Top tips from gardening guru Tasha Medve
Our At the Market collection celebrates fruit, veg and the freshness of being, so we reached out to gardening queen Tasha Medve from @thepurposefulyou — the perfect partner. A mom from beautiful Victoria, B.C., Tasha promotes an organic and holistic gardener’s lifestyle through her blog, her social media platforms and her very approachable and info-packed e-books.
We asked Tasha to share her top tips for novice gardeners.
What inspired you to collaborate with us on our Art the Market collection?
I’m so honored to have been asked to collaborate in this collection! It means so much to me to be able to inspire others to plant a bit of a garden and to help create three prints that play double duty as stunning wall art and practical gardening tools: a writable garden planner, a writable watering schedule for indoor plants and a companion planting guide to be able to understand how flowers, fruits and vegetables all work together.
What are your top 3 tips for beginner gardeners?
Number 1: choose organic soil that is compost rich. If you’re going to spend money on the garden, spend it on soil, as that will help your flowers and your vegetables grow to their full potential.
Number 2: start small! Start with a few things and get used to how the garden may work so that you don’t get overwhelmed.
Number 3: have fun. Experiment. Gardening is a huge learning experience and we just grow from it year after year.
What crops would you recommend for a beginner?
If you’re a beginner gardener, the easiest vegetables to grow from seed are radishes, spinach, lettuce and arugula. If you’re going to purchase some starters from the nursery or a local farm, choose plants like tomatoes and squash.
What crops are good if you have limited space?
If you have limited space, grow up! I’m a huge fan of growing vertically, for crops like beans and peas, even pumpkins. And then you can plant vegetables like spinach and lettuce in front so that you still have an abundance of food no matter how small your space is.
Can you explain the notion of companion planting?
Companion planting is growing fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs together that work in harmony and create biodiversity within your garden. Vegetables actually have their own families, and if you plant within the same family, they’ll steal each other’s nutrients. There are also certain flowers and vegetables that can bring beneficial insects to the garden, like dill, which brings in ladybugs that eat aphids.
We had so much fun doing the planting companion guide, where you can have a few different ideas that you can plant in your own garden.
If you were a flower, which one would you be?
I think zinnias are hardy and easy to grow, which I like. They have simple needs but they’re also beautiful and delicate, which I really appreciate! So, in another world, I would love to be a zinnia.
