by Cheyenne Reis
April 17, 2025

Gardening is something that a lot of people enjoy. However, here in upstate New York, it can become more of a difficult task than a fun hobby. Not to mention all of the people who want to garden but can’t because they simply do not know how or weren’t born with a green thumb in their glove.

A lot of people like to garden, but there are different types of gardeners. There are people who like planting flowers, people who enjoy growing fruits and vegetables, and people who like growing herbs. There are people who enjoy doing all three, or some who only like doing a few, but whatever type of gardener you are, there is a place for you between the soil and the watering can!

Flowers are the most common type of planting. Many people enjoy having little patches of flowers outside their home or in their backyard for private enjoyment. You can buy pre-grown flowers at different stores depending on what you’re looking for, and if that’s the route you’re going then the only other things you’ll need are a hand shovel, watering can or hose, gloves, and some soil. Replanting pre-grown flowers from pot to ground is not very difficult at all, but before anything, you need to know what type of conditions the flower you’re planting needs in order to survive. You cannot simply plant it and water it when you remember to. Also, in upstate New York, it is difficult to pinpoint the best time to start planting flowers as they don’t do well in the cold. But keeping an eye on the weather and its consistency is really the only way to know. Normally it is still too cold in March and much of April to grow, but this can vary every year.

After you’ve done your research and purchased your flowers, you want to make sure that the soil you’re planting the flowers in is damp, not wet. This will help the roots adjust more easily while they start to grow in this new soil. After this you want to use the hand shovel to cover the roots completely with the loose soil. You don’t want to water it right away, wait until the next day before doing the initial water or follow a schedule that you found or made after doing your research. After this, as long as you follow your research, you should have your own little garden of thriving pre-grown flowers!

Some people, however, prefer to grow their flowers from seeds. This takes more time and patience, but it’s an amazing feeling when you finally get to see the sprouts and flowers that come out of it when the process is finished. You can purchase seeds at all of the same places you can get pre-grown flowers. Most seed packets come with a little guide on the back for how to plant and when, but those guides do not account for our bipolar New York weather, so you’re still going to want to do your own research when planting seeds. You also want to again take into account the weather, you don’t want to plant too early because even if you’re starting the seeds inside, it’s still most likely too cold to start them before the end of April and they will not survive to full growth.

When starting seedlings, it’s best to start them inside or in some sort of greenhouse if you’re fortunate enough to have one. The extra moisture and sunlight helps germinate the seeds and helps them get rooted and sprout. You also want to make sure that you’re planting the seeds in the right depth of the soil. Smaller seeds tend to need to be closer to the top of the soil, while larger seeds tend to need to be about 3/4th of an inch down into the soil. Once your seeds have started sprouting and they’ve grown about an inch out of their container, you want to replant them. You can replant them into a larger area still inside if you want to wait to plant them in the ground until a flower has grown, or you can plant these sprouts into the ground and let them grow into flowers from there. You want to water them according to their needs that you hopefully researched before the planting process. You also want to make sure that the plants are getting their preferred amount of sunlight, not just too little, but too much can be just as harmful.

Growing fruits and vegetables is not very different from growing flowers from seeds, it just has different parameters. While flowers don’t do too well in the cold, vegetable sprouts can survive inside in the cold as long as there is the right amount of sunlight. You plant the seeds the same, dampening the soil and putting the seeds in the desired depth based on their size. Do your research in order to know what vegetables you want to plant, find out what requirements they need to grow, and make sure you know who is a companion plant to each other and who is not. Companion plants are not needed but knowing which ones are not is very important. Some vegetables have different needs and planting it next to another plant that competes with it for nutrients, or one that has completely different care requirements can cause one of the two plants to not grow fully. It is very important to know what plants help and hurt each other.

If you decide to start the planting process while it’s still kind of chilly out, you’re going to need to keep them inside a little longer because they will not survive outside while it’s still cold. However, when they have grown too large for the planting tray, you can move them to a larger more unconfined space while you wait for it to warm up outside. After it’s time to move them outside, you want to replant them the same way that you would the replanted flowers. Moisten the soil, make sure the roots are covered, and follow the watering schedule you have created or found. The only difference is that you want to water the vegetables the same day as replanting them, just don’t over water them. After that, you simply let them grow and look after them, and look out for when it’s time to harvest!

Herbs are also very similar except growing herbs is better for indoor gardening. A lot of herbs do really well in an inside environment and are normally kept inside. However, there is one really interesting thing about some herbs, and that is that if planted in a border around flowers or vegetables, they can help keep bugs, spiders, rodents, and beetles away! This can be very helpful for keeping your garden healthy and safe from little bugs or critters that may be roaming around when you’re not there. This is one of the most common reasons for planting herbs outside, but again, most of the time they are kept indoors. Because of this, herbs can be grown at several different times a year, however they are like flowers, and they are not fans of the cold. There is also not a specific way to start growing herbs. You can get starter plants from the store and grow them inside, or you can start growing them from seeds. In this situation, you would want to follow the same steps for planting the flower and vegetable seeds up until they start sprouting. After that checkmark, most herbs have their very own specific instructions for caretaking and their continuous growth. Herbs especially need to have specific conditions to grow, so the research is really crucial to their quality of growth and life.

With gardening, knowledge is 70% of the work, and it holds all the power. The other 30% is the motions to get to the end result. The more you know about the things you’re planting, the process in which to do it, and the care that each individual plant needs, the better your experience can be and the better you’ll get at having your own thriving garden!