After a few years planting in containers, and now with a large garden to call my own, I’ve realized that gardening doesn’t have to be that hard. I started this blog series, “A Complete Guide for Beginner Gardeners,” to give you a sense of where to start when you’re creating a vegetable garden from scratch.

1. Start a Garden Journal

If you’re thinking of starting a vegetable garden, you’ve probably been thinking about it for a while. Maybe you’ve been drooling over pictures on Pinterest or Instagram, or dreaming about the yummy meals you’ll be able to cook with the vegetables you grow. Either way, you’re about to be bombarded with a lot of new ideas, information, and details you’ll want to remember.

A garden journal gives you a place to write all of these things down before it gets too overwhelming. It’s also a place to record things like the seeds you purchase, ideas for garden layouts, and observations along the way. Think of yourself as something like a scientist, and your garden journal as a place to record the details you’re likely to forget later—everything from how you dealt with a particular garden pest to where you planted the seeds you direct sowed (they may only take a few weeks to germinate, but trust me, you’ll have forgotten by then!).

There are lots of wonderful templates for garden planners and journals online, as well as apps and all kinds of different methods. Whatever you choose, go with something you find intuitive and easy to use—a simple notebook is the thing I reach for the most, so that’s what I use.

2. Determine Your Hardiness Zone and Last Frost Date

When choosing the plants to put in your garden, you’ll want to select varieties that will do well in your region. This is the purpose of your hardiness zone, often simply referred to as the “zone” when you’re looking at plant tags.

Your zone is particularly important to consider when you’re looking for perennials. Perennials are plants that return year after year from the same roots, like rhubarb or wildflowers. If you choose a perennial rated for a zone with a higher number than yours (e.g., a plant rated for zone 6a, but you live in zone 3b), the plant may not be able to survive the winter temperatures in your area.

Your last frost date determines when you can expect the last time frost will occur in the spring in your area. You will need to use this date to decide when to begin planting seedlings outdoors, as well as when to start seeds, if you’re starting your own.

For more information about Plant Hardiness Zones, check out this post by clicking here.

For help determining your last frost date, check out this post by clicking here.

3. Choose the Location, Size, and Container for Your Garden

In order to grow, plants need sunlight, water, and suitable temperatures, as well as air, soil nutrients and space. These needs are what you need to consider when choosing a location, size, and container for your garden.

Sunlight: For a vegetable garden, you will need to choose a location that receives a minimum of 6 hours of full, direct sunlight per day—more is even better for productive plants. The angle of the sun can change quite dramatically throughout the year, so it is best to assess the available sunlight during the summer months. The University of Saskatchewan has a great article on how to assess the sunlight in your garden here.

Temperatures: The location you choose for your garden will also decide the temperatures your plants experience—lower areas may create cooler microclimates, whereas well-sheltered areas may create warmer microclimates.

Water: No matter how much mulch you put down, you will likely need to water your garden several times over the growing season. Most vegetables need to be watered deeply about three times a week. Keep this in mind when choosing your location, or be prepared for how much water you’re going to need to haul!

Air, Soil Nutrients, and Space: The size and container you choose for your garden will impact the air, soil nutrients, and space available to your plants.

When first starting out, it’s best to start small, and you can expand your growing space as you learn. Each seed packet or seedling you purchase will come with spacing recommendations on the label to help you ensure the plant has enough space to grow. If you are planting in a raised bed, the row spacing is less important.

To help you figure out how many plants you can fit in a raised bed based on the recommended plant spacing, check out the article “How to Convert Seed Packet Instructions for Square Foot Gardening” by clicking here.

If you are planting in pots or other smaller containers, filling them with potting soil is the easiest option to ensure optimal soil nutrients and drainage. However, you are planting in the ground, you will be working with pre-existing soil conditions, so you may want to send a sample for analysis and amendment recommendations.

4. Find Sources of Inspiration for Your Zone

When gardening starts to feel hard, or when I’m dreaming up what my garden could look like and what I want to try planting, I love looking at other people’s gardens for inspiration. However, lots of the garden photographs and advice you see on Pinterest or similar sources just won’t work in a cold climate garden.

Finding content creators and books specifically for my zone has been really helpful for getting tips and tricks, advice, and ideas that I can apply right away in my own space. To get started, try Google searches or hashtags including your province/state, region, or hardiness zone.

5. Start a List of What You Want to Grow

Some vegetables are much easier to grow than others, and some won’t do well in smaller containers. The following plants are commonly recommended as a good starting place for beginner gardeners:

• Beans
• Beets
• Carrots
• Chard
• Kale
• Lettuce
• Onions
• Peas
• Peppers (from nursery seedlings)
• Potatoes
• Radishes
• Spinach
• Tomatoes (from nursery seedlings)
• Zucchini

Choose vegetables that you’ll actually eat. If you don’t like it, don’t grow it!

You’ll also want to pick a few flowers, such as marigolds, borage, or native wildflowers to encourage pollinators and discourage pests. I find West Coast Seeds’ Guide to Companion Planting quite useful for choosing flowers, as well as planning what to plant where.

I also like to choose at least a few plants each year that look particularly interesting, will stretch my growing skills, or give me the opportunity to learn something new.

6. Create a Planting Plan

It can be really tempting to just start sticking plants in the dirt after your last frost date passes—I’ve done it! However, I’ve since learned that a little advance planning makes planting a lot easier, and you’re less likely to end up overcrowding your plants or randomly sticking seedlings in the lawn because you’ve run out of space (yup, I’ve done that too).

Much like gardening journals, there are hundreds of templates for garden planners online if you like that sort of thing. For me though, a simple spreadsheet, some paper, and a few pencil crayons are the easiest method. Whatever you choose, you’ll want to create some kind of schedule that tells you what to plant when (particularly if you are starting some of your own seeds), as well as what to plant where and how much space they need.

Is this your first year growing a vegetable garden? Let me know what else you’d like to see me cover in this series in the comments! The next post series will talk about seed starting for beginners.

Sources

Part of why I created this blog was to record the answers to gardening questions I’ve had along the way. As a person who loves research, I thought it would be handy to have that research stored together, in a place where I could also share it with others. I encourage you to do your own research on anything I have posted, and I’ve included footnotes with my sources for information that isn’t based on personal experience—both so I can go back and reference the original source for something, and so you can do the same. Let me know if you spot any errors, so I can correct them!

• Beck, Andrea. (2023, January 23). 6 Secrets to Starting Your First Vegetable Garden Off Right. Better Homes & Gardens. https://www.bhg.com/gardening/vegetable/vegetables/planning-your-first-vegetable-garden/
• Boeckmann, Catherine. (2023, November 30). How Often Should a Garden be Watered? Almanac. https://www.almanac.com/when-water-your-vegetable-garden-watering-chart
• Boeckmann, Catherine. (2023, November 30). Vegetable Gardening for Beginners: The Complete Guide. Almanac. https://www.almanac.com/vegetable-gardening-for-beginners
• Duford, Mary Jane. (2023, November 10). Beginner Gardening. Home for Harvest. https://www.homefortheharvest.com/beginner-gardening/
• Gardening at USask. (2018, February 7). Assessing sunlight: shade, partial shade, partial sun, or full sun?. Retrieved January 31, 2024, from https://gardening.usask.ca/articles-and-lists/articles-how-to/assess-sunlight.php
• Gardening at USask. (n.d.) Water conservation in no till gardens. Retrieved February 7, 2024, from https://gardening.usask.ca/articles-and-lists/articles-notillgardening/water-notill.php#:~:text=Vegetable%20garden%20plants%20need%20around,equivalent%20of%201%E2%80%9D%20of%20water.
• Sansone, Arricca Elin. (2023, March 28). 11 Things Beginners Should Know Before Starting a Vegetable Garden. Country Living. https://www.countryliving.com/gardening/garden-ideas/g43413616/vegetable-garden-for-beginners/
• Tilley, Nikki. (2021, July 26). What Makes Plants Grow: Plant Growing Needs. Gardening Know How. https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/children/how-plants-grow.htm
• Walliser, Jessica. (n.d.). How to start a vegetable garden fast (and on a budget!). Savvy Gardening. https://savvygardening.com/how-to-start-a-vegetable-garden/

So what is a last frost date, how do you figure out yours, and how do you plant around it? Keep reading to find out!

What Is a Last Frost Date?

As you may have already guessed, a last frost date refers to the last time frost, or temperatures below 0°C, is expected in a particular region in the spring. Last frost dates is an average calculated with several decades’ worth of climate data, and depending on the resource you are looking at, it may be a single date or it may be a range of dates.

Why Do I Need to Know My Last Frost Date?

Some plants do not tolerate frost very well—if exposed to temperatures at or below 0°C, they may suffer stunted growth or damage, or even die. These plants include species that love heat, like tomatoes and peppers, but also hardier plants like onions.

To give your new seedlings the best chance of success, you want to avoid planting them in your garden until the risk of frost has passed unless you have other methods of keeping them from freezing. You will also need to know this date if you are starting your own seeds—most seed packets will tell you when to start the seeds indoors using the number of weeks before your last frost date.

It is worth noting that some plants can tolerate a small amount of frost, but we won’t be delving into that in this article—that’s more something to try after you’ve gotten a bit more experience with gardening and seed starting!

How Do I Find My Last Frost Date?

The easiest method for finding the Last Frost Date for your area is to simply Google the town or city you live in (or if you live in a rural area like me, a larger town nearby) with the words “last frost date.”

Provincial or state government websites are often a source of good information as long as it has been updated relatively recently. If not, other local gardeners, garden centres, and seed companies can often give you an idea of the last frost in your area.

However, if you poke around on a few different websites, you’ll often find many different answers, because each source is using a different level of risk. The Farmer’s Almanac, for example, provides a date with 33% risk of frost.

Here in Manitoba, you can check the maps linked at the bottom of the Agricultural Climate of Manitoba page on the Manitoba Agriculture website here. They have three options for maps of last frost dates: 50% risk, 25% risk, and 10% risk of frost.

For both my own calculations and the dates below, I have opted to go with a 25% risk of frost (i.e. the last frost date would be expected to be later in one out of every four years). However, you may want to use the dates for 10% risk instead for more sensitive plants, or if you don’t have a plan for protecting your plants from frost damage.

Below are the dates from the map 25% Risk* Date of the Last Spring Frost at 0°C for some of the larger communities in the province.

• Altona – May 20 to May 23
• Brandon – May 23 to May 26
• Dauphin – May 26 to May 29
• Morden – May 20 to May 23
• Neepawa – May 23 to May 26
• Niverville – May 23 to May 26
• Oakbank – May 23 to May 26
• Portage la Prairie – May 20 to May 23
• Selkirk – May 23 to May 26
• Steinbach – May 29 to June 1
• Stonewall – May 23 to May 26
• Winnipeg – May 23 to May 26
• Winkler – May 20 to 23

Based on the above, I’ve settled on May 23 as my last frost date, but it’s something I plan to experiment with in future years to see how much I can push my luck earlier in the season.

So, Can I Start Planting Seedlings as Soon as the Last Frost Date Passes?

As mentioned above, your last frost date is calculated as an average based on historical climate data. The map from Manitoba Agriculture admits it’s likely wrong one out of every four years. Use your last frost date as a guideline, but when the time approaches, keep a close eye on your local weather forecast too.

Many gardeners will also have microclimates in their yards, meaning they may be able to plant a bit sooner (such as in a very sheltered garden with a lot of direct southern sun), or they may have to wait a bit later (for a garden that is more exposed, in a low spot, or without much shelter from the wind). Experience planting in the same area year after year will help you identify how your garden’s conditions may differ from your local area.

Whatever date you choose to go by, it’s best to have a plan for protecting your seedlings from frost for those years when Mother Nature decides to ignore historical climate data!

What is the last frost date you go by in your area? Which source do you follow? Let us know in the comments.

Sources

• Almanac. (n.d.) 2024 First and Last Frost Dates for Places in Manitoba. https://www.almanac.com/gardening/frostdates/MB
• Government of Canada, Growing Forward 2, Government of Manitoba. (n.d.). 25% Risk* Date of the Last Spring Frost at 0°C. Manitoba Agriculture. Manitoba Agriculture. (n.d.). Agricultural Climate of Manitoba. Retrieved January 24, 2024, from https://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/weather/agricultural-climate-of-mb.html
• Manitoba Agriculture. (n.d.). Agricultural Climate of Manitoba. Retrieved January 24, 2024, from https://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/weather/agricultural-climate-of-mb.html
• Mary Schier. (2021, January 4). Frost Dates in the Vegetable Garden. My Northern Garden. https://mynortherngarden.com/2021/01/04/frost-dates-in-the-vegetable-garden/
• Ron Paul Garden Centre. (n.d.). Managing Manitoba’s Frost: A Simple Guide for Gardeners. Retrieved January 24, 2024, from https://ronpaulgardencentre.com/wp-content/uploads/frost-v2.pdf
• Veseys. (n.d.). Canada Hardiness Zones. Retrieved January 24, 2024, from https://www.veseys.com/ca/canada-hardiness-zones-frost-dates
• West Coast Seeds. (n.d.). Working With Frost Dates. Retrieved January 24, 2024, from https://www.westcoastseeds.com/blogs/wcs-academy/working-frost-dates

I have these old Jiffy pellets from an auction purchase, and I wanted to try out using an egg carton to start seeds in. I’ve seen others do it online, but I’m not totally convinced it has enough structural integrity — we shall see!

Have you ever started seeds in an egg carton before? Did it work well for you?

What is the “zone” referred to on my seed packet?

First, to be clear on our terminology, the “zone” being referred to in many gardening resources is the Plant Hardiness Zone. These systems of zones, and its corresponding maps, developed separately by Natural Resources Canada and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help gardeners determine which plants will grow well in their region.

Natural Resources Canada divides Canada into zones based on data for seven different factors averaged over 30 years. These seven factors are:

• monthly mean of the daily minimum temperature of the coldest month,
• mean frost-free period above 0 C in days,
• amount of rainfall from June to November,
• monthly mean of the daily maximum temperatures of the warmest month,
• rainfall in January,
• mean maximum snow depth, and
• maximum wind gust in 30 years.

The USDA exclusively uses the annual extreme minimum temperatures (or coldest night of the year), averaged over 30 years, to divide the United States into Plant Hardiness Zones.

Because the zones are calculated completely differently by the two organizations, it is virtually impossible to translate between them. This is particularly important to keep in mind if you are a Canadian purchasing seeds from an American seed company or vice versa. However, Natural Resources Canada does offer a second map calculated using the USDA’s model to help you out if you wish to shop out of country.

Why do I need to know my zone?

As mentioned above, your Plant Hardiness Zone will help you select which plants will grow well in your region. Some plants need more intense sunlight, long stretches of very hot weather, or mild winters in order to thrive. For example, you wouldn’t likely be very successful if you tried to grow bananas in Manitoba (outside anyway—I recently saw dwarf bananas on the Sage Garden website!).

Checking for zone information is less of a concern if you are shopping at a local garden centre, as they are likely to carry plants that will grow well in your area. However, when purchasing seeds online or looking at perennial plants, look for details about the zone to make sure the plants you are buying will thrive where you live.

How can I determine which zone I’m in?

To find out your zone, Canadians can consult the Plant Hardiness Zone Maps provided on the Natural Resources Canada website. Americans can consult the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, which was just updated in 2023. Both websites include an interactive map so you can zoom in to identify the zone for your specific area. An update is expected for the Canadian map sometime in 2024, so be sure to check back again later this year to see if your zone has changed.

Here in Manitoba, zones range from 0a in the north to 4a in the south. Below are the zones for some of the larger communities in the province.

• Altona – zone 4a
• Brandon – zone 3b
• Dauphin – zone 3b
• Flin Flon – zone 2b
• Morden – zone 4a
• Neepawa – zone 3b
• Niverville – zone 3b
• Norway House – zone 2b
• Oakbank – zone 3b
• Portage la Prairie – zone 4a
• Selkirk – zone 3b
• Steinbach – zone 3b
• Stonewall – zone 3b
• The Pas – zone 2b
• Thompson – zone 1b
• Winnipeg – zone 4a
• Winkler – zone 4a

Hopefully this post leaves you feeling a bit more confident in understanding your Plant Hardiness Zone and how to use it.

Do you know your zone, or need help figuring it out? Let us know in the comments!

Sources

Part of why I created this blog was to record the answers to gardening questions I’ve had along the way. As a person who loves research, I thought it would be handy to have that research stored together, in a place where I could also share it with others. I encourage you to do your own research on anything I have posted, and I’ve included my sources for information that isn’t based on personal experience—both so I can go back and reference the original source for something, and so you can do the same. Let me know if you spot any errors, so I can correct them!

• Lebel, Jacquelyn. (2023, December 19). Canada’s plant hardiness zones map ready to bloom for 1st time in 10 years. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/10146246/canadas-plant-hardiness-zones-map-ready-to-bloom-for-1st-time-in-10-years/
• Natural Resources Canada. (n.d.) Plant Hardiness Zone by Municipality. http://planthardiness.gc.ca/?m=22&lang=en
• Natural Resources Canada. (n.d.) Plant Hardiness of Canada. http://planthardiness.gc.ca/?
• Sage Garden Greenhouses (n.d.). Live Plant – Banana, Dwarf Cavendish (Edible). Retrieved January 23, 2024, from https://sagegarden.ca/products/banana-dwarf-cavendish-edible-3-5?_pos=1&_sid=c2ed6d171&_ss=r
• U.S. Department of Agriculture. (2023, November 15). USDA Unveils Updated Plant Hardiness Zone Map [Press release]. https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2023/usda-unveils-updated-plant-hardiness-zone-map/
• U.S. Department of Agriculture. (n.d.) 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/

In terms of taste, I would describe these as something like the crunchy egg bits on the edges of French toast, with a stronger mushroom flavour in the stems. That may be partly because we ate them a bit later than intended though — they may have more of the “red wine” taste the website described when they are less mature. We fried the second batch with oregano and butter and put them on toast with ricotta — yum!

Have you ever grown oyster mushrooms at home? Any tips for the second flush?

Mushroom kit from Grow Mushrooms Canada.

The book has blanks for you to fill in the dates for your region for each week, with advice and information related to the tasks that you’re likely to want to be doing during that time.

It’s made me feel so much more organized this year already!

Published by Storey Publishing