Guide to Supplies
Gathering your gardening supplies can be a bit like preparing for your first baby. You feel so tempted to buy everything you might possibly need, and it is easy to overpurchase. To help, I have created a list of supplies that I use often. These are tried and true, and I am listing items that I have personally used. Hopefully this makes it simpler for you to get started!
My Favorite Books
Here are some books that I own and re-read often. These first 3 are great for growing and gardening.
Floret’s Cut Flower Garden: Grow, Harvest, and Arrange Stunning Seasonal Blooms
The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Growing and Selling Cut Flowers
The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: The Essential Guide to Planting and Pruning Techniques
These 3 are my favorite for design and arranging.
Floret’s A Year in Flowers: Designing Gorgeous Arrangements For Every Season
The Artistry of Flowers: Floral Design
Landscape Fabric
I like to use the 3’ foot wide landscape fabric for my walkways around my beds / yard, and I usually use a 6’ foot wide fabric for my actual growing beds. I burn my holes into the landscape fabric down the middle of the 6’ foot wide fabric, leaving 1 feet on each side. There are really nice lines right on the actual fabric to help.
Landscape Fabric Staples
To secure your fabric to the ground, you will want earth staples. I usually space these every foot along the fabric to prevent wind or other weather elements from pulling it up. You will need a hammer or mallet to pound them into the ground.
Heat Mats for Seed Starting
To germinate your plants indoors, you will want a heat mat to warm your soil to the point where the seed can germinate. Here is a heat mat I commonly buy. It fits a 72-cell tray perfectly, or you can put multiple 6-cell tray or 40-cell tray on this mat.
Seed Starting Trays
For your seed starting, each tray with need a bottom tray, cell pack, and dome (the latter needed for germination only). Sometimes you can get sets that offer all of these items together. Here are two links that offer different tray sizes.
12-Cell Tray with Dome, 10 pack
40-Cell tray With Dome, 10 pack
Grow Lights for Artificial Indoor Lights
While windows and natural light are helpful in starting seeds, they do not provide enough light for young plants to thrive (they typically need 18 hours of light a day). These artificial lights are my favorite. They are very lightweight and easy to hangup all on my own. I usually use 2 per shelf, and I fasten them with wire or zip ties. If you are doing multiple shelves of lights, these are fantastic because they can plug into each other so you don’t need 150 power strips :).
Seed Starting Mix
To start your seeds indoors, you actually need a soil mix that is specific to the needs of young plants. It is lightweight and very different than your soil outside. Starting in January, most home improvement stores, like Lowes or Home Depot, will have some seed starting mixes available to buy.
Planting Tool
When planting, especially in small landscape fabric holes, I can’t use a traditional spade. I like to use an actual butter knife from the kitchen (no wonder we only have 2 left in the drawer) or a small trowel, like below.
Weeding Tool
My favorite weeding tool is a stirrup hoe. The idea with this is you regularly run this over any bare soil, and it will disrupt weed seeds from sprouting. You are weeding before there are weeds. Inevitably we all get behind with this though, and this tool also acts as a great way to sever the head of the weed right off. I don’t even kneel down to pick up the weed and throw it away. I just leave it where its at and let the sun dry it up. I don’t own this exact stirrup hoe, but this is a great example and seems affordable.
Broadfork
As talked about in my classes, my husband will till when we have a brand new area we are trying to grow in. But after that initial till, I try only to use my broadfork in the Spring and Fall. The broadfork creates air and loftiness in your soil. In places with heavy clay, it helps the soil lift and breath (think aerating your lawn). But it does so without churning the soil and destroying all the yummy bacteria and soil composition. I do not own this particular broadfork, so I can’t speak to its quality. But I wanted to show you one as an example, and this one seemed affordable with the most positive reviews.
Clippers
I love to buy clippers, and I have quite a few pair! I try to sharpen and care for the ones I have, but I do end up buying a new pair once a year that I save for my own use.
The first pair I use for cutting heavier stems, like woody plants or thick sunflowers. I also use them for all of my wreath workshops. The second pair is a little lighter and great for everyday flower harvesting.
Pest Control
For dahlias specifically, earwigs and other insects can destroy your flower petals. There is ONE thing I’ve found that absolutely works for earwigs, and I only sprinkle it down 1-2x a season. It is safe for children and pets. You have to get the plus version, or it won’t include earwigs.
For grasshoppers, I don’t know what to say. I use this organic spray on the foliage, and I sprinkle garlic powder I buy from Costco around and on my plants. Do they work? I have no clue. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so I really tried to stay diligent with this spray.
Places to Buy Seeds
There are a lot of places to buy seeds, but these 3 are my favorite. Floret has some beautiful specialty varieties, but they can sell out. Johnny’s usually has most things in stock and makes you feel like seed shopping is not like shopping on Black Friday. Baker Seeds is fun for the rare and odd seeds.
*Some of these links are Amazon affiliate links, and I may receive commission from the purchases. However, I am only listing items that I have purchased, used, or really enjoyed. My goal is always to help you, not profit from you. I know how much joy gardening and flowers can bring into our lives, and I hope this list helps.