For Ebony Jamieson, known to her 70,000 social media followers as BrownSkinBeautiful, gardening began as an epidemic hobby.
A Chicago-based photographer and mother of two, she already had 26 plants in her home. So after a friend raved about outdoor gardening, Jamieson decided to give it a try in her suburban backyard.
"My kids are so involved and invested in gardening with me," says Jamieson. "It became our pandemic activism and a way to breathe fresh air, but it also became a learning experience for all of us."
I started getting messages from people sharing their gardening experiences and quickly found social media followers who were also beginning gardeners.
I have seen and recorded gardening equipment brands like Little Burros for product campaigns. He encounters something that surprises him: a crowd enthralled by his adventures in the park.
Jamieson began growing tomatoes, cucumbers and baby peppers in four of eight raised beds in her backyard.
He suggests beginners and city dwellers do the same or try growing things like tomatoes and cucumbers in pots.
"It's easier to control manure and what feeds the soil," he says. "It also helps reduce the amount of cannabis I have to do, which can be a real pain."
After her first harvest was bountiful, she recruited family, friends and neighbors to bring home much of her bountiful produce, even after making and documenting her own homemade salsa and pasta sauce with her children. .
Jamieson credits her prolific early garden to her studies of what types of plants could survive in her yard's raised bed.
This has helped him not waste time trying to grow "root vegetables like carrots, beets and potatoes," he says. "I would like to plant them, but the soil in the flower beds and my garden is too shallow, their roots will have nowhere to spread."
Even when her family moved to the suburbs the following year, Jamieson stuck to her garden bed design.
The TikTok gardener filmed it all for her online followers and showed the entire process, with her kids helping measure the pieces, hand-cutting Jamieson and the family's construction team in the family's new yard.
Aspiring gardeners in particular can learn from Jamieson when planting. She says the perfect time to start farming in Chicago is around Mother's Day. This is to avoid the possibility of freezing, although it may not be ideal for people who want a certain plant to produce at a certain time.
"By looking at the plant and the plant cycle, you can better understand when to expect to harvest and whether you should take a seedling or a cutting," says Jamieson. "Vegetables like tomatoes can take about 50 days to go from seed to plant, while produce like strawberries can take about 100 days."
There are some aspects of gardening that you don't like, like pests and weeds.
Also, gardening takes patience, says Jamieson. Whether it's waiting for seeds to germinate or being diligent about pests and weeds, patience is key to a successful harvest, he says.
"You have to be very patient," he says. "This is my biggest piece of advice. I know many people who are frustrated because they are not seeing rapid growth. Gardening is a very patient game. As with most things in life, you have to get the job done, get on with it. flow and be patient.'
