Here’s what intuitive gardening means to me. It’s allowing ourselves to be open to the possibility that we can communicate with nature, that we can receive real information, learn what a place wants, and bring our own vision into that conversation instead of imposing it. It’s treating the land like the intelligent, living thing it is, not a backdrop or a resource. It means asking instead of deciding. It means noticing what a plant community is doing on its own and letting that surprise you.

That's what I want to spend the next year finding out.

I want to start with something honest. We are outsourcing our thinking minds. More and more, we turn to AI to answer our questions, write our words, solve what we used to sit with. I use it too. I’ll admit that plainly, because I don’t think the answer is to reject these tools outright. I use AI to make my own work more efficient, and I think there’s real merit in some of what it offers. But I don’t want it to replace the parts of me that know things without being told, the parts that trust instinct over immediacy, the parts that are frankly ancestral, passed down rather than looked up. The more we lean on something outside ourselves to think and create for us, the less practice we get trusting what’s already inside us. I don’t want to lose that trade.

I run Mother Gardener, where I coach people on caring for what they have. Bringing in native and adapted plants. Growing food. Turning water-hungry lawns into something alive and place-appropriate. I love this work. But there’s a layer underneath it that doesn’t get talked about much, and it’s the layer I keep getting pulled back toward, especially in the seasons when I feel stuck, or low, or unsure of my next step. It’s the question of relationship. Not just what to plant and when, but whether the land has something to say about it too.

For a long time I’ve had a longing I couldn’t quite put words to. It’s not a longing to go backward, to just recreate what some of our ancestors did. It’s something forward-facing, a pull toward a future where we evolve not by becoming more technological, but by learning to care for, respect, and actually commune with the natural world using the same kind of intuition and energetic attention we’re currently pouring into AI. I don’t want a future of robots on Mars. I want a future where we get better at listening to the earth that already supports us. That’s the evolution I feel called toward, and it’s the one I want to help build, even in some small way, from my own garden.

I won’t pretend this has been easy for me. I run a business. I have two young daughters. Intuitive work asks you to slow down, to get your nervous system calm enough to actually receive something, and slowing down is in short supply most days. But I’ve found real moments of it. Greeting the morning outside before I reach for my phone. Sitting at a small nature altar. Writing freeform under a favorite tree and seeing what comes through. Using a pendulum to ask a real question and actually waiting for the answer. Working with the land the way I’d work on any relationship worth having: checking in, asking what it wants to try, listening for its version of a dream or a challenge, and letting it listen to mine.

I’m not doing this alone, or even first. I’ve been guided by the gardeners at Findhorn and Perelandra, who built abundance out of conversation with the land rather than control over it, and by Mary Reynolds, who asks us to see land as something with its own voice and purpose rather than something we simply use. I’m adding my own experience to a lineage that already exists.

So here’s what I’m committing to. For the next year, I’ll be writing here weekly about this practice: what I’m trying, what fails, what surprises me, what I’m learning about my own land and myself along the way. I’ll be sharing pieces of it on Instagram too, and eventually on YouTube, though that part is still taking shape. I honestly don’t know yet what every week will hold. That’s part of the point. I’ve circled this work before, in pieces, in private. This time I’m stepping into it fully, in public, and I’m stepping into it alongside anyone who wants to come.

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What I hope for, personally, by the end of this year: to feel more connected. To experience magic again, and find new ways of doing things I’ve done the same way for years. To build real confidence in working with the natural world instead of just around it. To bring more harmony to my own two acres. To get better at asking good questions and stay curious about the answers.

And if some of you reading this have felt this same longing, for a nature that talks back, for a way of gardening that isn’t just labor but relationship, I hope you’ll stay close. Maybe you already have a practice like this and want to compare notes. Maybe you’ve never tried and don’t know where to start. Either way, I think there are more of us out here than we realize, and I’d rather not do this quietly.

Let’s find out what’s possible together.

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May is one of the busiest and most humbling months in a Front Range garden. Everything wants to happen at once — seedlings are ready, the soil is finally warming, the nurseries are full — and yet the weather has not gotten the memo. A late frost can arrive without apology. A hailstorm can flatten what took weeks to grow. The wind blows like it has somewhere important to be.

If May has ever made you feel behind before you’ve started, you’re not alone. This checklist is meant to help you see the month clearly — what actually needs attention now, what can wait, and how to work with this particular, unpredictable, deeply alive season rather than against it.

This Season: What to Know Right Now

Spring 2026 on the Front Range has been warm — unusually so. Early May brought near-record heat with very little rain following a dry April. This matters for your garden in a few specific ways.

Warm, dry springs favor grasshopper outbreaks. Eggs hatch faster in warm soil, populations build quickly, and drought-stressed plants are more vulnerable. Start prevention now — not when you see damage.

Dry conditions also mean bindweed will be aggressive in any bare or disturbed soil. Cover bare ground as quickly as possible with mulch or planting.

On the positive side, warm soil means warm season crops will establish quickly once planted. The frost window is likely shorter this year — but keep watching your overnight forecasts. The Front Range can still surprise us.

First, Know Your Frost Dates

Fort Collins reaches the 50/50 frost risk point around May 12, with a 90% chance of frost-free nights by May 26. Loveland runs slightly later — the 50/50 point lands around May 27, with reliable safety closer to mid-June. Keep a row cover or old bedsheet within reach through mid-month. Our intense UV and wind make tender transplants vulnerable even on mild nights — if an overnight low is predicted below 36°F, cover your most tender plants. WarOmahaorganicslawncarePermis

Watch your forecast more than your calendar. Remember, warm season crops dont want to be outside under 45-50.

The Vegetable Garden and Herbs

Early May is your last good window for cool season crops. Lettuce, spinach, arugula, kale, chard, cilantro, peas, beets, and carrots all prefer cool temperatures and will bolt once summer heat arrives. Get them in now.

Mid-May is tomato time. Tomato transplants are typically planted in the second week of May on the Front Range, with heat-loving peppers and eggplant doing best in the third week. Harden off any seedlings started indoors before transplanting — move them outside for increasing periods over a week before planting out. Our intense UV and wind are hard on plants that have only known indoor light. Alibaba

Late May, once you’re consistently past frost risk, plant cucumbers, squash, beans, corn, and basil. Warm season vegetables are intolerant of frost and can be sensitive to cool spring winds even when temperatures are technically above freezing. A soil thermometer is one of the most useful tools you can own here. Lifescape Colorado

For herbs: hardy varieties — thyme, oregano, sage, chives, lemon balm — can go in earlier in May. Wait until late May for basil, tulsi, and lemongrass, which hate cold soil and cold nights. If you’re establishing a tea garden this year, May is your window. Chamomile, anise hyssop, bee balm, and lemon balm all transplant well now and will reward you with harvests all summer if they’re in the ground in time to establish.

Soil and Beds

If you haven’t already amended your beds, do it now before planting. Most Colorado soil is heavy clay and benefits from at least two inches of compost worked into the top three to four inches of soil — avoid working it when wet, as it will dry like adobe. Add a balanced amendment at planting time — neem seed meal is a gentle slow-release nitrogen source that feeds soil biology rather than bypassing it.

Mulch everything. Two to three inches of wood chip mulch conserves moisture dramatically in our dry climate, especially as May wind and low humidity pull water out of the soil fast. Keep mulch a few inches away from plant stems.

Native and Ornamental Plantings

May is one of the best months to establish native perennials and grasses on the Front Range. The soil is warming but not yet heat-stressed, and plants have time to develop roots before summer arrives. Good choices now: blanket flower, penstemon, prairie coneflower, scarlet globemallow, blue flax, liatris, yarrow, and native grasses including blue grama and buffalo grass.

Plant natives in lightly amended or unamended soil — most Front Range natives don’t want or need rich compost. Water in well at planting, then water deeply and infrequently so roots go down rather than staying near the surface. If you’re starting a hell strip, dry slope, or lawn transition, this is the month to begin.

What to Watch For

Bindweed is emerging now and May is your most important month to stay ahead of it. Work section by section — don’t try to tackle everything at once. Pull or cut before it flowers and sets seed, and steep what you harvest in a bin of water to make a calcium-rich plant tea rather than bagging it. An hour a week consistently through May and June makes a meaningful difference in root reserves. Miss May and you’ll be managing a much larger problem by July.

Grasshoppers hatch in late spring and early summer, and May is your window to get ahead of them before populations build. This year’s warm dry spring makes higher grasshopper pressure likely — don’t wait until you see damage.

For the most ecologically responsible approach, start with Semaspore or Nolo Bait — a fully organic EPA-registered biological control containing Nosema locustae, a naturally occurring protozoan that infects and kills grasshoppers without harming birds, beneficial insects, or soil organisms. It’s most effective on young nymphs, so apply in spring while hoppers are still small — scatter it in the morning when grasshoppers are actively feeding and don’t apply within 4 to 6 hours of rain. IFD

If you’re facing a heavy infestation and need faster results, EcoBran is the next step. Worth being transparent: EcoBran contains 2% carbaryl — it’s not a fully organic product. However it’s far more targeted than spraying — because the carbaryl is ingested only by chewing insects attracted to the bran bait, it doesn’t affect birds or beneficial insects at this concentration. Use it at the perimeter of your garden and in hatching areas — sunny, dry, south-facing spots with loose soil — rather than broadcasting it everywhere. Denver GazettePitkin County

Aphids arrive in May, often clustering on new growth of roses, milkweed, and vegetables. A strong spray of water knocks most off. Neem oil or insecticidal soap for persistent infestations — but hold off if you see ladybugs and lacewings moving in, which they will.

Cutworms can take down newly transplanted seedlings overnight. A collar made from a cardboard tube placed around the base of transplants at planting time is simple and effective.

Late frost — watch overnight forecasts through mid-May. Cover tender plants when lows drop below 36°F.

Wind — our persistent spring wind desiccates soil and stresses transplants fast. Water more frequently in windy periods and consider temporary windbreaks for the most vulnerable new plantings.

A Note on Pacing

The garden doesn’t need everything done at once. It needs you to show up consistently — an hour here, a morning there — paying attention to what’s in front of you rather than what’s on the list. The Front Range spring is short and genuinely glorious. Don’t spend it anxious about what isn’t done.

May at a Glance

Vegetables and herbs

• Finish cool season crops now — lettuce, spinach, kale, peas, beets, carrots

• Harden off indoor seedlings before transplanting

• Tomatoes mid-May, peppers and eggplant late May

• Cucumbers, squash, beans, basil, corn after frost risk passes

• Hardy herbs now; basil and tulsi late May

Soil and beds

• Amend with compost and balanced fertilizer

• Mulch all beds 2-3 inches

• Don’t work wet clay soil

Native and ornamental plantings

• Plant natives in lightly amended soil

• Water deeply and infrequently

• Start hell strip or lawn transition now

Watch for

• Bindweed — pull weekly before flowering, make tea not trash

• Grasshoppers — apply Semaspore or Nolo Bait now while nymphs are small; EcoBran for heavy infestations

• Aphids on new growth

• Cutworms on transplants

• Late frost through mid-May

• Wind stress on new transplants

If you’re looking at your garden this May and not sure where to start — or want support thinking through what your specific piece of ground needs — I’d love to work with you. Mother Gardener coaching and consultations are available for Front Range gardeners at every stage.

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What are you planting this May? What’s surprising you in the garden right now? Tell me in the comments.

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I’ve watched a landscape get swept away before.

The woods I grew up running through in Massachusetts — eating wild blueberries off the bush, coming home with mud on my knees — are mostly gone now. Subdivisions. Grass lawns. Cul-de-sacs where the trees were. I know what it feels like to watch a living place become something else, and to feel the sadness of all the life that was once there, now gone.

From my home in northern Colorado, I can see an open field across the way — shortgrass prairie. There are development plans for it. And I feel that same sense of worry and dread. What will become of what’s already here? How will we support this land in an already drought-stricken state? Where will the wild places live if we don’t stop and pay attention?

The Transplant and Its Habitat

Many of us arrived in Colorado from elsewhere, carrying a landscape in our imagination — the green of wherever we came from, the aesthetic we grew up inside. Nearly 59% of Colorado residents were born somewhere else, with the largest group arriving from California, followed by Texas, Illinois, and New York — places where lush, layered, well-watered gardens make complete ecological sense.

When we arrive on the Front Range and look out at dry upland ground and sparse grass, something in us reads it as unfinished. We plant what we know. We replicate what we see on Instagram, on television, and in new housing developments — landscapes designed for curb appeal, for human eyes, for the aesthetic of somewhere else. And most of us don’t realize we’re doing it, because we’ve never been shown what this place actually was, what it wants to be, or how we might fit within it.

The Land We Are On

The prairies that spread from the foothills out across eastern Colorado have long been dismissed as nothing but cow country. That dismissiveness may be one of the reasons we’re losing them.

Before the subdivisions, before the corn fields, before the sod farms growing Kentucky bluegrass on what was once prairie — to sell to homeowners who will use it to replace what was prairie somewhere else — the Front Range was shortgrass prairie. One of the most ecologically specific and quietly extraordinary landscapes in North America.

It doesn’t announce itself. But look closely and a whole world opens. Blue grama grass grows in low tufts, its curved seed heads catching the afternoon light. Buffalo grass spreads in silver-green mats that turn the color of wheat straw by midsummer. Scarlet globemallow blazes orange in the dry edges. Blue flax threads through in colonies in one of the rarest flower colors-blue. Prairie coneflower nods in the wind. And beneath all of it, root systems reaching fifteen feet or more into the earth — deeper than most trees — building soil carbon, cycling nutrients, and feeding a vast underground network of fungi and microbes that hold the whole system together.

This is not a simple or impoverished landscape. It is one of the most biodiverse grassland ecosystems in the world, home to hundreds of species of native bees, grassland birds found nowhere else, and a soil biology that took thousands of years to develop and cannot be recreated simply by stopping mowing.

The burrowing owl nests here — in the ground, inside the prairie dog colonies that shortgrass prairie supports. The ferruginous hawk hunts here. The mountain plover, the long-billed curlew, the meadowlark — all of them grassland-dependent, all of them declining as the prairie disappears. We have 30% fewer birds than we did in 1970. The black-footed ferret was once lost from Colorado’s shortgrass prairie entirely and is only now being experimentally reintroduced in places like Soapstone Prairie. These creatures didn’t evolve to live in ornamental shrub plantings, however beautiful. They evolved inside this specific plant community. Replace those plants and you don’t just change the aesthetic — you collapse the food web they depend on.

And here is something that surprises almost everyone: that root system reaching into the earth is doing something that forests can’t reliably match. A 2018 peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Research Letters by researchers at UC Davis found that grasslands sequester most of their carbon underground, while forests store it in woody biomass and leaves — carbon that releases back into the atmosphere when fire burns.

“Grasslands store more carbon than forests because they are impacted less by droughts and wildfires,” the lead researcher stated. One acre of prairie stores approximately one ton of carbon in roots and soil per year — storage that compounds over centuries when the land is left undisturbed. On the semi-arid, fire-prone Front Range, the prairie beneath our feet may be a more reliable climate solution than any tree we could plant in its place.

These plants are still here — in the natural areas east of Fort Collins, at Soapstone Prairie and Bobcat Ridge, along roadsides that haven’t been mowed. Fort Collins has invested in protecting and preserving thousands of acres of native shortgrass prairie at Soapstone Prairie specifically. That is something we are doing right and one of the many reasons I am proud to live in this area.

Most of the Front Range sits in transition zones where prairie grades into foothills, and rivers like the Poudre create genuine riparian ecosystems — cottonwoods, willows, wet meadow grasses — within an otherwise arid landscape. Along the river, water-loving trees belong. On the dry upland ground a mile away, they’re asking for something this land can’t sustain.

The question worth asking before you plant anything if you have restoration in mind: what was specifically here, on this ground, before this house was built? That answer is your compass.

What We’ve Already Lost

Shortgrass prairie once covered most of Colorado east of the mountain front. Today nearly 50% of our historic shortgrass prairie has been converted — the largest ecosystem loss in Colorado’s history. Across the western United States, it has declined to about one-fifth of its original area over the past century.

The largest single driver has been conversion to row crop production, with urban sprawl along the Front Range fragmenting what’s left. Those wide open fields along the highway that look like grassland have often been reseeded with non-native species that look like grass from a car window and support a fraction of the native insect life that co-evolved here over thousands of years. Open land is not the same as intact prairie. The difference is invisible at sixty miles an hour and enormous to everything that lives in it.

The largest portion of Colorado’s declining animal species are associated with the shortgrass prairie. Grassland bird species may constitute one of the fastest declining vertebrate populations in North America. And 87% of what remains is privately owned — which means the choices made in our own yards are not separate from conservation. They are conservation, or they are its slow undoing.

The Right Grass. The Right Plants. The Right Place.

We’ve been told to get rid of our lawns. Kentucky bluegrass — a European grass with no ecological relationship to this landscape, requiring irrigation at triple the rate of native alternatives — is a reasonable target. But maybe the answer was never less grass. Maybe it was the right grass, in the right place.

Blue grama and buffalo grass are the native grasses of this ecosystem. These deeply-rooted perennials stabilize and nurture soil in a dry and windswept land, providing critical forage and habitat for insects, birds, and other wildlife — many are critical larval host plants for native butterfly and moth species. They can be grown as a low-mow, low-water alternative that actually belongs here and actually feeds the system it’s part of.

Walk through any new Front Range development and you’ll see rabbitbrush, Apache plume, chokecherry, crevice gardens, xeric plantings — and some of these are genuinely valuable. Rabbitbrush produces bright yellow flowers in September and October that are among the most important late-season nectar sources for native bees and migrating butterflies. Crevice gardens create real habitat for ground-nesting bees and lizards. These are worth celebrating. But water-wise is not the same as ecologically functional. A crevice garden filled with Central Asian alpine plants may use almost no water and support almost none of the native insects of the Front Range.

The word “native” also needs unpacking. Native to Colorado is not one thing. Blue grama and buffalo grass are native to this ecoregion — to this specific prairie. Apache plume and chokecherry are native to Colorado’s foothills and canyon transitions. Fernbush is widely sold as a Colorado native but is actually a Great Basin plant. CSU Extension supports adapted non-natives that don’t disrupt key pollinator relationships — the goal isn’t purity. It’s knowing what you’re planting and making that choice consciously.

What we consistently under-plant is the unglamorous stuff — prairie zinnia, dotted gayfeather, scarlet globemallow — plants that don’t photograph well but that specific native bees have evolved to pollinate exclusively, that specific caterpillars can only eat, that ground-nesting insects require for habitat. We are losing species not because we have no choice but because we are choosing what looks beautiful to us over what functions for everything else. Most of us don’t realize we’re making that trade.

We Don’t Need to Restore Our Yards to 1800

But what we can do is orient toward what was here. Use it as a compass rather than a rulebook. Plant toward it rather than away from it. Even small movements in that direction, multiplied across thousands of Front Range yards, add up to something real.

In your own yard:

• Start with the grasses. Add one patch of native forbs — blanket flower, scarlet globemallow, prairie coneflower. Let your edges go unmowed. Ask before you buy: what does this plant feed? What nests in it? What does it do for the soil? A plant that answers none of those questions is decoration. A plant that answers all three is ecosystem.

If you’d like guidance reading your specific landscape — understanding what was there before, what your soil is asking for, and which plants make sense for your particular piece of ground — this is exactly the work I do through Mother Gardener coaching and design. Every yard tells a story. Learning to read it changes everything about how you tend it.

To see it done beautifully:

• The Laura Smith Porter Plains Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens’ Chatfield Farms shows what shortgrass prairie looks like as intentional design.

• Wild Ones Front Range maintains demo gardens including the Greenverein hell strip at 16th and Clarkson in Denver.

• Our Prairie Garden in Denver — a private yard converted entirely to Front Range natives — was featured in the New York Times and documents the full transformation at ourprairiegarden.com.

• Walk Soapstone Prairie or Bobcat Ridge in July. See what intact shortgrass prairie actually looks like. That’s your reference point for everything else.

For plants: Wild Ones Front Range publishes native plant species sheets at frontrange.wildones.org. High Plains Environmental Center in Loveland grows plants from locally sourced seed.

As an advocate:

When development is proposed near open land, ask what ecosystem it currently supports. When your city installs new public landscaping, ask whether it’s genuinely native to this ecoregion or simply drought-tolerant. Support Wild Ones Front Range, Colorado Natural Heritage Program, and High Plains Environmental Center. Cities and developers respond to constituents who are paying attention.

An Invitation

The field across from my window is still there this morning. The grasses are coming up. A meadowlark called from somewhere as I walked my dog around.

I don’t know how much longer it will be there.

But I know that learning to see it — really see it, as the specific and irreplaceable and living thing it is — has changed what I plant, what I protect, and what I notice is missing. I’ve watched a landscape disappear before. I’d like to not watch it happen again without at least understanding what’s at stake.

We don’t need to restore our yards to 1800. We just need to start asking different questions — about what was here, what depends on it, and what we lose when we replace it with something that looks good but belongs somewhere else.

The prairie is still here beneath us. In the soil, in the seed bank, in the native grasses coming up through the cracks of things. It remembers what it is.

The question is whether we’re ready to remember with it.

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Sources and Further Reading

• Dass, P., et al. (2018). “Grasslands may be more reliable carbon sinks than forests in California.” Environmental Research Letters, UC Davis

• Colorado Biodiversity Scorecard, Colorado Natural Heritage Program / LandScope America

• Colorado Parks and Wildlife: Conserving and Researching Wildlife Habitats

• Wild Ones Front Range: frontrange.wildones.org

• CSU Extension PlantTalk Colorado: planttalk.colostate.edu

• Our Prairie Garden, Denver: ourprairiegarden.com

• Prairie Up — Benjamin Vogt

• A New Garden Ethic — Benjamin Vogt

• Bringing Nature Home — Douglas Tallamy

• High Plains Environmental Center Native Plant Nursery, Loveland: hpec.org

• Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield Farms

• Soapstone Prairie and Bobcat Ridge Natural Areas, Fort Collins Parks and Recreation

What does the land look like where you live — and are you starting to see it differently? I’d love to hear in the comments.

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There is a particular kind of gardener’s despair that arrives as spring comes in — when you look out across a dry patch of ground and realize the bindweed has emerged. It threads through everything — up through the mulch, around the stems of your carefully planted beds, across the surface of any patch of bare soil — and for a moment, you think about buying the dreaded weed killer you swore you’d never use.

I know that moment well. I live on two acres in northern Colorado on an old depleted horse pasture I’ve been working to restore. This is the story of how I stopped trying to eradicate it and started trying to understand it — and what happened when I did.

What Bindweed Is Trying to Tell You

Field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) is a deep-rooted perennial that thrives in disturbed, compacted, and depleted soils — exactly the conditions that define most of the land we’re trying to restore. When bindweed shows up, I’ve learned it’s pointing to a very particular soil story: low humus, low available calcium, low phosphorus, and a pH that’s out of balance — or simply exposed earth that needs covering.

Bindweed doesn’t just indicate these deficiencies. It actively works to correct them.

Its taproot can reach twenty feet or more into the earth, mining calcium and other minerals from soil horizons that most plants never touch. As the plant dies back seasonally and its biomass breaks down on the surface, those minerals are deposited right where your garden needs them most. The vines themselves, when cut, are high in calcium — which means every time you harvest bindweed, you’re returning a calcium-rich amendment to the soil it was trying to heal.

And in bare, dry areas — especially here on the sun-intense Front Range — bindweed’s sprawling growth does something else worth noticing: it acts as a living mulch, shading the soil surface from UV exposure that would otherwise bake and degrade the microbial life beneath. Our soils need cover. Bindweed provides it by default when nothing else will. It is a first responder, not a villain.

It showed up because your soil was in need of its medicine.

This is not me saying let it grow unchecked. Bindweed is genuinely aggressive — its root system is vast, its seeds can remain viable in the soil for fifty years, and when left to itself it will compete hard for water and nutrients, winding around and eventually suppressing everything you’ve intentionally planted. Understanding why it’s there and letting it take over are two very different things.

How It Got Here

Bindweed is not originally from here. It arrived on this continent with European settlers, most likely in contaminated agricultural seed and hay — a stowaway that has been traveling with human disturbance ever since. It moved into broken ground, plowed fields, roadsides, and overgrazed pastures.

That history matters. It is a plant of disrupted places, shaped by thousands of years of coexistence with agriculture. That doesn’t make it easy to live with. But it does make it easier to understand.

The Temptation to Spray

When bindweed is threading through your mulch piles, colonizing your dry edges, appearing in every bed you thought you’d cleared — the herbicide crosses your mind. Of course it does. We are tired. We are short on time. The plant seems to laugh at our efforts.

But here’s what spraying actually does: it collapses the very biology you are trying to build. Herbicides don’t just target the plant — they move through the soil, disrupting mycorrhizal networks, harming the microbial communities that make nutrients available to your plants, and in many cases deepening the exact conditions of depletion that invited bindweed in the first place. You would be treating the symptom by worsening the cause.

There’s also a practical problem with the most tempting mechanical shortcut: tilling. It seems logical — dig it up, break up the roots, start fresh. But bindweed loves disturbance. Every time you till, you fragment the root system into dozens of new potential plants. Tilling to eradicate bindweed feeds it.

I also tried bindweed mites — a biocontrol option worth knowing about. They’re real, they work over time, and they’re host-specific to bindweed. But they’re difficult to source, slow to establish, and don’t spread easily across a large property. Worth researching if you’re dealing with a serious infestation, but not a quick fix by any measure.

The most honest strategy is also the slowest one: stay in it, section by section, and build the soil conditions that make bindweed unnecessary.

Improving Your Soil — With Care

Building humus, increasing nitrogen, and improving soil biology all genuinely discourage bindweed over time. As the soil becomes richer and more alive, the conditions that called bindweed in become less pronounced. This is slow, compounding work — but it’s real.

One note of caution specific to our region: Front Range soils are often already alkaline. Before adding any pH-altering amendment — lime included — get a professional soil test first. What corrects calcium deficiency in an acidic soil can make an already alkaline soil worse. Know your specific ground before you amend it. Your local CSU Extension office or Mother Gardener can help with testing and interpretation.

The Harvest Reframe — And How to Do It Safely

This spring I’ve been working section by section through my property, digging bindweed rather than spraying it. It is slow, meditative, and — I will be honest — occasionally maddening.

But something shifted when I stopped thinking about eradication and started thinking about harvest.

Instead of bagging the pulled vines for the trash, I’ve been filling a large bin with water and submerging the bindweed in it — roots, vines, and all — to ferment into a plant tea. Given how calcium-rich bindweed is, that tea may be returning exactly the minerals the soil was short on when bindweed arrived in the first place. The very plant I was fighting becomes food for the garden it was competing with. I’m experimenting with adding biochar and a root stimulator to enrich it further.

The language matters more than I initially realized. When I call it harvesting, something in my body changes. The resentment lifts. I am not losing a battle. I am doing something that needs doing, in a way that closes a loop.

A few important cautions if you try this:

• Never put bindweed that has gone to seed into your tea bin. The seeds can survive the fermentation process and you risk spreading them back through your garden when you apply the tea. Harvest before flowering whenever possible, or at the very latest, just as the first flowers open.

• Strain out all roots and plant material thoroughly before applying. Root fragments left in the tea can potentially re-establish if they end up in moist soil. Use an old pillowcase, burlap, or a fine mesh strainer, and compost or dry the strained material fully in the sun before disposal.

• Don’t add seeding bindweed to your regular compost pile either. Unlike the tea process, a cold or lukewarm compost pile will not reliably kill bindweed seeds, and you risk distributing them across your garden when you spread the compost. If it’s gone to seed, dry it in the sun until completely desiccated, or bag it for green waste collection.

Done carefully, the tea is one of the most satisfying acts of closed-loop gardening.

There’s also a timing strategy worth knowing for the harvesting itself: let bindweed grow until it just begins to flower before you cut or pull it. The roots expend enormous energy pushing to that point — cutting the plant there draws down those reserves most significantly. Each pass, done at the right time, weakens the plant further. Just don’t let it get past that first flowering stage or you’ll be managing seeds as well as roots.

Dense Planting Is the Long Game

One of the most effective tools against bindweed isn’t a tool at all — it’s community.

Bindweed prefers full sun and open ground. It is not competitive in shade. Dense, diverse planting crowds out the bare soil it needs to establish. Healthy stands of grasses, legumes, and layered perennials act as living smother crops — outcompeting bindweed not through aggression but through sheer occupancy.

Just this week I finished working a new flower bed — a space that two years ago was compacted dry clay. I covered it in deep mulch, which has now broken down into the soil. I removed the bindweed, added a balanced amendment, watered well, and planted with the goal of leaving as little bare earth as possible going forward. Will some bindweed return? Yes. But each pass weakens the root. And a well-planted bed, over time, simply leaves less room for it.

This is why restoration and weed management are the same project. Every plant you establish, every bare patch you cover is a message to bindweed: someone else has this job now.

The Spiritual Dimension

I’ve been sitting with bindweed as a flower essence — something I’m still researching — but what I understand of it points toward themes of flexibility, releasing control, and breaking through rigid patterns. Which feels exactly right.

Bindweed cannot be forced out. It winds around everything, persists through everything, returns through everything. Its seeds wait in the soil for fifty years. In that persistence, it offers a teaching: some things cannot be defeated. They can only be worked with, slowly, over time, in relationship.

There is an older way of understanding weeds — rooted in Celtic land traditions, in indigenous North American relationships with plants — that sees them not as mistakes but as messengers. Plants that arrive in a place are responding to that place. They are part of a conversation the land is having with itself. Our job as stewards is to learn to hear it and help support it’s regeneration.

Bindweed is, in a strange way, a plant of the threshold — showing up at the edges of things, in the in-between spaces. Looking for ways to break through and do the best it knows how to do.

Maybe that’s not so different from where many of us find ourselves.

An Invitation

If you are standing at the edge of a bed threaded with bindweed right now, feeling that particular gardener’s despair — I want to offer you this:

You don’t have to win. You just have to stay in it.

Go section by section. Pull what you can — ideally just as it’s coming into flower, before it sets seed, when the roots are most depleted. Steep it in water carefully and give it back to the garden as tea. Amend your soil thoughtfully. Plant densely. Come back next week and do it again. Know that each pass weakens the root and builds the bed. Trust that the land is not against you — it is simply responding to conditions, trying to repair, doing its best with what it has.

What’s your relationship with bindweed — or whatever persistent plant keeps returning to your garden? I’d love to hear in the comments.

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We’re in the 70s during the day and back down to the 30s and 40s at night. The lilacs are blooming. Spinach is in the ground. The asparagus is up. April on the Front Range is genuinely generous — if you know where to look.

Our last frost date is still late May, so warm-season crops stay inside or wait. But there’s real work to do and real food to eat right now.

What You Can Harvest Right Now

Chives are one of the first things out of the ground every year. Cut them freely — they keep coming back. Perennial herbs like thyme, oregano, and lemon balm are pushing new growth. Take just the tips to encourage fuller plants through the season.

Spinach that overwintered or went in early is ready to start cutting. Take outer leaves and let the center keep growing.

Asparagus spears are up. Harvest at 6–8 inches, before the tips begin to open into fronds. If your bed is newer, let it fern out this year — the roots are still building energy, and it’s worth being patient.

What to Direct Sow Now

Cool-season crops are happy in April soil. Peas, arugula, radishes, turnips, and lettuce can all go in now. Spinach too, if you want to succession sow behind what’s already out there.

Squash and cucumbers are best direct sown into warm soil — wait on those until late May. Don’t start them inside; they don’t love transplanting and they catch up fast once the soil is warm.

Keep row cover handy for nights that drop hard. It’s not over yet.

What to Start Indoors Now

Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant should be going or started this month if you haven’t yet. Annual herbs like basil can go now too — just keep them warm.

Start hardening off anything that’s been inside. Set seedlings outside in a sheltered spot for a few hours a day, increasing sun and wind exposure gradually over a week or two before transplanting. This step makes a real difference.

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Division, Transplanting, and Mulching

As perennials wake up, you can see where clumps are overcrowded. Now is a good time to divide ornamental grasses, coneflowers, yarrow, and salvia. Dig, divide, replant, and water in well. They’re vulnerable right after division, so don’t let them dry out.

Once the soil starts to warm, get a layer of compost or mulch down around beds, trees, and shrubs. Keep it away from plant crowns and trunks. This year especially, mulch is one of the most useful things you can do — it holds moisture in the soil at a time when every drop counts.

Sharpen Your Tools

Before the season accelerates, sharpen your pruners, hori hori, and any other hand tools that got heavy use last year. A sharp blade makes a cleaner cut, which heals faster. A whetstone and a little oil is all it takes. Worth doing now before you need them every single day.

Lawn Care and the Drought

This year is different and worth taking seriously. Colorado’s snowpack has dropped to its lowest level in recorded history Thecherrycreeknews, and Fort Collins and Loveland are currently deciding whether to enact watering restrictions CBS News — so check with your water utility and stay tuned. The general guidance from water managers across the Front Range right now is to prioritize trees first — if a tree dies, it takes decades to come back — and hold off on lawn irrigation as long as possible. The Colorado Sun

If you are maintaining a lawn, don’t turn on your irrigation system yet. Hand water trees and shrubs if they need it. Wait until soil temps are consistently above 50°F before dethatching, aerating, or overseeding.

If you’ve been thinking about reducing lawn area, this is the year to act on it. More Front Range homeowners are replacing lawns with native grasses, shrubs, and mulch — and some municipalities have subsidy programs to help with the transition. CNN Less water, more habitat, lower bills. It’s worth looking into what’s available in your city.

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Watch for Early Pests

Start paying attention now. Grubs often turn up when you’re working soil — note where you’re seeing them and how many. Asparagus beetle adults emerge right as spears do in spring. Check your asparagus bed and hand-pick if you see them. Getting ahead of it early is much easier than managing it later.

The goal isn’t total eradication. It’s knowing what’s in your garden and responding when populations are out of control.

Wild Harvest: What’s Available Now

This is one of my favorite parts of April.

Dandelion and dock roots are best dug in early spring, before the plants put energy into flowering. The roots are most potent right now. I dig them for medicine — tinctures, infused vinegars, decoctions. Don’t wait too long on this one.

Nettles are up and ready. Harvest before they flower, blanch or steam to neutralize the sting, and use them like cooked greens. They’re rich in iron and minerals and genuinely delicious.

Lilacs are blooming right now. Infuse the flowers into honey, syrup, or tea. They don’t last long — pay attention and harvest while they’re open.

Coyote willow branches are pliable and ready to cut now, before the leaves fully open. I use them for garden trellises and simple woven fences. They dry into place and hold up well through the season.

Rough horsetail is up in wetter areas. It’s high in silica — I’ve been chopping it and steeping it in apple cider vinegar, which makes a good preparation for hair, nail, and bone health. Worth making now while it’s fresh and abundant.

Forage only where you’re confident in your identification and where the land is clean.

What to Observe This Month

What’s coming back without your help? Where is the soil dry already? What’s thriving and what’s struggling?

These observations matter more this year than most. The garden will tell you a lot — if you’re paying attention.

Want help planning your kitchen garden or figuring out what to do in your specific space this spring? I offer garden coaching across the Fort Collins, Windsor, and Wellington area.

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Nothing highlights structure in the garden like winter.

The leaves are gone, the soil is mostly quiet, and whatever remains in the landscape tells how intentional the garden was designed. There’s no hiding behind summer abundance. Winter shows us what our gardens foundation is and can be an opportunity for continued interest for humans and creatures a like.

This time of year, I often hear people say their garden feels “empty” or “dead.” But winter landscapes don’t have to feel barren. When we design with intention, winter becomes a season of structure, subtle color, and textural interest.

What Winter Reveals About a Garden

Along the Front Range, our winters are unpredictable — sun, snow, freeze, thaw and freeze again. It’s a lot to ask of a landscape. We can experience barren looking landscapes from November to March/April- a significant amount of our time growing here.

In winter, the most successful landscapes rely less on flowers and more on form. The bones of the garden- shape, texture, and contrast become the language.

If a garden feels flat in winter, it’s usually not because plants are gone — it’s because the structure was never there to begin with.

Why Grasses Matter More Than You Think

Ornamental grasses are often treated as summer accents, but they are some of the hardest-working plants in a winter landscape.

Here along the Front Range, grasses:

• catch snow and frost beautifully

• move with winter wind, adding life to still spaces

• hold warm tones — golds, tans, silvers — long after flowers fade

• soften hard edges created by stone, paths, and architecture

Leaving grasses standing through winter also provides habitat for wildlife and protects crowns from freeze–thaw cycles.

Reliable Front Range Grasses for Winter Interest

• Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)

• Blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis)

• Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum)

• Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis)

• Maiden Grass (Miscanthus sinensis)

*Design tip- when working with grasses you can get a big impact by grouping them together in mass.

Evergreens: The Quiet Anchors

Evergreens do more than stay green — they hold space.

In winter landscapes, evergreens provide:

• visual grounding when everything else recedes

• contrast against snow and dormant soil

• protection from wind and exposure

• a sense of continuity across seasons

Thoughtful evergreen use is about balance — mixing upright forms, soft textures, and open spacing so the garden feels supported, not heavy.

Evergreens That Perform Well Along the Front Range

• Oregon grape (Mahonia repens)

• Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi))

• Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum)

• Mugo pine (Pinus mugo)

• Dwarf spruce varieties (Picea spp.)

*Given current pest pressure on many pine species along the Front Range, I often recommend diversifying evergreen plantings with junipers, compact spruce varieties, and layered shrubs to build resilience into the landscape rather than relying on a single tree type.

Color Isn’t Just for Flowers

Winter color looks different — and that’s the point.

Instead of bright blooms, we look for:

• bark that glows in low light

• seed heads that catch frost

• foliage that shifts to bronze, blue, or silver

• subtle contrasts between plants, stone, and soil

Plants That Hold Color or Texture Through Winter

• Red-twig dogwood (Cornus sericea)

• Crimson Spire Oak (Quercus robur × alba ‘Crimschmidt’)

• Rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa)

• Fernbush (Chamaebatiaria millefolium)

• Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa)

  

Berries: Quiet Color That Carries the Winter Garden

Berries add quiet color and life when the garden feels still.
They soften winter landscapes, support birds, and create contrast against snow and dormant grasses.

Plants That Hold Berries Into Winter

• Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus)

• Coralberry (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus)

• Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.)

• Crabapple (Malus spp., persistent-fruit varieties)

• Serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.)

Integrating These Elements Thoughtfully

Good winter design isn’t about adding more plants — it’s about choosing the right ones and placing them with care.

When I work with clients, we think about:

• what will still be visible in the depths of winter

• how plants relate to one another once leaves fall

• where the eye naturally rests in the landscape

• how the garden feels from inside the house on a cold day

A winter-ready garden supports the whole year. It reduces the pressure to constantly replant and rework, and it creates a sense of calm that carries through every season.

Winter as a Design Teacher

Winter asks us to slow down and observe.

It shows us where the garden holds — and where it doesn’t. It invites us to design not just for peak moments, but for longevity. When we allow winter to inform our choices, we build landscapes that feel more honest, more resilient, and more deeply rooted in place.

Even now, beneath snow and frost, the garden is teaching.

If we’re willing to listen.

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If you’re curious about designing a garden that holds beauty and structure year-round, I offer garden coaching and design support tailored to Front Range conditions and real life. You can learn more or book a discovery call at mothergardener.com.

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How I Choose Seed Companies — and My Favorite Sources for 2026

Seeds are more than just the beginning of a plant. They’re the beginning of stories — of culture, place, history, flavor, and resilience. Not all seed packets are created equally. Some come with deep growing notes, provenance, and a commitment to biodiversity. Others are generic, broad-market products with little connection to the land you garden on. I’ve learned that where your seeds come from and how they’re produced matters as much as what you plant.

Below is how I choose seed companies, why terms like organic, heirloom, and non-GMO matter, and my favorite sources — with a strong emphasis on Colorado and the surrounding high-desert and mountain West.

What I Look for When Choosing Seed Companies

Organic

Organic seeds are grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers. I choose organic whenever possible because those seeds come from healthier soil systems and support biodiversity from the ground up. What happens before the seed reaches my hands matters just as much as what happens after I plant it.

Heirloom

Heirloom seeds are open-pollinated varieties passed down through generations for their flavor, resilience, and cultural value. These are the seeds I can save year after year, slowly adapting them to my own land. Heirlooms protect genetic diversity and keep seed sovereignty in the hands of gardeners and farmers.

Non-GMO

I intentionally support non-GMO seed companies. GMOs are designed for large-scale industrial agriculture and often come with patent restrictions that limit farmer and gardener choice. Supporting non-GMO seeds helps preserve genetic diversity, protects seed saving traditions, and keeps our food system from becoming increasingly centralized. For me, this is about long-term resilience — for farmers, home gardeners, and the ecosystems we depend on.

Why Regional Seeds Matter (Especially in Colorado)

Colorado gardening comes with challenges: high elevation, wide temperature swings, sudden frosts, intense sun, drying winds, and inconsistent moisture. Seeds bred for mild or humid climates often struggle here.

Regionally adapted seeds:

• Germinate more reliably

• Handle heat and cold extremes better

• Require fewer inputs once established

• Are better aligned with local pests, pollinators, and soils

Whenever possible, I choose seed companies that grow, trial, or select seed in climates similar to mine.

My Favorite Vegetable & Herb Seed Companies (With Locations)

High Desert Seed — Colorado

Based in Colorado, High Desert Seed focuses on varieties that thrive in arid, high-desert and short-season climates. Their seeds are open-pollinated and non-GMO, selected specifically for conditions like ours. This is one of my top recommendations for Front Range gardeners who want plants that can handle heat, dry air, and cool nights.

Botanical Interests — Colorado

Botanical Interests is headquartered in Colorado, and I consistently recommend them because of the depth of information on their seed packets. They include planting depth, spacing, days to maturity, sun needs, and often regional tips. That level of guidance empowers gardeners to succeed rather than guess. All seeds are non-GMO, and many are organic.

Wild Mountain Seeds — Colorado

Wild Mountain Seeds is a small Colorado-based company growing and selecting seed at elevation. Their focus is on landrace and climate-adapted varieties for mountain and high-plains gardeners. These seeds are especially valuable if you garden in shorter seasons or unpredictable conditions.

The Living Seed Company — California (Western-Focused)

Based in California, The Living Seed Company grows organic, non-GMO heirloom seeds using regenerative practices. Their mission centers on soil health, biodiversity, and farmer-scale seed production. While not Colorado-based, many of their varieties perform well across the West.

Fedco Seeds — Maine (Cold-Climate Friendly)

Fedco Seeds is a cooperative based in Maine. While geographically distant, their focus on cold-hardy, short-season varieties makes them a strong option for Colorado gardeners. They are committed to non-GMO seeds and cooperative ownership models.

The Whole Seed Catalogue — California

This is my exception to “regional only.” The Whole Seed Catalogue specializes in rare, culturally significant, culinary, and medicinal plants. I don’t use them for everything, but when I want to experiment or grow something truly unique, this is where I look.

Strictly Medicinal Seeds — Oregon

Based in Oregon, Strictly Medicinal Seeds is my go-to source for medicinal and ethnobotanical plants. These seeds are not region-specific, but their depth of knowledge and plant integrity makes them invaluable for medicine gardens.

Floret Flower Farm — Washington State

Best known for their stunning flower varieties (especially cut flowers), many of which are suited to cooler climates — and excellent growing education.

Row 7 Seed Co. — California & Colorado connections

A regenerative agriculture‑minded seed company co‑founded by farmer‑breeders and focused on flavor, nutrition, and adaptation. Many varieties perform beautifully in Western gardens.

Native & Restoration Seed Companies (Critical for Ecosystem Health)

High Desert Native Plants & Seeds — Colorado / Southwest

Several small Colorado growers specialize in native and high-desert species suited to Front Range and Western ecosystems. I always encourage sourcing native seeds as locally as possible to protect local genetics.

Native American Seed — Texas (Southwest Focus)

Native American Seed supplies region-specific native grasses and wildflowers. Their philosophy emphasizes ecological integrity, non-GMO seed, and restoration of native landscapes. They are a strong option for pollinator and habitat gardens.

NativeSeed Group / Native Seeds SEARCH — Arizona

Based in Arizona, Native Seeds SEARCH preserves desert-adapted food crops and wild species, many with Indigenous origins. Their seeds are invaluable for arid and semi-arid gardeners looking to build resilient food systems.

Black-Owned & Minority-Owned Seed Companies I Support

Supporting seed diversity also means supporting who holds and stewards seeds.

• TrueLove Seeds — Pennsylvania
  Works directly with farmers, many from marginalized communities, and returns profits to growers. Focused on culturally important food crops.

• Sistah Seeds — Pennsylvania
  A Black-owned farm preserving heirloom varieties tied to African and African-American food traditions.

These companies protect cultural history while strengthening the future of seed stewardship.

Seed Swaps: Some of the Best Seeds Don’t Come in Catalogs

Some of the most resilient plants I grow came from neighbors, not companies. Seed swaps are incredible for finding locally adapted varieties and sharing knowledge.

In and around Fort Collins:

• Fort Collins Seed Swap & Giveaway (Home Grown Food / Poudre Libraries)

• NoCo Native Seed Swap at The Gardens on Spring Creek

• Local garden clubs, CSU Extension events, and permaculture gatherings

These events build community and keep seeds circulating locally.

Why I Love Detailed Seed Packets

This is where companies like Botanical Interests truly shine. I want to know:

• How deep to plant

• When to start indoors vs. outdoors

• How long to maturity

• Spacing requirements

• Heat and frost tolerance

That information respects gardeners’ time and helps plants succeed. Seeds without context often lead to frustration — not failure, but unnecessary struggle.

*Botanical Interest seed packet shown. This is by far the most informative seed packet. Very helpful for new gardeners.

My Bottom Line

I choose seed companies that:

• Are regionally adapted or climate-aware

• Commit to non-GMO, organic, and open-pollinated practices

• Respect land, culture, and biodiversity

• Provide education, not just product

Seeds are a relationship. When I choose thoughtfully, my garden reflects that care back to me — and to the land.

Ready to talk garden ideas?

If you’re dreaming about your garden this year — whether you want personalized coaching, support choosing seeds and plants, or installation help this spring — I’d love to connect. My spring calendar is already filling up, so I’m offering free 15‑minute discovery calls where we can talk about your goals, answer your questions, and see how I can support your vision.

Book Your FREE Discovery Call

Click here to schedule your free call or reply to this email — I can’t wait to hear what you’re planning!

If you garden in Colorado’s Front Range, chances are your raised beds are full of rich-looking compost… and yet your plants still struggle.

Maybe they start strong in spring but stall mid-season.
Maybe you get yellowing, poor fruit set, slow growth, or soil that turns cloddy and compacted.

And if you’ve noticed pests showing up more often, that’s not random — imbalanced soil creates stressed plants, and stressed plants attract pest pressure.
Maybe you keep adding compost, thinking you’re helping — but your garden gets worse instead of better.

This is one of the most common patterns I see in raised beds across Fort Collins, Loveland, Windsor, and beyond.

After running dozens of soil tests for clients this year, one truth has become crystal clear:

Raised beds aren’t failing because they’re underfed.
They’re failing because they’re over-supplemented and out of balance.

Let’s break down what that means — and how to fix it.

Why Colorado Gardening Needs a New Paradigm

A lot of gardening advice online comes from people growing in very different climates —
YouTube gardeners in the Pacific Northwest, East Coast homesteaders, Southeastern growers, and Midwest market gardeners.

Those regions all have something Colorado doesn’t:

• acidic or neutral soils

• high organic matter

• regular rainfall

• naturally balanced mineral profiles

• access to true leaf-based compost

In those climates, adding compost every year is helpful because their soils are constantly leached by rain and need organic matter replenished.

But the Front Range is different.

Our soils — and our raised bed mixes — are:

• alkaline

• high in calcium and magnesium

• often manure-based

• naturally salty

• easily overloaded with P and K

• slow to break down organic matter

• rarely leached by rain

Most compost used here isn’t true compost — it’s manure-heavy, nutrient-dense, and fortified.

It behaves nothing like the leaf mold and forest-based composts gardeners use on the East Coast.

That’s why the old advice of “just add compost” doesn’t always work here.

Our gardening needs a new paradigm — one based on balance, mineral testing, and understanding how raised beds behave in an arid, alkaline climate.

I’ve creating a free Front Range Gardening Guide to get you started in learning how work with our climate instead of fighting it.

Free Front Range Gardening Guide

The Hidden Problem in Raised Beds: Pre-fertilized & Compost-Heavy Mixes

Most raised bed mixes available in Colorado are built from some combination of:

• EKO compost

• Mushroom compost

• Dairy manure compost

• “Raised Bed Mix” soil yard blends

• Bagged mixes fortified with bone meal, kelp meal, rock phosphate, or chicken manure

These blends look beautiful, dark, and rich — but there’s a big hidden issue:

They’re already extremely high in phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium.

When you first fill your bed, this can create amazing initial results.
By year two or three, everything shifts.

After repeated additions of compost, manure, or bagged fertilizers, the soil tests I’ve conducted across the Front Range consistently show:

• Extremely high phosphorus (P)

• Extremely high potassium (K)

• High calcium and magnesium (leading to compaction and clods)

• Neutral-to-high pH

• Low or very low nitrogen

• Low micronutrients (iron, manganese, copper, boron)

In other words:

Raised beds become overloaded in the big nutrients but starved for the small ones.

This nutrient imbalance leads to lockout, where minerals are present but unavailable to plants.

You can compost forever, but your plants won’t improve — because the issue isn’t lack of compost.

Why Compost Isn’t the Answer (Even the Good Stuff)

Even the highest-quality compost — including biodynamic composts— still adds:

• phosphorus

• potassium

• calcium

• magnesium

Those nutrients are fine in small doses, but most raised beds already have more than enough.

What’s actually missing?

Nitrogen + micronutrients + proper soil structure + balanced biology.

You can’t fix those by adding more compost.

Signs Your Raised Bed Is Out of Balance

These are the symptoms I see most often:

• Plants yellow early in the season

• Fruiting plants produce leaves but not much else

• Flowers drop (often linked to low copper or boron)

• Soil looks rich but feels sticky or forms large clods

• Water pools on top or drains straight through

• Plants stall mid-season

• Fruits are small or lack flavor

• Growth is generally “fine, but not great”

Sound familiar?

This is almost every raised bed I test in Northern Colorado.

How to Actually Fix Raised Bed Soil

The solution is simple — and surprisingly easy once you understand the soil chemistry.

Stop treating your raised bed like a compost pile.
Start treating it like a living soil ecosystem that needs balance.

Here’s the step-by-step approach.

1. Test Your Soil (Every 1–2 Years)

Soil testing is the only way to know what your bed truly needs.

I test with MySoil Lab, which provides:

• macronutrients

• micronutrients

• calcium, magnesium

• pH

• organic matter levels

Across the Front Range, most raised beds test:

• too high in phosphorus

• too high in potassium

• too high in calcium (sometimes magnesium as well)

• too low in nitrogen

• too low in iron, manganese, copper, and boron

A soil test removes the guesswork completely.

If you’d like me to run one, I handle the sampling, lab submission, and create a full seasonal plan based on your results.

Book a Consultation

2. Stop Adding Compost-Rich or Fertilizer-Fortified Products

Most gardeners unknowingly add more of the nutrients their soil already has too much of.

Avoid these unless a soil test specifically says otherwise:

• manure compost

• mushroom compost

• EKO compost

• chicken manure

• bone meal

• rock phosphate

• most organic vegetable fertilizers (3-4-3, 4-6-3, etc.)

A note on mushroom compost

It’s typically made from poultry manure, straw, gypsum, and lime — resulting in:

• high phosphorus

• high potassium

• high salt content

• raised pH

This is a major contributor to nutrient overload in raised beds.

3. Add Nitrogen and Micronutrients Instead

This is what your plants are actually craving.

Best nitrogen sources:

• fish hydrolysate

• alfalfa meal

• soybean meal

• feather meal

• cover crops (peas, clover, vetch)

Best micronutrient sources:

• kelp meal or liquid kelp

• chelated iron (EDDHA is best for our pH)

• rock dusts (basalt)

• boron (tiny amounts — best added with guidance)

Where fish fertilizers fit in

Fish hydrolysate is one of my favorite “bridge” fertilizers — gentle, microbial-friendly nitrogen that supports soil life without adding excess P or K.

*Fish hydrolysate is different from fish emulsion — hydrolysate is cold-processed, which keeps the proteins, amino acids, and micronutrients intact, making it far more effective for soil health and microbial activity. Emulsion is heat-treated and more of a quick, diluted nitrogen source, while hydrolysate feeds both plants and the soil ecosystem.

4. Improve Structure With Conditioners — Not Tilling

Tilling temporarily breaks up clods, but in high-magnesium soils, it usually makes compaction worse.

Better options include:

My go-to structure builders:

• FoxFarm Soil Conditioner

• Clay-buster blends (EKO ClayBuster, Mountain West Soil Pep)

• Composted bark fines, rice seed hulls

• High-quality planting mix blended with conditioners

• Chopped leaves (nature’s best soil-builder)

• Cover crops — the long-term solution to compaction and poor structure

Clay-buster blends and Soil Pep are especially helpful in beds that have become tight, sticky, or cloddy due to excessive compost.

5. Rebuild Soil Biology

Biology is what cycles nutrients, breaks down clods, and creates the crumbly, rich structure we’re all aiming for.

Support biology with:

• mulch (chopped leaves are ideal)

• diverse organic matter

• avoiding synthetic fertilizers

• keeping soil covered

• living roots as long as possible

• worm castings (in small, targeted amounts)

Products I Recommend (and When to Use Them)

Biodynamic Compost (Malibu Compost)

Great for microbial life and gentle organic matter.
Use as a topdress, not a bulk filler.

Worm Castings

Wonderful for seedlings and biology.
Use sparingly (½–1 inch max).

FoxFarm Soil Conditioner

My top choice for breaking up dense soil and restoring pore space.

FoxFarm Raised Bed Mix

A reliable base soil for filling new beds or restoring volume in settled beds.

Clay-Buster / Soil Pep (EKO or Mountain West)

Excellent for structure, aeration, and balancing compost-heavy soils.

Plant-Based Compost

A gentler option when compost is needed (leaf compost, green waste compost).

Fish Hydrolysate

For available nitrogen and microbial stimulation.

My Recommended Raised Bed Mix

When filling or rebuilding a bed from scratch, you can use a blend like this:

• 40% raised bed planting mix (FoxFarm or high-quality yard blend)

• 30% composted bark fines or soil conditioner

• 20% high-quality plant-based compost

• 10% worm castings

Then I adjust amendments based on your soil test — ensuring the mix stays balanced, not overloaded.

When to Test Your Soil

For raised beds, I recommend:

• an initial test after filling or before major amending

• every 1–2 years for maintenance

• annually if manure compost, mushroom compost, or strong organic fertilizers have been used regularly

Raised bed soil changes faster than in-ground soil — testing prevents years of frustration.

Work With Me

I offer:

🌱 Soil testing (sampling + lab submission)
🌱 Full soil interpretation
🌱 Raised bed restoration plans
🌱 Custom blended raised bed mixes
🌱 Seasonal soil health and maintenance plans

I also know where to source high-quality soil conditioners, composts, and minerals locally — the kind you won’t find at big box stores.

If you’re tired of guessing and want raised beds that finally thrive, this is where we start.

Book a Consultation

Let’s rebuild your soil the right way — and get your garden producing the way it should.

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Spring is here and it’s the perfect time to explore the world of herbal tinctures and vinegars. These simple infusions capture the essence and benefits of spring herbs, providing natural remedies that are easy to make and use. They arrive at the time to provide the nutrients our body needs as we clear the sludge from winter. Let’s dive into the benefits and methods for creating tinctures and vinegars with dandelion root, dock root, and a few other spring plants.

Dandelion Root Tincture & Vinegar

Dandelion root is renowned for its detoxifying properties and liver support. It’s a versatile herb that can be easily transformed into a tincture or vinegar.

• Tincture: Harvest fresh dandelion roots, clean them thoroughly, and chop them into small pieces. Place the roots in a jar and cover with high-proof alcohol (like vodka). Seal the jar and store in a cool, dark place for 4-6 weeks, shaking occasionally. Strain the liquid into a clean bottle, and your tincture is ready!

• Vinegar: Follow the same process, but use apple cider vinegar instead of alcohol. This infusion can be a great addition to salads or as a daily tonic.

Dock Root Tincture & Vinegar

Dock root is another fantastic spring herb, known for its digestive and blood-cleansing benefits.

• Tincture: Harvest and clean dock roots, then chop them into small pieces. Place in a jar and cover with high-proof alcohol. Seal and store for 4-6 weeks, shaking occasionally. Strain and bottle the tincture.

• Vinegar: Use the same method, substituting apple cider vinegar for alcohol. Dock vinegar is a tasty, health-boosting addition to your kitchen.

Other Spring Herbs

Beyond dandelion and dock, there are plenty of other spring herbs to experiment with:

• Nettle: Rich in vitamins and minerals, nettle is excellent for overall health. Follow the same tincture and vinegar process, using the leaves.

• Cleavers: Known for lymphatic support, cleavers make a refreshing tincture or vinegar. Use the aerial parts (stems and leaves) and follow the same method.

Spring is a wonderful time to experiment with making your own tinctures and vinegars. These simple infusions capture the essence of seasonal herbs, offering natural remedies that are easy to make and use.

I came home tonight after being out with friends, and instead of heading to bed or getting cozy on the couch, I felt this pull—this urge to go check on the plants I’ve been growing. They’re herb planters I put together for a fundraiser happening tomorrow, and something in me just needed to make sure they were okay.

*I’ll post what they look like here: _mothergardener

I stepped into the space where they were tucked in for the night and checked the temperature—making sure it wasn’t getting too cold. I added a little more soil, gently pressed it in, and just took a few quiet minutes to be there with them. And as I did, I noticed something I’ve felt before but haven’t often put into words: this subtle but strong sensation in my palms. A kind of energy. An aliveness.

Has anyone else felt that? I imagine many gardeners have. Maybe we don’t always know why it feels so good to be out there with our plants... but it does feel good. Deeply good.

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It’s this sensation that comes when you slow down and focus your energy When you’re not just doing a task, but truly paying respect in your action. When you are in a creative flow. The actions I was taking were about care. Respect. Presence.

I put on music tuned to healing hertz as I worked—frequencies meant to soothe and support—and I just wanted to create a space that felt caring, soft, respectful. Not just for the plants, but for me too. It’s not about getting something done. It’s about the way we do it. With reverence. With presence. With love.

I think many gardeners know this feeling, even if they’ve never spoken it aloud. It’s what brings us back to the soil again and again. It’s not just about what we grow. It’s about how we show up.

If you're a gardener who feels the same—who feels energy in your hands when you tend your plants, who slows down to listen, who senses that this work is more than just planting and harvesting—then you’re in the right place.

This is the kind of gardening I care about.
These are the kinds of conversations I want to be having.

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And then—nothing.

Or worse, they sprout only to wither away days later.

Before you blame bad seeds or bad luck, let’s explore some of the real reasons this happens. Because often, it’s not a matter of failure—it’s a matter of timing, environment, and expectations.

In this article, you’ll learn:

• Why some seeds take longer than others—and how to have reasonable expectations

• How moisture, light, depth and temperature affect germination

• The emotional and seasonal wisdom your seeds might be offering

• Simple fixes to get better germination results this season

• Why the growing material you need matters

A garden is never just a garden.

The way seeds grow—or don’t—often reflects something deeper about our own rhythm and readiness.

Some seeds need warmth. Some need cold. Some wait until the moment is just right.

And sometimes, we’re the ones who aren’t quite ready for what’s meant to grow.

So before you replant, or toss the packet, or give up—let’s dig into the cues your garden is offering.

1. Your Seeds Are Too Dry

Water is the first invitation. It’s the signal that tells the seed: Wake up- it’s time.

Without moisture, the outer shell of a seed stays hard, locked, unwilling to break open. It stays dormant, waiting. When the seeds are exposed to moisture it cues the inside seed to start coming out of dormancy. In this early stage consistent moisture is very important. If they dry out during their germination period, even just once you can loose the plant completely.

What this means for you: If your soil is dry on the surface, it’s even drier below. Seeds need consistent moisture—not just a splash when you remember. The soil should feel like a wrung-out sponge—damp but not dripping.

Try this: Cover your seed trays or garden beds with burlap, a thin layer of straw, or a damp newspaper to hold in moisture while still allowing air to circulate when planting outside. Indoor seed starting? Utilize a humidity dome or a clear container lid with some ventilation. These domes get removed as soon as plants come up to the surface.

Want to dive deeper? I like to give prompts in my work to deepen your relationship to nature. When we have new ideas, like new seeds, if we do not tend to them in the early stages they often can fizzle and die. You can ask yourself, where in your life are you holding back nourishment, expecting something to grow without fully tending to it?

2. Your Seeds Are Planted Too Deep (Or Too Shallow)

Some seeds, like lettuce and chamomile, need light to germinate. Plant them too deep, and they’ll never emerge. Others, like beans and squash, need to be tucked in properly or they’ll dry out before they ever sprout.

What this means for you: If your seeds aren’t sprouting, check their depth. Tiny seeds often need to be barely covered, while larger seeds want a bit more protection. Most seed packets will tell you the depth seeds want to be planted at. Pay attention to this. In general seeds like to be planted twice as deep as the diameter of the seed.

Try this: Press seeds lightly into the soil and sprinkle a fine layer of compost over them—just enough to keep them in place.

Ask Yourself: Am I burying something that needs more vlight? Or keeping something too exposed when it actually needs time underground?

3. Soil Temperature vs. Air Temperature: Which Matters More?

A seed listens to the ground. It waits for the right temperature, the right conditions.

Cool crops (peas, spinach) are fine in chilly soil. Heat-lovers (tomatoes, basil, cucumbers) will wait until the ground warms to 60–75°F.

What this means for you: If your seeds are sitting in the ground doing nothing, the soil might be too cold or too hot for them to feel safe enough to sprout.

We’ve all been there—after a warm, sunny afternoon, it’s tempting to rush seeds into the ground. But seeds don’t care about a warm afternoon. They care about the temperature of the soil. For example, a 65°F March afternoon might feel like spring, but if your soil is still 40°F, your warm and hot season plant seeds won’t sprout.

✔ Use soil temperature, not just the calendar, to decide when to plant.

Rule of thumb:

• Cool crops: Soil temp 45–55°F

• Warm crops: Soil temp 60–75°F

Garden smarter, not harder. Let the soil tell you when it’s ready.

Cold soil = slow or failed germination.
Fluctuating temps = stressed, weak seedlings.
The right soil temperature = strong, healthy plants.

Tip: Use a soil thermometer, or press your hand into the soil for 10 seconds. If it feels cold, wait.

Ask yourself: Where are you rushing something that isn’t ready?

4. When to Start Seeds Indoors vs. Outdoors

Start Seeds Indoors If the Plant:

✔ Needs a long growing season (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants).
✔ Struggles in cold soil (basil, squash, cucumbers).
✔ Benefits from a strong head start (herbs, brassicas).
✔ Transplants easily.

Best timing: 6-10 weeks before your last frost.

Direct Sow Seeds Outdoors If the Plant:

✔ Thrives in cool soil (peas, spinach, radishes).
✔ Doesn’t transplant easily (carrots, beets, squash).
✔ Grows quickly enough to mature in place (beans, squash, corn).

Best timing: Once soil reaches the right temperature (40°F for peas, 50°F for carrots, 60°F for beans).

Ask yourself: What parts of your life thrive with planning—and what parts just need to unfold?

5. Your Seeds Need More Time

Some seeds take their time.

Carrots can take three weeks to germinate. Parsley might sit underground for a month before it decides to show up. Perennials, like echinacea and milkweed, often sprout unpredictably—sometimes the same year, sometimes the next.

What this means for you: If your seeds aren’t sprouting and you’ve checked moisture, depth, and temperature, the best thing to do might be… nothing. Just wait.

Try this: Mark your planting date, then check the expected germination time. If you’re getting impatient, mist the soil lightly and trust the process.

Ask yourself: Where are you demanding instant results when slow growth is actually sacred?

6. Your Seeds May Need a Nudge (Cold Stratification or Scarification)

Some seeds need cold to wake them up—as if winter itself is whispering, “Now is your time.” Others need to be scarred, scratched, or cracked before they can break open and grow.

Try this:

• Cold Stratify seeds like lavender, echinacea, milkweed by placing them in a damp paper towel in the fridge for 2–4 weeks.

• Scarify seeds like nasturtiums or sweet peas by gently rubbing them with sandpaper or nicking the seed coat.

Ask yourself: Where in your life do you need preparation—stillness, time, softening—before beginning?

7. Some Seeds Just Won’t Grow

Not every seed sprouts. Some are duds. Some were never viable. Some need conditions we can’t recreate.

Try this: Let go of the frustration. Replant if needed, adjust conditions if possible, but don’t take it personally.

Ask Yourself: Where am I forcing something that isn’t meant to be?

8. You’re Using the Wrong Soil for Seed Starting for Your Indoor Plants

Seeds are delicate. They don’t need nutrients at first—they need moisture, airflow, and space to emerge. When you're starting seeds indoors, you're creating an artificial environment.

Indoors, there’s no natural airflow, no earthworms fluffing the soil, no gentle rains or sun-warmed surfaces. That means we need to create ideal conditions manually—and that’s where seed starting mix comes in.

The Problem:
Using dense, heavy soil (like potting mix or garden soil) can suffocate seeds. It retains too much water, compacts easily, and lacks the fine structure that new roots need.

What to Use Instead:
Use a seed starting mix—a light, well-aerated blend with coconut coir, vermiculite or perlite, and sometimes a small amount of compost.

Why it works:
✔ Fine texture = easier for delicate roots to push through
✔ Drains well = prevents damping-off (a fungal issue)
✔ Holds moisture evenly without becoming soggy

What Not to Use:
✘ Garden soil or compost straight from your beds
✘ Dense potting mix with bark chunks or fertilizer pellets
✘ Anything labeled “topsoil”

Try this: Pre-moisten your seed starting mix before filling trays or containers—it should feel like a damp sponge, not dripping wet.

Ask yourself: Am I creating the right conditions for something new to grow—or unintentionally weighing it down?

Final Takeaway: Seeds (And Growth) Take Time

A seed doesn’t ask why it isn’t sprouting fast enough. It doesn’t compare itself to the seed next to it. It listens, it waits, and when the time is right, it grows.

Your garden will teach you patience. It will remind you that growth happens in its own time, not on your schedule.

If your seeds aren’t sprouting, look at the soil, the moisture, the depth. Adjust what you can. And then, let go.

Because the truth is, your garden knows what it’s doing. And when the time is right, those seeds—whether in the soil or in your own life—will find their way to the surface.

Want to Learn More?

Join my Intuitive Gardening Course for paid subscribers—where I’ll teach you how to:

✔ Time planting based on natural cues (not just charts).
✔ Read your land’s microclimates for better success.
✔ Work with nature instead of against it.

Subscribe here to access members-only gardening wisdom.

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What’s Your Seed-Starting Strategy?

Do you check soil temperature before planting, or do you go by feel? Have you had success—or struggles—starting seeds indoors?

Leave a comment below and share what works for you—we learn through stories. If you have a particular seed growing challenge you can bring that up here as well. This helps me cater my messages directly to your gardening needs.

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• What intuitive gardening really means—and how it can transform your relationship with your space

• How nature communicates through pattern, energy, and instinct

• Where intuition becomes practical in the garden: from plant placement to herbal medicine

• Why tuning into your “clairs” (intuitive senses) helps you garden with greater ease

• How intuitive gardening helps us care for ourselves, the land, and the world around us

  Ready to dive deeper into yourself and reconnect again to the magic all around you in the garden? I’m giving you a free week to explore and try out the Mother Gardener Intuitive Gardening course.

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She names her tree Gloria.
She once asked, “What’s the green top of a strawberry called?”
I said, “It’s the crown.”
She beamed. “I love that.”

There’s a kind of gardener who feels deeply excited to be working alongside the living world—
who finds magic in names, messages in the wind,
and personality in their plants.

If that’s you, this course is written with you in mind.
You don’t need a new set of gardening rules.
You need language, support, and a way back to a kind of knowing that already lives inside you- one that makes you, your community and our world a healthier place.

What Is Intuitive Gardening?

Intuitive gardening is the practice of cultivating a reciprocal relationship with the land by listening to natures intelligence, observing its rhythms, and responding with care rather than control.

It is rooted in the understanding that nature is alive, aware, and always communicating—through patterns, energy, and the quiet language of soil, plants, and ecosystems.

This isn’t about rejecting science or structure. It’s about expanding what we include in how we listen, design, and respond in the garden.

Nature Has Always Been Speaking

Long before we had gardening apps and soil tests, we had something else: relationship.

Plants were teachers. Trees were elders. Landscapes held stories and energies.

Intuitive gardening isn’t about tossing out our learned garden knowledge—it’s about expanding it.
It’s about recognizing that beneath the calendars and rules, something alive is happening.

And you can learn to listen. The solutions we need in the garden already exist in nature if we only slow down and see it.

The New Science of the Garden’s Intelligence

If you’ve ever had the sense that a plant was trying to tell you something—you’re not wrong.

Here’s what we can confirm with science so far:

• Plants release chemical signals to warn their neighbors of pests

• Trees send sugars to other trees in distress

• Some plants “hear” the sound of water and grow their roots toward it

• Plants remember stress, and change how they grow to avoid it again

• Water changes it’s structure based on words and emotions of humans

This isn’t magic—it’s biology.
And yet, it’s also… miraculous. Okay, it also does still feel like magic to me. I’m going to go with magic. It feels like magic!

So why wouldn’t this vast, intelligent network also be capable of responding to and interacting with you?— I can tell you, it already is.

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Where Intuition Becomes Practical

Intuition might feel mysterious, but in the garden, it often shows up in very grounded ways:

• Tuning in before planting: You might feel drawn to grow a certain plant that wasn’t in your plan—or notice a space that feels “ready.”

• Receiving guidance that makes sense later: When I used intuitive testing to plan what to grow one summer, I received a strong signal to plant a lot of Tulsi basil. It surprised me—but I did it. Months later, I was navigating a stressful period, and Tulsi’s medicinal properties were exactly what I needed. I believe the garden had anticipated what I could not.

• Noticing the “weeds” that appear: Wild plants like dandelion, plantain, mallow, or purslane often show up when we (or our soil) most need them. They are messengers, not mistakes.

• Adjusting based on subtle cues: You may sense a change in the garden before any visible signs appear—an area that needs rest, or a plant that feels “off.”

This is intuition in motion. Not a mystical lightning bolt—just deepening awareness of the land’s quiet intelligence.

How Intuition Works: Your Senses Are the Gateway

Even if you’re new to the idea of intuition, you’ve already used it.

• You’ve felt drawn to a plant or place.

• You’ve had a hunch that something wasn’t quite right.

• You’ve picked up on subtle shifts before they showed up.

These are your intuitive senses—and they’re available to everyone. We often tune into our intuition through our different senses.

Many describe this as tuning into the “clairs”. I believe we all have access to these in different degrees, some resonating more than others. All of which can be developed deeper with practice.

• Clairvoyance (clear seeing): Picking up on visuals, symbols, color, or memory. I often find this happens to me more so in an intentional meditative stage.

• Clairaudience (clear hearing): Hearing inner words, tones, or ideas that come to mind. This will often sound different than your own inner voice.

• Clairsentience (clear feeling): Sensations of energy or mood in a space.

• Claircognizance (clear knowing): The quiet knowing that something is right—or isn’t. This is one of my stronger clairs, combined with clairsentience.

You don’t need to be a psychic or healer to access these.
They’re part of how humans have always related to the land.
This course simply helps you trust them again.

This Week’s Practice: Discover Your Strongest Intuitive Sense

Each of us has different ways of receiving intuitive information. Some people feel it in their body. Others “just know.” Some see images. Some hear words or whispers that don’t come from their thinking mind.

This week, take some time to explore which clair might already be most active for you.

Choose a quiet moment in your garden, near a plant, or even with a single potted herb indoors.

Close your eyes. Breathe into your heart space. Don’t rush this time, really allow yourself to ground. Allow yourself to be patient and without expectation.

Then gently ask:

“How does my intuition want to speak to me?”

Now observe:

• Do you see a color, symbol, or image? (clairvoyance)

• Do you hear a quiet word, tone, or phrase? (clairaudience)

• Do you feel a shift in the energy, or a sensation in your body? (clairsentience)

• Do you simply know something—without knowing why? (claircognizance)

There’s no wrong way to receive.
And most people have a combination—but one tends to be strongest.

Write down what came up, even if it feels vague or silly.
Over time, you’ll start to notice patterns.

This is how we begin to remember the language we’ve always known.

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Why This Matters

This is not just about growing plants.
It’s about becoming someone who lives in relationship with the earth.

• You begin to feel the turning of seasons in your bones.

• You celebrate first blooms and slow down in late autumn.

• You start caring not only for your own garden—but for the land, the watershed, the pollinators, the soil.

This is what intuitive gardening teaches:
You are part of something alive.
And your care—your listening—matters.

Coming Up Next Week:

Free Article:
From Sacred to Commodity: How We Forgot to Listen to the Land

A look at how modern culture disconnected us from nature—and how we can begin remembering.

Subscriber Lesson:
Getting to Know Your Land: Tools for Relationship-Based Gardening

Learn how to read your space and open up a space to create a partnership with the land.

A productive kitchen garden isn’t just about what you plant—it’s about how you design the space. A well-structured garden is easier to care for, more abundant, and, let’s be honest, a lot more enjoyable to spend time in. You don’t need raised beds or fancy hardscaping to create a well-structured, high-yield kitchen garden. Whether you’re growing in the ground, using raised beds, or a mix of both, these six elements will make your garden more productive, more manageable, and more beautiful.

1. Defined Beds: The Backbone of Your Garden

A well-structured kitchen garden starts with clearly defined planting areas. Designated beds help organize your space, focus on improving soil quality where you grow, and make the garden easier to maintain over time. Whether you opt for raised beds, in-ground beds, or a combination, the key is creating intentional planting spaces that work for you.

Types of Beds & Their Benefits

Raised Beds

The case for raised beds is that they are above ground level and can offer excellent soil control and organization, making them a great choice for small to medium-sized gardens.

• Better soil control – You get to mix the perfect blend of compost, organic matter, and aeration (instead of whatever rocky, clay-packed dirt your yard came with).

• Easier maintenance – Less bending, fewer weeds, and improved drainage make gardening easier on the body. Something I have to think about as aches and pains make their way into my body as I age.

• Aesthetics – A well-laid-out raised bed garden looks intentional and inviting and allows you to match your garden bed style to the style elements of existing structures.

• Soils warm faster – Warmer soils in the spring and fall mean you can plant a bit sooner and longer than in ground beds. This can help you get a head start on your spring planting.

There are lots of wonderful materials now to make you raised beds from. You can opt for wood by utilizing cedar, pine or redwood. Metal containers are growing in popularity and come in a variety of sizes and colors like the ones available at Epic or Vego. *Use MOTHERGARDENER at checkout at Epic to get an extra 5% off. You may also prefer a mix of wood or metal. I have chosen to utilize stone pavers to line my beds and this opens up some other beautiful options. You really can get creative depending on your style and budget.

I also really like the look if you have the budget for these corten steel beds from Gardenary.

Creative Raised Bed Ideas

I find that some of the limitations of traditional cedar or wood raised beds is you are often left with hard edges in your garden design. While I do like the traditional kitchen garden aesthetic I also enjoy playing around with creating rounded edges and flowing shapes. You can achieve some interesting shapes with materials like:

• Metal troughs for a modern farmhouse look.

• Brick or stone for old-world charm.

• Wattle fencing (woven branches) for a rustic, cottage-garden vibe.

(Photo taken from Naples Botanical Garden)

In-Ground Beds

For those working with a larger space (or who want a lower-cost approach), in-ground beds are a practical and sustainable option. This is the one I chose with my 60x60’ garden. Overtime I have added stone to define the beds but based on the scale I started with along with my budget in year one going towards improving the nearly dead soil, I opted to play with working with in ground planting. Here are some of the benefits of in ground beds:

• Wide rows with mulched paths keep the garden productive while preventing compaction. You aren’t limited by the materials when in ground. You often find that wood beds start to bow when they get over 12’ in length while my in ground beds can go on and on and on .

• No-till permanent beds improve fertility and reduce weeds over time. I’m working in improving the soil we have and not just limited to the soil in raised containers.

• Hugelkultur or mounded beds can help retain moisture and increase soil health without the cost of building structures.

• Soil temperatures stay cooler than when in containers which benefits me in the heat of the summer.

Raised beds may get all the attention, but in-ground beds can be just as efficient when well-planned and maintained.

2. Trellises: The Vertical Productivity Hack

Trellises maximize space, prevent disease, and make harvesting easier. They also add beauty and structure, turning a garden from a collection of plants into a designed, intentional space.

What Works Well on a Trellis?

• Pole beans grow up rather than sprawling across the ground.

• Cucumbers and gourds climb, keeping fruit clean and making harvesting easier.

• Indeterminate tomatoes thrive with proper support.

• Squash and melons can be trellised with a little extra reinforcement.

• Flowering vines attract beneficial insects and add beauty to a garden.

Affordable and Beautiful Trellis Ideas

• Teepees made from tree branches

• Arched trellises from cattle panels

• Upcycled ladders or pallets

• Espaliered fruit trees against a fence

• Metal panel trellises

If space is tight, consider a bean tunnel made from cattle panels. It creates shade, vertical growing space, and a magical walk-through experience.

3. Borders: Defining Your Garden’s Shape

Even an in-ground garden benefits from a well-defined border. A good border keeps planting areas separate from pathways, prevents creeping weeds, and makes the space feel intentional. I also find I must have very polite dogs because they seem to also stay on the pathways, avoiding the garden beds more than they would without a defined border.

Border Ideas for Any Garden

• Living borders like thyme, chives, or strawberries

• Natural borders made from logs, rocks, or woven willow. My very first food forest garden I did when I lived in Denver, I utilized logs laid down horizontally to create the borders of my beds.

• Functional borders of calendula, marigolds, or borage to attract pollinators and deter pests

If you have kids or pets, a clear border can also help set visual boundaries so paths and planting areas stay distinct

(Here is an example utilizing bamboo at the Naples Botanical Gardens)

4. Pathways: The Secret to a Garden That Feels Like a Sanctuary

Without pathways, an in-ground garden can quickly become a maze of plants with no clear place to walk. Defined pathways prevent soil compaction, keep maintenance easier, and add beauty to the space. They direct where a garden go-er should step and where you want them to end up.

Good Materials for Pathways

• Wood chips or straw for a natural, budget-friendly option. You can often get free wood chips from local arborists or utilize a service like Chip Drop which connects arborists to home owners looking for donated wood chips.

• Stepping stones to create intentional walking paths

• Gravel for a more permanent and often costly solution

• Mulched grass or cover crop can be used for paths for a soft, natural feel

  Looking to up your gardening game? Be sure to stay up to date on Mother Gardeners newsletter for tips each week.

Landscaping Fabric Is Not The Best Environmental Solution

Often gardeners resort to utilizing landscaping fabric to help them with quick installations and controlling weeds. As someone who has had to remove landscaping fabric for installations what I find is it often breaks down into micro-plastics, weaving itself into the soil and very difficult to remove. Worst still is that the weeds still grow on top of it overtime as leaves and plant matter eventually fall and break down into soil. Instead of using landscape fabric or plastic under pathways, which can also cause drainage issues and break down into a mess over time, try these natural alternatives:

The No-Dig, Low-Maintenance Approach

If the soil is firm and drains well, you don’t need to dig down. Just lay down a thick layer of cardboard or newspaper and add wood chips, straw, or gravel on top. The cardboard suppresses weeds and breaks down over time, improving the soil underneath. You can also purchase rolls of construction paper.

The Dig-In-and-Do-It-Once Approach

For high-traffic areas or a more permanent pathway, it’s worth taking the extra step of digging and compacting a base:

1. Dig 3-5 inches down to create a stable base.

2. Add a 2-inch layer of coarse sand or crushed stone dust/granite to lock in the foundation.

3. Compact the base with a tamper.

4. Add 2-3 inches of crushed gravel or decomposed granite.

5. Edge with bricks, wood, or metal to keep it contained.

Crushed gravel works better than pea gravel for pathways because it locks together and doesn’t shift underfoot as much.

5. Covers: Protecting Your Garden Like a Pro

A gardener who likes to extend their harvest is often working with row covers. Covers protect plants from extreme weather, pests, and frost, extending your growing season and increasing yields.

Types of Garden Covers to Consider

• Floating row covers to keep pests off delicate crops. This can work well for cabbage moths and for grasshoppers.

• Shade cloth to reduce heat stress in summer

• Cold frames or low tunnels to extend the growing season with a heavier weight grow cover

• Simple DIY cloches made from cut-up milk jugs to protect young seedlings

Instead of investing in expensive cold frames, old windows can be repurposed with some woods supports into a DIY greenhouse. You can also utilize bed sheets to support you in a pinch if you deal with hail issues. Having materials on hand when inclement weather is around the corner will save you losing plants when temperatures fluctuate.

6. Pollinator Gardens: The Secret to Bigger Harvests

A productive garden isn’t just about the plants—it’s also about the pollinators. Many kitchen garden crops, from tomatoes to squash, rely on bees, butterflies, and other pollinators to produce fruit.

What to Plant for Pollinators

• Native wildflowers suited to your local climate

• Flowering herbs like basil, thyme, and lavender

• Annuals like cosmos, sunflowers, nasturtium, calendula, marigolds and zinnias

• Perennials like echinacea, milkweed, and goldenrod

Instead of scattering pollinator plants randomly, planting them in clusters will attract more bees and butterflies. Having a pollinator garden as a border around your vegetable garden or near by can do a lot to improve the quality and health of your garden over all.

Final Thoughts: Build a Garden That Works for You

A kitchen garden should work with your space, lifestyle, and resources. Whether you grow in the ground, use raised beds, or combine different methods, these six key structures help create a space that is productive, beautiful, and easy to maintain.

By working with nature instead of against it, you can build a garden that thrives without unnecessary effort. Small changes in structure can transform the way your garden grows.

What’s the next thing you want to add to your kitchen garden?

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Starting a garden can feel like a big commitment. It’s a commitment of money, of time and a commitment to design choices. It’s easy to want to just jump right in but asking yourself a few questions before you get started can be the difference between a garden that feels overwhelming and disjointed and one that works for you in the long run.

So, before you grab a shovel and start fantasizing about sun-ripened tomatoes and morning strolls through your flower beds, take a pause. Ask yourself these five questions first—your future self will thank you.

1. WHO? (Who’s Doing All the Work?)

Think of your garden like a pet. You wouldn’t get a dog without considering who will walk it, feed it, and clean up after it. So, let’s talk real responsibility here:

• Who is actually building the garden? Is this a DIY project or a “supervise with iced coffee in hand” situation?

• Who’s taking care of it long-term? If you’re dreaming of a lush, magazine-worthy vegetable patch but secretly despise weeding and don’t have the budget for hiring out maintenance, we have a problem. Vegetable gardens take work and care.

• Who is paying for it? Are you willing to invest in quality soil, compost, and plants? Costs can add up quickly. Are you doing this on your own or working as a community or a family to get your space going?

• Who is enjoying it? If you’re growing food, are your kids going to be snacking on cherry tomatoes off the vine? Will your dog need room to romp around? Do you intend to host friends or family on the patio to enjoy your garden?

Expert Tip: If your answer to “Who’s taking care of it?” is a vague “I guess I will,” start small. A single raised bed or a few containers can be a lovely hobby, whereas a half-acre of overgrown chaos can make you resent gardening entirely and quickly can wear your down.

2. WHAT? (What Do You Actually Like to Eat?)

Here’s the deal: Just because zucchini is “easy to grow” doesn’t mean you should plant 20 of them. (Unless, of course, you want to start a robust zucchini bread making operation.)

Ask yourself:

• What do you eat often? Love pesto? Prioritize basil. Live off salsa? Tomatoes, peppers, and cilantro should be on the list.

• Willing to try something new? Maybe give ingredients like Jerusalem artichokes, lemongrass, or lovage a chance. If that excites you, go for it—gardening should bring joy!

• What do you hate buying at the store? Herbs and greens are expensive and often go bad fast. Growing your own means unlimited fresh salads, rosemary for roasts, and mint for cocktails.

Expert Tip: Growing your own food can save money, especially with crops that are expensive in stores. Herbs like basil and rosemary are easy to grow and cost far less than store-bought options. Salad greens such as lettuce and spinach grow quickly and provide a continuous harvest, while homegrown tomatoes taste better and are much cheaper than organic varieties. Berries like strawberries and raspberries can be pricey at the store but produce for years when grown at home. Garlic is another great option, as a small planting in the fall yields a long-lasting supply for a fraction of the cost.

3. WHERE? (Gardening Is Different Wherever You Go)

Location matters a lot—and I’m not just talking about where in your yard to put the garden. Gardening is a hyper-local endeavor. What works in Seattle won’t work in Arizona.

Look up:

• Your latitude and longitude (This knowledge helps with sun exposure.)

• Average temperatures (Some plants hate heat. Some hate cold. Some, like you, just want everything to be 72°F and pleasant.)

• Rainfall & special weather conditions (Wind tunnels? Hail storms? Surprise May snow? These are real things and important knowledge to have.)

But let’s dial in more:

• What’s your microclimate? Stand in your yard at different times of day. Where does the sun hit? Where does water collect? Where do your pets always pee?

• What’s your soil like? Not all Earth is ready to grow a lush vegetable garden in. Learn more about your native soil if you plan on growing in the ground or plan on bringing in soil.

Expert Tip: Use Google Earth to check out your property from above. You might discover you already have a hidden sun trap (great for heat-loving veggies) or an unexpected shade oasis (most greens can still work here).

4. HOW MUCH? (Time, Money, and Space—Let’s Be Realistic)

Gardening isn’t just about planting—it’s about maintaining. And maintenance takes resources:

• Budget: Soil, compost, mulch, seeds—these add up. For hiring out a vegetable garden set up including pathways and raised beds, most projects start at around $2-5 K. More of a DIYer, there are ways to do it for less but using found materials.

• Time to set up: A weekend? A whole month? If you’re converting your entire backyard into a food forest, know that’s a multi-year process.

• Time per week: 10-15 minutes a day is during the growing season is a good target for most vegetable gardens for maintenance. The bigger the space, the longer the maintenance needed. Are you willing to utilize your weekends for planting? Are you retired and have more time to give?

• Space: If you have limited space, consider vertical gardening, containers or tucking edibles into your garden borders. This works beautifully for plants like rhubarb, sage, strawberries, tomatoes, okra, amaranth and swiss chard.

Expert Tip: Utilize perennials (like rhubarb, lovage, sage, thyme, oregano, asparagus, and berries) to keep things effortless over time.

5. WHY? (What’s Your Deeper Reason for Gardening?)

This is the question. Because when the summer heat is brutal and the weeds are winning, your why is what keeps you going.

• Do you want fresh food? Prioritize easy-to-grow, high-yield crops.

• Are you in it for beauty? Go all-in on flowers, pollinator plants, and aesthetic design and quality materials.

• Is it about the experience? Slow gardening, barefoot weeding, and mindfulness in the garden can be incredibly grounding.

• Are you in it to make the world a better place? Go full native plants, learn water conservation techniques, practice no-till methods and let your space get a little bit wild.

Expert Tip: If your “why” is peace and relaxation, don’t plant high-maintenance crops that stress you out. Grow fewer crops, focusing on ones you use the most or consider adding a tea garden with plants like lavender, chamomile, tulsi basil and herbs you can literally turn into tea to sip while watching the sunset.

Final Thoughts

Your garden is an extension of you—your personality, your lifestyle, your goals. So don’t just plant what everyone else is growing. Ask yourself these questions first, and create a garden that feels right for you.

Looking for more ongoing gardening advice, be sure to subscribe for weekly gardening tips, best practices and big ah-ha gardening moments that take your gardening game from blah to Ta-da!

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So, what’s your biggest gardening goal this year? Share in the comments—I’d love to hear!

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A Forgotten Conversation

Once, we knew how to listen.

For thousands of years, humans lived in relationship with the land—not as owners, but as participants in an ongoing conversation. Somewhere along the way, we forgot how to hear.

But the land never stopped speaking.

Some of my earliest memories are of running wild through the woods of Massachusetts—picking blueberries, searching for arrowheads, and chasing the rare lady’s slipper flower. Those woods were my teacher, my playground, my first garden.

But they’re gone now.

Where towering pines once stood, there are rows of houses. The wildness has been paved over, the whispers of the land replaced with the hum of lawnmowers.

This isn’t just my story. It’s our collective story.

And yet—I know this: we can remember.

Nature is still speaking. We just need to relearn how to listen.

The Whispers Are Still There

I rediscovered this truth through the stories of Findhorn in Scotland, where barren land bloomed through communication with nature spirits, and Perelandra Gardens, where Machaelle Small Wright developed intuitive gardening practices that mirrored ancient traditions.

At first, I was skeptical.

Could communication with nature be real? Was this wishful thinking, or something tangible?

So I began experimenting. I tried muscle testing, noticing how my body would subtly lean forward for "yes" and backward for "no" when asking my garden questions. I used pendulums to test plant placements. I slowed down, observed, and asked.

And the garden answered.

Plants thrived in unexpected places. Solutions to garden challenges came not through books, but through quiet observation. The land began to respond to me as a partner—not just as soil to be worked.

You don’t need to be psychic. You don’t need special powers.
You just need to remember what your ancestors knew.

That subtle pull toward a particular spot in your garden? It’s not random.
The feeling that a plant needs something, even before it visibly does? That’s intuition.

Begin Today: Your First "Sit Spot" Practice

This practice is about feeling, not thinking.

Many of us have been trained to process nature from the mind—analyzing, identifying, and categorizing. But nature speaks best to the heart. The Sit Spot practice is an opportunity to drop into a deeper state of presence and receive what the land is offering.

How to Do It:

1. Find a space in nature. This could be your garden, a park, or even a windowsill with plants.

2. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Let your breath slow down.

3. Shift awareness from your mind to your heart. Imagine your breath flowing in and out of your chest, as if you were listening with your heart rather than your ears.

4. Let yourself simply receive. Notice the sounds, sensations, and presence of life around you.

5. Silently ask: "What do you want me to know?"

6. Write down anything that comes to you. Even if it doesn’t make sense, trust that meaning will emerge over time.

Optional: Listen to the Guided Meditation

To support your practice, you can listen to the recorded version of this meditation, where I guide you step by step through the Sit Spot process.

Reconnecting, No Matter Your Space

Whether you tend acres of land, a small yard, or just a few pots on a balcony, this practice applies to you.

Nature exists everywhere—even in the cracks of a sidewalk or the soil of a potted plant. The intelligence of the land is not limited by size or location.

A thriving garden does not have to be large. It does not need to look like a magazine spread. It simply needs to be a space where life is in relationship with itself.

If you are in a small space:

• Focus on micro-observations. How does the light shift throughout the day? How does your plant respond to touch, water, or temperature changes?

• Try placing your hands near the soil and feeling the energy of the plants, rather than just looking at them.

If you are on land:

• Notice where life naturally wants to grow. What spaces are calling to be tended, and which seem to want to remain wild?

• Observe what is already thriving. These plants may be offering clues about what the land needs.

Your garden—whether in pots or in fields—is already speaking.

This course will help you hear it.

What You’ll Learn in This Course

Throughout this journey, we’ll explore:

1. How to distinguish between your thoughts and nature’s guidance

2. Practical tools for strengthening your intuitive gardening skills

3. The science behind plant intelligence and communication

4. Ways to create reciprocal relationships with your garden

5. How intuitive gardening can become a healing practice for both land and gardener

Share Your Experience

What came up for you in your Sit Spot practice?
What are your earliest memories of connecting with plants or nature?

Drop a comment below and join the discussion.

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Next Week: Beyond the Guidebooks—Unlocking Nature’s Hidden Intelligence

You’ve started listening. But how do you tell the difference between your intuition and wishful thinking? How do you develop trust in your ability to communicate with your garden?

Next week, we’ll explore:

• The key principles of intuitive gardening

• How science and intuition work together

• A simple exercise to receive immediate feedback from your plants

March is that in-between month—where winter cold still lingers, but warmer days poke in more frequently. It’s a season of transition, a time for preparation, and the moment we start shifting from garden dreaming to garden doing.

The Earth around us is about to burst back to life, and what you do this month will set the tone for the entire growing season. We have a chance now to nurturing the land, support wildlife, and works in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

This checklist is your guide to stepping into spring with intention, awareness, and a little bit of rebellion (the kind that challenges the “convenient” way of gardening and embraces moving towards more harmonious practices).

Let’s dig in.

March 2025: Prepare for the Growing Season with Purpose

Herb & Vegetable Care: Setting the Foundation

Seed Starting: Bringing Life Indoors

• Begin cool-season vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and lettuce indoors.

• Start slow-growing herbs like basil and oregano early so they’re strong when it’s time to move them outside.

• Check your frost dates and adjust seed-starting times accordingly—timing is everything.

Hardening Off: The Bridge Between Indoors and Out

• By the end of the month, you can start to prepare your hardy seedlings for the outdoors by introducing them to real sunlight and temperature shifts gradually.

• Lettuce, spinach, and brassicas (like kale and cabbage) can handle cooler temperatures, so they’re the first to make the move.

Direct Sowing (Late March, Weather Permitting)

• If your soil is workable, sow hardy crops like peas, spinach, and radishes outdoors.

• Use row covers or cloches to shield young plants from unexpected cold snaps.

Challenge for the land stewards: Can you start your seeds this year without plastic? Explore soil blocking, paper pots, or repurposed containers. Every small shift away from plastic is a step toward a healthier planet.

General Planning & Preparation: Setting the Stage

Turn & Prep Your Compost

• Give your compost pile some love—turn it, assess its readiness, and start planning how to use this gold in your garden.

• If you don’t compost yet, make this the year you start. It’s one of the easiest, most impactful things you can do for the soil.

Organize Your Tools & Supplies

• Do an inventory check: Do you have row covers, stakes, plant labels, and seed trays ready?

• Sharpen tools before you need them—dull pruners do more harm than good.

• Repair before replacing—can you mend broken garden structures, clean pots, and extend the life of your materials?

Planning for Pests & Early Growth

Inspect Greenhouses, Cold Frames, and Overwintering Plants

• Look for signs of pest activity before populations explode. Prevention is easier than dealing with an infestation later.

Monitor Early Growth for Pests & Disease

• Keep an eye on new seedlings and perennials as they emerge. Aphids, slugs, white fly and fungal issues can appear early in the season.

• If needed, use organic pest deterrents—but remember, not all insects are bad. Many early bugs are beneficial.

Stewardship Tip: Encourage natural pest control by creating spaces for predatory insects (ladybugs, lacewings, and praying mantises). The healthier your ecosystem, the less you’ll need to intervene.

Perennial & Shrub Care: Clearing the Path for New Growth

Clean Up Garden Beds

• Remove winter debris, weeds, and dead plant material while keeping an eye out for overwintering pollinators still sheltering in stems and leaves.

• Cut back dead, diseased or damaged foliage from perennials—but leave some habitat for insects still emerging from dormancy.

• Add a layer of compost to support spring growth

Inspect Trees & Shrubs for Winter Damage

• Check for broken branches, frost damage, and exposed roots.

• Prune damaged or diseased limbs to encourage healthy regrowth, but avoid heavy pruning on spring bloomers like lilacs and forsythia.

Divide & Transplant Perennials

• As soon as the soil is workable, divide crowded perennials like hostas, echinacea, and daylilies.

• Moving plants? Now is the time before the heat of summer makes transplanting more stressful.

Challenge for native plant lovers: Instead of just dividing plants for yourself, consider sharing divisions with neighbors or planting in community spaces.

Wildlife & Pollinator Support: Creating a Thriving Habitat

Support Early Pollinators

• Set up bee hotels or nesting areas for native pollinators.

• If you’re re-wilding part of your space, leave patches of bare soil—many native bees nest underground.

Continue Feeding Birds

• March can be a tough month for overwintering birds—keep feeders stocked until natural food sources become more available.

• Clean feeders regularly to prevent disease spread among flocks.

Create Wild Spaces

• Let parts of your garden stay untamed—these wild patches become havens for beneficial insects and wildlife.

• If you have space, consider planting a pollinator-friendly hedgerow instead of installing another fence.

Gardeners & land stewards: Where can you leave space for nature this year?

Tuning Into the Land: The Shift from Doing to Listening

March is a month where we get eager to take action—but the best gardeners know that before we act, we must observe.

Instead of rushing to plant, watch the land this month.

• Where does the snow melt first? That’s where warmth collects—perfect for early planting.

• Where does the water pool after rain? That might be an area in need of better drainage.

• What native plants or weeds are emerging first? Nature is telling you what thrives in your soil conditions. Take some time to learn about the plants popping up, why they have shown up, what conditions are favorable to them, what benefits they provide to the Earth, are they medicinal?

These observations matter. They are the foundation of Intuitive Gardening, the practice of working with nature.

If this idea resonates with you, I invite you to explore my new Intuitive Gardening course for paid subscribers.

Here, I’ll be sharing exclusive lessons on:

• How to read the land and use seasonal cues to guide your gardening decisions.

• How to garden in partnership with nature instead of fighting against it.

• How to design your space for resilience—making gardens that support both people and wildlife.

• How to shift away from convenience gardening and into a more intentional, connected way of working with the earth.

If you’re ready to deepen your connection to your land, join as a paid subscriber and start learning today.

March is a month of emergence. Let’s not just grow plants—let’s grow as stewards of the land.

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What’s on Your March Gardening To-Do List?

Drop your thoughts in the comments—I’d love to hear what you’re working on this month!

And if you know a fellow gardener who’s thinking about growing differently this year, share this checklist with them.

Spring is coming. Let’s get ready.

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Drive through almost any growing town, and you’ll see it: fields and forests being cleared, wetlands being drained, and fences going up. We carve the land into neat parcels, replace native plants with imported ornamentals, and wonder why pollinators, birds, and wildlife are struggling to survive.

Every new development, every backyard fence, every lawn-centric landscape takes something away from the land that was already here.

So here’s my question:

As we keep expanding, where will the wild spaces go?

• Where will the pollinators find food when we replace native meadows with rock mulch and shrubs from across the world?

• Where will the birds shelter when we cut down the last of the old trees and build parking lots in their place?

• What happens when we create human centered landscapes that serve only us—without considering or fulling understanding the creatures who have lived here far longer than we have?

We don’t ask these questions enough. We build, we plant, we dig—without often stopping to ask what we’re removing, and what might be lost in the process.

But here’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: Gardening can either be part of the problem—or part of the solution. We may not feel we are able to slow down expansion but we can control what happens in our own yards.

The way we plant, the way we shape our landscapes, the way we interact with the land—it all matters. And even in small spaces, we have the power to restore, rather than erase.

So how do we do that? How do we move beyond traditional gardening and landscaping to create spaces that support life—not just for us, but for the creatures who depend on the land as well?

That’s what I want to explore here. Because the truth is, we didn’t always live this way—and we don’t have to continue down this path.

What I Learned Moving From a Small Urban Lot to Two Acres

I’ve lived in both worlds—the small urban lot where every inch of space counted, and now, on two acres, where I have more room to work with.

I understand the privilege of space, and I don’t take it for granted. Not everyone has land to work with—but what I’ve learned is that wildness can be nurtured anywhere, no matter the size of your property.

When I lived in a small urban lot in Denver, I started rethinking what a garden could be:

• I planted wild plants in the narrow strips by sidewalks and walkways.

• I replaced my front lawn with food and native plants.

• I designed my space with pathways to wander through, making the yard feel immersive.

• Out back, I built raised beds for growing food while incorporating layers of planting to support pollinators and wildlife.

• Instead of forcing rigid order, I embraced versatility—letting some spaces evolve naturally while tending others with care.

Even in a small space, I found ways to make my garden a place of refuge—not just for me, but for the plants, insects, and creatures that shared the land with me.

Now, on two acres, I have the ability to take this even further. But I’m still asking the same core question:

How do we make space for nature in the places we call home?

That’s why I’m meeting with Mary Reynolds, leader of the A.R.K. (Acts of Restorative Kindness) movement, this Monday for a consultation.

I want to deepen my understanding of how to best serve nature—not just in large, wild spaces, but in everyday backyards, front yards, and urban landscapes. Because we all have a role to play, whether we have a balcony, a small garden, or acres of land.

The Myth of Control

Much of modern gardening reflects our disconnect from nature.

Instead of working with the land, we try to control it.

• We lay down plastic to suppress weeds instead of asking why they are growing there in the first place.

• We plant non-native species without considering what local insects and wildlife need to survive.

• We remove “messy” elements like fallen logs and wildflowers because they don’t fit the aesthetic we’ve been taught to value.

We are told that a good garden is one that is tidy, orderly, and controlled.

But nature doesn’t work that way.

Nature is dynamic, evolving, and unpredictable. It thrives in the spaces we call "wild"—the edges of forests, the meadows filled with self-seeding plants, the undisturbed soil rich with microbial life.

When we erase these wild spaces, we’re not just affecting the land. We’re affecting ourselves.

Because the further we move away from nature, the more disconnected we become from something essential- our reliance on and healing relationship with nature as well as the last bits of magic in our world.

Bringing Back an Intuitive Way of Living

I believe we are at a turning point.

As climate change accelerates, as biodiversity declines, as pollinators vanish, politicians dissappoint and soil health deteriorates, we are faced with a choice:

Do we continue to garden and live as if we are separate from nature?

Or do we return to a way of being that is more intuitive, more interconnected, more in tune with the rhythms of the land?

This is the foundation of Intuitive Gardening—an approach that invites us to:

• Observe before we act. Instead of forcing a landscape to fit our vision, we can learn what the land is already doing and work with it.

• Choose plants that belong. By selecting native and regionally adapted plants, we create ecosystems that sustain life, not just gardens that look good.

• Honor wild spaces. Leaving parts of our gardens "untamed" creates refuge for pollinators, birds, and beneficial insects.

• Listen to the land. The soil, the plants, the movement of water—everything is communicating if we pay attention.

This isn’t about rejecting gardening or development. It’s about rethinking our role as stewards of the land rather than owners of it.

What If We Chose to Keep the Wild Spaces?

We can’t stop all development. We can’t undo what’s already been lost.

But we can decide whether we are making space for nature—or erasing it.

And the choices we make—on our own properties, in our neighborhoods, in the way we design gardens—matter.

• A backyard left a little wild can become a sanctuary for pollinators.

• A fence designed with gaps for small creatures to move through can make all the difference in an urban environment.

• A commitment to native plants can restore an entire ecosystem, one garden at a time.

Every small action is a step toward restoring the relationship we once had with the land.

And it starts with remembering how to listen.

Want to Explore This More Deeply?

This is exactly what I’m teaching inside my Intuitive Gardening course, launching this month for paid subscribers.

This isn’t another gardening how-to. It’s a journey into:

• Relearning how to listen to the land before making decisions

• Creating gardens that restore, not just decorate

• Working in alignment with nature instead of against it

• Breaking free from convenience-based gardening and reconnecting with an intuitive, reciprocal way of tending the earth

• Getting in touch with our intuition.

If this resonates with you—if you’ve felt the pull to garden differently, to reconnect with something deeper—I’d love for you to join me.

Sign up as a paid subscriber and start learning today.

Subscribe now

Because we still have a choice.

We can’t go back in time. But we can decide, right now, to make space for the wild.

And maybe, just maybe, the wild spaces don’t have to disappear—if we choose to keep them.

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This isn’t about blame or shame. If anything, it’s about compassion—for ourselves and the choices we make in a world that constantly pushes us toward “faster” and “easier.” It’s not just in how we garden—it’s in what we buy, how we interact with the land, and how we’re encouraged to override nature’s pace for the sake of productivity. Breaking that cycle isn’t easy. I know, because I’m still learning how.

Gardening, for me, has become more than just planting and harvesting. It’s become a teacher, challenging me to slow down, question my choices, and listen more deeply—to the land, to the seasons, and to myself. That’s the essence of what I call intuitive gardening—and it’s a practice that has taught me some of my hardest (and most rewarding) lessons.

Lesson 1: Why Convenience Wins Out

Last fall, I found myself caught between two versions of myself: the one who believes in slow, thoughtful choices, and the one who just wanted to get the job done. In my front garden beds, I spent hours battling decades-old landscaping fabric. It had broken down into shreds, tangled in roots, and woven itself so deeply into the soil that pulling it out felt like an excavation. My back ached, my hands were raw, and the soil underneath was lifeless—smothered by years of convenience layered on top of convenience.

And yet... on the other side of the yard, I stood in my vegetable garden faced with a dilemma. I wanted to expand, but the bind weed was creeping in fast, and I was running out of time—and energy. So I caved. I laid down fresh landscaping fabric, covered it with mulch, and told myself it was fine. It was quick. It was easy. And in that moment, it felt like a relief.

But then winter came, the winds blew, and the mulch pulled back, exposing the fabric beneath. I watched it billow with each gust and felt that familiar pang of What am I doing? I know better. Convenience won that day—but it didn’t feel like a win. I went back out and started pulling the fabric up before it could break down into the soil. And what was waiting underneath? Bind weed. Ready to surge forward the moment sunlight touched it.

That experience reminded me of what intuitive gardening asks of us: to slow down and think things through before taking action. To resist the impulse for quick solutions and instead ask, What does this space really need to tackle the bind weed? What am I rushing past in my hurry to expand?

(Want more stories and practical tips for slowing down in your garden? Free subscribers get regular articles and reflections like this delivered straight to their inbox. Paid subscribers gain deeper insights and tools through my Intuitive Gardening course—launching in March 2025.)

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Lesson 2: We’ve Been Sold the Wrong Idea of Gardening

Somewhere along the way, we started believing that gardening should be quick, easy, and efficient. We’ve been sold a version of gardening that’s all about instant results—perfect lawns, flawless beds, and tools that promise to save us time. Ads tell us we need this gadget or that product to “fix” the land or make things grow faster. But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe tending the land isn’t supposed to be convenient.

What if the point is that it’s slow? That it asks us to move at the pace of the earth, to pay attention, to wrestle with discomfort? Nature doesn’t rush. Plants take their time. Soil regenerates slowly. And yet, so many of us (myself included) have been conditioned to believe that faster is better. That progress should be immediate. We want results!

That’s how I ended up laying down landscape fabric even though I knew better. That’s how I justified buying colorful plastic seed trays this spring when I was expanding my growing operation for clients. I went online looking for something durable, and instantly saw Bootstrap Farmer’s trays—bright, sturdy, beautiful. I told myself, They’ll last longer. They’re a better investment. And honestly? That’s how easy it is to get pulled in.

The market knew exactly what I wanted and wasted no time showing me a solution. It was convenient. They looked good, seemed practical, and buying them took less than five minutes. Finding an alternative? That would have meant time researching. I gave in but regretted it and immediately returned them for a non-plastic alternative.

But part of intuitive gardening is being honest with yourself about why you’re making certain choices. Was I really thinking about sustainability? Or was I just looking for the fastest way to get what I wanted?

Lesson 3: Where Our Dollars Go Matters

Convenience doesn’t just influence how we garden—it shapes where we spend our money. Changing purchasing habits takes effort. Seeking alternatives mean slowing down, doing research, and sometimes spending a little more. But money is a form of energy—where we direct it matters.

This is another principle of intuitive gardening: understanding that everything is connected. The seeds we plant, the companies we support, the materials we use—it all has a ripple effect. And while it’s easy to think, One order won’t make a difference, companies notice where people spend their money. Our choices have power, even when they seem small.

Lesson 4: Maybe It’s Not Supposed to Be Easy

We’ve been taught to control the land. To make it yield faster, grow bigger, and look tidier. But most processes on Earth don’t move fast—and maybe neither should we. Gardening isn’t just about producing food or creating beauty. It’s about relationship. It’s about slowing down, noticing what’s happening beneath our feet, and remembering that every act of altering the Earth carries weight.

Convenience tells us to lay the fabric, buy the trays, spray the weeds. A better way of doing things I believe is one in which we are invited to pause, to spend the extra hour pulling weeds by hand, to build soil slowly over seasons, to accept that nature has her own pace.

That’s what my garden keeps teaching me. When I slow down, when I listen instead of impose, everything shifts. I start to see the land not as something to conquer or improve—but as a partner. A living system with its own wisdom and timing.

And honestly? That’s where the magic is. Not in the quick fixes, but in the long, slow process of working with the land instead of against it.

(The March 2025 Intuitive Gardening course will include guided practices to help you connect with your land, listen to its needs, and develop a personal gardening rhythm that feels nourishing, not rushed. Paid subscribers will gain access to monthly activities, reflection prompts, and live Q&A sessions.)

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Want to Dig Deeper? Let’s Slow Down Together.

If you’ve found yourself nodding along—or maybe cringing with recognition—you’re not alone. I’ve walked (and stumbled) this path too. These lessons and conversations aren’t always easy, but they’re necessary if we want to garden in a way that truly honors the earth.

Whether you’re just starting to question convenience-driven habits or you’ve been working toward a slower, more mindful approach, I’m here to support you.

Free Subscribers: Stay connected with regular articles like this one, offering reflections, stories, and practical tips to help you in the garden.

Paid Subscribers: Get full access to my upcoming Intuitive Gardening course, launching in March 2025. Together, we’ll explore how to:

• Slow down and listen to your land

• Make intentional gardening decisions aligned with your values

• Break free from the convenience trap

• Build lasting soil health and plant relationships

• Incorporate seasonal living and intuitive practices into your gardening

The course includes monthly lessons, reflection prompts, hands-on activities, and live Q&A sessions to support you in cultivating a more mindful, reciprocal relationship with the earth.

👉 Ready to dig deeper? Join the paid community and let’s grow together.

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Because gardening isn’t just something we do. It’s something that transforms who we are. And maybe, just maybe, that’s what we’ve been missing all along.

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Have you ever wondered what it truly means to live in harmony with the earth? Listening to a recent live chat between garden visionary Mary Reynolds and no-dig gardening pioneer Charles Dowding, I found myself reflecting on how our personal actions can ripple outward, creating real change.

I have been following Mary and Charles now for some years. Mary first came on my radar as I began to rebuild my own personal connection to nature when I heard about her winning gold at the Chelsea Flower Show at the age of 28 with a design that emulated a wild place. Her books, We Are The ARK and The Garden Awakening have heavily influenced my gardening practices and coaching foundations. Charles is also well known in the food-growing movement, most popular for his no-dig methods. When I saw them both live on Instagram, I stopped what I was doing to tune in.

They spoke about the urgency of our times but also the abundance of solutions at our fingertips. The conversation wasn’t just hopeful—it was a rallying cry for all of us to step into a deeper relationship with the land. The solution, they emphasized, won’t come from the top down; it will be community-driven, requiring continued education, conversation, and small collective actions.

The Power of Reconnection: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Challenges

Mary speaks often about the collapse of biodiversity and the urgent need to restore nature. She encourages us to grow food on part of our land while returning the rest to nature, supporting the millions of other species dependent on local habitats. There’s a sentimentality in relearning the ways we used to work with the land—knowledge that isn’t lost but has been forgotten.

One of the stories Mary shared comes from Ireland’s pre-colonial past: a ritual called Bainis Rí, where a chieftain married the land as a public promise of stewardship. If the leader upheld this commitment, abundance followed; if not, the land withered. The story underscores how deeply intertwined human well-being was with the health of the earth. That connection has frayed over time, but the principle remains: we must step back into the role of guardian.

The idea of guardianship of the Earth is not new to me, but Mary’s framing deeply resonated. I often introduce this concept in my coaching sessions, and most people find it inspiring—a fresh perspective they hadn’t considered before. I look forward to reading the book recommendation, Listen to the Land Speak by Manchan Magan.

Biodiversity, Food, and Habitat: A Call to Action

In We Are The ARK, Mary introduces the concept of Acts of Restorative Kindness. She calls for returning half of our gardens to nature, planting native species, and embracing so-called “weeds” that nourish pollinators. It’s not about perfection—it’s about progress. Even a small reclaimed patch can spark a return of life, and with it, a renewed sense of hope.

At my home in Colorado, I’m applying these principles bit by bit. With two acres of former horse pasture, the restoration process is slow and sometimes messy—but that’s okay. Every patch of native grass or blooming wildflower feels like a step toward a healthier future, not just for me but for generations to come.

Industry vs. Local Solutions: Which Path Do We Choose?

Charles highlighted a critical point: many solutions presented at the institutional level are industry-driven and disconnected from local realities. The true change will come from grassroots efforts—neighbors sharing seeds, communities planting together, and individuals taking action right where they are.

An example of this is in reference to Dave Goulson, a British ibologist and conservationist, widely known for his research on pollinators, especially bumblebees. In 2017, Goulson conducted a study that revealed a disturbing reality: many plants sold as “pollinator-friendly” in garden centers are coated with a cocktail of harmful chemicals, including fungicides, pesticides, and insecticides. Even plants marketed as butterfly-friendly were often toxic to the very species they claimed to support. His research emphasizes the importance of sourcing plants from reputable nurseries that avoid harmful treatments and advocating for stronger transparency in the horticulture industry. Goulson’s work has been instrumental in raising awareness about the hidden dangers of conventional gardening products and inspiring more ecologically responsible gardening practices.

I find most people want to do well. They want to support the pollinators but are unaware of industry practices. It requires us asking questions, learning and making adjustments as we go to try to do better and advocate for better. On a local level I am a part of the creation of designing an herbal CSA at Wild Roots Studios and on the board for a non-profit, Sproutin’ Up teaching under resourced kids and families how to grow their own food. These movements are here, we can look for them and find ways to support them either financially or with our time and sharing their organizations with others.

Practical Ways to Step Up Today

Simple, meaningful actions can transform how we engage with the earth:

• Learn about and plan to plant one native species this week.

• Plan to a patch of your yard grow wild for pollinators and soil health.

• Talk to a neighbor about starting a small garden together or sharing resources.

• Learn about harmful chemicals in nursery plants and shop responsibly.

• Join or create a local seed exchange or community gardening group.

Closing Reflection: Heart Over Head

Mary said it best: "We need to drop back from the head into the heart." Every piece of land, no matter how small, is sacred. Every action we take is a chance to restore balance.

Community Engagement

What resonated with you from this article? Share your thoughts in the comments—I’d love to hear how you’re reconnecting with the land. If you found this helpful, send it to a friend or neighbor or re-stack.

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Many gardeners feel the urge to start cleaning up their beds, but beneath the leaf litter and dried stems, countless insects, pollinators, and beneficial creatures are still using that space for shelter. By leaving the garden undisturbed a little longer, we give them the time they need to emerge safely. Plus, those spent flowers that are still standing likely still hold valuable seeds for the birds and insects could be burrowed in the stems of the plants or hiding under the pile of leaves that have died back on your plant.

This month also carries the ancient wisdom of Imbolc, the Celtic festival that marks the midpoint between winter and spring. It is a time of subtle awakening—when the earth stirs just beneath the surface, and we begin to sense the promise of a new growth cycle. I see other symbols in nature that spring is coming such as my crocus and garlic starting to emerge through the frozen earth, days are growing longer and I am seeing much more bird activity. Change is happening!

General Planning & Preparation

• Garden Layout: Design with the Land in Mind
  Now’s the time to finalize your planting plans. I like to sketch ideas out on paper or use Canva to visualize my layout. February snows can help you discover microclimates- for example, where does snow melt first, where does water collect?

• Seed Inventory & Last-Minute Orders
  Before panic-buying new seeds, take stock of what you already have. Order any missing varieties now while supplies are still good. Consider what plants may be better purchased than starting by seed and just how much room you have for seed starting. If you start growing indoors soon you will likely need to upgrade your pot sizes before they make their way outside.

• Tool Maintenance: Fix Before Buying New
  Take some time to sharpen, oil, and clean your pruners, shears, and shovels. Check for rust or damage so everything is in peak condition for spring. Looking for an easy way to remove rust? Soak a paper towel in vinegar, wrap around the metal of your tool for 15 minutes, rinse off, dry well and oil.

• Garden Education: The More You Know
  Winter is a great time for learning. Take a gardening class, read books on native plants and soil health, or dive into regenerative gardening practices. My book recommendation of the month: Behaving As If The God In All Life Mattered. This book dives into a personal account of learning to connect with nature.

• Nature Journal: Observing Nature’s Patterns
  Record early signs of spring—first bird calls, swelling buds, insect activity. Many Indigenous traditions use natural indicators to determine when to plant—such as waiting for the blooming of certain flowers or the return of specific birds. These observations help you sync your garden to the land’s natural rhythms. Pay attention to the signals from nature: the first crocus breaking through the frost, the sound of melting ice in streams, or the movement of birds shifting in the trees. Here is a short 30 second video from my new nature vlog over on @_mothergardener on Instagram.

Herb & Vegetable Care: Planting the First Seeds

• Seed Starting: The Early Risers
  Certain crops need a head start indoors this month:

  • Celery, leeks, and onions are slow growers that benefit from early planting.

  • Hardy herbs like parsley and thyme can use a head start.

  • Some gardeners also start peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes later this month.

  • Flowers that can be started include pansies, violas, lisianthus, snapdragons, lavender, coleus, stock, dianthus

• Peat-Free & Plastic-Free Growing Options

  • Consider using soil blocking instead of plastic seed trays to reduce waste.

  • Opt for peat-free seed-starting mixes to lessen environmental impact.

• Cold Stratification: Because Some Seeds Need Winter First
  Some native perennials and herbs won’t sprout unless they experience cold. Milkweed, lavender, echinacea, and other wildflowers benefit from stratification. Early in the month, tuck them into the fridge or try the ice cube method (freezing seeds in water, then planting).

• Learn what native plants in your area can be propagated from hardwood cuttings this winter. Some plants you can do this with along the Front Range of Colorado include rosa woodsi, currant, gooseberry, snowberry.

• Reseed Native Plants (Snow Seeding!) Native seeds can be sown directly onto snow—as it melts, it naturally stratifies the seeds.

  Make sure you don’t miss your monthly garden planning checklist by following along below.

Perennial & Shrub Care: Protect, Don’t Rush

• Winter Watering: Give the Giants a Drink
  If temperatures rise above 40°F and there’s been no moisture for three or more weeks, water deeply:

  • Trees, shrubs, and first-year perennials need hydration.

  • Newly planted fruit trees are especially vulnerable to winter drought.

  • Always disconnect hoses immediately after watering!

• Pruning (But Be Smart About It!)

  • Prune dormant trees and shrubs, including fruit trees, roses, and non-blooming shrubs.

  • DO NOT prune spring bloomers like lilacs; they’ve already set their flower buds.

  • Hold off on pruning stone fruit trees (cherries, peaches, plums) until later in spring to avoid frost damage and disease.

• Bed Preparation (If Thawed): Leave Shelter Intact

  • Avoid fully clearing out garden beds—many beneficial insects, butterflies, and native bees are still hibernating in leaves, stems, and soil.

Observation Prompt: Take a slow walk through your garden. Look for signs of life in unexpected places—under logs, inside curled leaves, along south-facing walls.

Wildlife & Pollinator Support: Keep the Buffet Open

Feed the Birds

• Late winter is critical for overwintering birds. Keep feeders stocked and clean to prevent disease.

  

A Reminder: Slower Is Smarter

February is not a race. The land isn’t rushing, and neither should you. Each step you take now—pruning wisely, starting seeds, watering at the right time, and leaving habitat intact—sets up your garden for success in a way that honors nature’s rhythms.

Gardening isn’t just about the end result. It’s about respecting the process, the timing, and the thousands of small lives that depend on our choices.

So hold the line, Guardian. Prepare, but don’t rush. Observe before you act. The land is waking up, but it’s not ready just yet.

Share & Grow Our Community!

Know a fellow earth steward who needs this? Share this checklist and help grow our movement.

Want hands-on help designing your garden? Let’s team up—I offer garden coaching to help you build a garden that’s thriving, resilient, and in sync with the land. Book a session here:

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What’s YOUR February focus? Drop a comment—let’s chat below!

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