Thinking about growing your own lettuce, spinach, and potatoes this spring? In this April 2025 encore episode, Joanne chats with Julia Dimakos about successfully growing these popular vegetables at home.

In this episode:

• How to grow lettuce successfully for fresh, continuous harvests Julia explores the basics of growing lettuce from seed, including the importance of starting with fresh seed, giving seeds light to germinate, transplanting early, spacing plants properly, succession sowing every couple of weeks, and choosing varieties for cool weather versus summer heat.
• Why spinach is a cool-season crop with a very different rhythm from lettuce Unlike lettuce, spinach prefers cold conditions, struggles in heat, bolts quickly in warm weather, and does especially well when sown now and again in mid-August for fall and even overwintered harvests.
• How to grow healthier, homegrown potatoes Growing your own potatoes can be healthier and more rewarding than buying them. Julia explains the importance of seed potatoes, pre-sprouting, planting whole potatoes rather than cut pieces, choosing between determinate and indeterminate varieties, and growing in raised beds, grow bags, or containers.

Find Julia Dimakos online:

Website: www.juliadimakos.com

Instagram: @juliadimakos

YouTube: @gardeninggirl

Check out a few of her past episodes:

All About Tomatoes

Microgreens & Sprouting

Have a topic you'd like Joanne to discuss?

Email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne on her website: down2earth.ca

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.

Down the Garden Path Podcast

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low-maintenance as possible.

In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.

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