Welcome to my second “Recommended” series. Here, you’ll find various sites and channels that I’ve been enjoying and wanted to share with you. With so many people currently looking to find ways to be more self sufficient or prepared for emergencies, that will be the focus for most of these, but I’ll also be adding a few that are just plain fun. Please feel free to leave a comment or make your own recommendation. I hope you enjoy these!

I sort of hesitated to include this one in my Recommended series, because it seems like everyone knows MIgardener! Still, I’ve been learning a lot from their YouTube channel, and have already included some of their videos in previous posts, so here it is! Be sure to check out their About page for links to various social media, and check out their website here.

While it’s their YouTube channel I spend most of my time on, the website is a dangerous place for me to be, because they sell seeds! This year, I tried to focus on Canadian seed sources for most things. Especially if it’s a supplier that grows their own seeds in our climate zone. But I’m a sucker for seeds, and MIgardener has things I haven’t seen anywhere else, which is another of my weaknesses. If a variety is uncommon or rare, I want to grow it, so I can save seeds and help keep it from being lost!

That, and I just plain like trying new things. It’s not like these are varieties we’ll find in the grocery stores, or even the farmer’s markets, so the only way to find out if we like them is to grow them!

Quite a few people on the gardening groups I’m on have bought seeds from MIgardener, and have had nothing but positive things to say about them. I like that the website has characteristics you can select, or in/out of stock seeds.

As I write this, when it’s on “all seeds”, there are 669 products to choose from. When I selected “cold hardy” only, that number drops to 58!

They also have a curated Homesteaders Collection of seeds that looks really good. I appreciate that they’ve been chosen for things like canning and storage, as well as fresh eating.

Their videos cover every aspect of gardening.

Do you want to start seeds indoors? Should you start seeds indoors? Is starting early better? He covers it all.

Looking to build some raised beds to transplanted those seeds you started indoors into? He’s got you covered.

Need to figure out where to put those raised beds? He’ll help you figure that out, too.

It’s not all about growing outside, though. Are you a coffee drinker?

Yeah. They sell coffee seeds, too. There are videos on how to grow a variety of fruit trees and berries, too, as well as a number of specific herbs and vegetables.

They don’t just talk about their successes, though.

They’re open about their failures, too.

Right now, there is a huge interest in saving seeds, and they’ve got a playlist on how to save seeds from a wide variety of plants.

Yes, they sell seeds, and are also teaching you how to save seeds, so you don’t have to buy more of them!

Of course there are videos on harvesting your crops, as well as videos on how to cook, can and preserve them. They’ve been putting up videos for 11 years, as of this writing, so there is LOT of information available!

Whether you’re a beginning gardener, or an experienced gardener what wants to look up specific information, I definitely recommend checking out MIgardener. It will be time well spent!

The Re-Farmer