Guides · 8 min read
A first garden that actually finishes
Six crops, one 4×8 bed, and the mistakes that waste a spring.
Don't plant a catalog
A first garden fails from ambition, not from weather. Twelve tomato varieties and no lettuce is how you end July with blight and no dinner. Pick crops that match the weeks between your last and first frost — the matcher on this site is built for that, not for collecting packets.
A 4×8 raised bed, or four 5-gallon pots on a balcony, is enough. Fill with a bagged raised-bed mix. Do not use native clay packed into a box and hope.
The six packets
Lettuce (Black Seeded Simpson), a cherry tomato (Sungold or Early Girl if your season is short), bush beans (Provider), basil, radish, and a zinnia. That list produces food in 30 days, sauce by July, and a vase so the bed looks tended.
Skip corn, melon, and brassicas your first year. They are not hard, they are bulky, and they hide whether you can water.
The calendar, not the weekend
Start tomatoes indoors six weeks before last frost. Direct-sow radish and lettuce 3–4 weeks before. Beans and zinnias wait until the soil is warm — usually a week or two after last frost. Basil hates cold nights; treat it like a pepper.
If you only remember one rule: read the days-to-maturity on the packet, add two weeks, and ask whether that date still sits before your first fall frost.
Match your ZIP · Shop a kit · Start dates
The sow list
A note when it is time to sow
Seasonal, not daily. We will send what to start in your zone, and skip the rest of the year.
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Seeds for containers, balconies, and rented light
Renters now out-buy homeowners on vegetable and herb seed. The packets have to match the pot.
Short-season Midwest: Chicago and zone 5–6
Last frost in mid-April. First frost in mid-October. That is the whole argument.
How to start seeds indoors without a greenhouse
Heat, light, and a tray you will not throw away. The rest is optional.