluation, note-taking, and mapping as key pieces of long-term garden success. Research on goal-setting shows that specific, challenging, and meaningful goals help people follow through and actually change their behavior.
So, in this final episode of the year, we’re going to weave those two ideas together:
1. Why the end of the year is the best time to reflect on your garden
2. What goal-setting research can teach us about making better garden goals
3. Turning reflection into 3–5 clear, realistic goals for next year
4. A healthier mindset for handling “failures” and unexpected seasons
By the end, you’ll have a framework to close the book on this year’s garden and open a new one with intention.
Let’s dig in.
References and Resources:
Iowa State University Extension – Yard and Garden. “Garden Journaling.”: https://yardandgarden.extension.iastate.edu/how-to/garden-journaling
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. “Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation.” American Psychologist, 2002: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12237980/
Just Grow Something: https://justgrowsomething.com
Just Grow Something Merch andDownloads: https://justgrowsomething.com/shop
Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Facebook Group:https://www.facebook.com/share/g/18YgHveF5P/Check out how you can become a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JustGrowSomething
Bonus content for supporters of the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/justgrowsomething
Amazon storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/justgrowsomething