 This is Crystal from Crystal's Den and Garden a.k.a. Crystal's Den and I'm back here with you today. Last time I was here I spoke about the five mistakes I made as a beginner gardener. Today I wanted to share six tips to get your summer garden started. Let's get into it. So the first tip I have is choosing your spot and considering how much space you have to work with. When choosing a spot make sure to choose the one that gets lots of good sun. Most crops need about four to eight hours of sun a day, so we want to make sure our spot can accommodate that. We also want to consider how much like space we want to use for gardening. Some plants like tomatoes and oak will grow really tall and bushy. Other plants like squash and watermelon are going to vine out really long. So just think about and consider how much space you can have for your garden and how much you can give for your crops. My second tip is choosing the crops that you want to grow. This may seem not like a no-brainer, but I wanted to give a couple pieces of advice or give a couple tips on some crops that you could choose. One, think about native plants. So what's native to your area? How can you create a nice ecosystem of plants that you know can thrive where you live? Also think about companion planting. Companion planting is something that I like to do and that I kind of that's kind of the way that I situate my garden. That's just when you plant plants together that can really benefit from each other. Grow well together and you keep ones that don't grow too well together far away. Some complaining planting that I have going on right now are my tomato and basil which both enhance the flavor for each other. My sage and tomato sage helps the growth of the tomato. I have some jalapeño with my squash and cucumbers and pumpkins because they help those vegetables not develop root rot. And then I have geraniums and marigolds spread throughout my garden to kind of keep away different pests since they don't like the smell. So all of that is some examples of companion planting and what I'm doing and just kind of something that you can consider as well. And then also make sure you have some really great pollinators in the garden. Some pollinators that I have going our sunflowers, echinacea, marigolds, geraniums, nasturtiums to name a few. Those pollinators are gonna help bring the bees out and get that pollination process going and continued. So just think about that when you're choosing the vegetables you want to grow. The third tip I give is think about the medium that you want to grow your vegetables in. What are you going to grow them in? Are you going to do a container garden? Are you going to be growing in the ground? Are you going to be doing raised beds? Think about how you're going to grow all of your crops and what that best looks like for you when you're dwelling. That leads me to the soil. Choosing your soil. When I was first starting out gardening, I kind of thought I could use any old type of soil. I remember going and buying a big bag of in-ground soil and thinking I could put it in my raised bed. Well, yeah, that part of my raised bed did not turn out so well and I didn't get the best like result with that because I put in-ground soil in the raised bed. So make sure you're getting the right soil. If you're doing gardening in the ground, you'll need like a soil amendment. So something to add nutrients to the soil. If you are doing containers or raised beds, you'll need the raised bed or container soil. Go to your local nursery. Let them help you. I've gone plenty of times to my local nursery or a seed store. Ask them what's some really good soil to use for the different type of gardening that I'm doing and they've been really helpful. So let that also be a way to help and guide you too. Fifth tip is getting a good watering system going. I like to have water in the morning or in the late evening. Try to avoid watering in the middle of the day, especially if you live a super hot climate because then the water is just going to evaporate and your plants won't get that good nourishment. So get you a good watering schedule. Figure out what's best for you. Figure out what's best for your crops, how often they need to be watered and you know kind of like let that guide you. And then my sixth tip is just have fun beloved. Don't give up. You can do this. There will be obstacles. There will be failures. There will be things that go wrong. It's okay. It's part of the process. It's how we grow and learn. Last year all my corn got destroyed by a horrible wind. This year I have something eating my cabbages and I keep losing cabbages left and right. And you know there will probably be other stuff happening too. But it's part of the process. It's how we learn. It's how we grow. So don't give up. Keep the course. You can do this. You got this and yeah have fun with it. Okay thank you so much y'all for watching this. I hope those six tips helped you and our you know encouragement for you to get your summer garden started. Thank you again for watching. This has been Crystal from Crystal's Den and Garden AKA Crystal's Den. And I can't wait to talk with you next time. Happy gardening. Bye.