Thank you, again, for taking the time to say hello.
Best Wishes,
Mim

I’m so glad to know you have a chance to plant some things. How wonderful! Let me see what I can tell you to help you get started.

From your comment, I’m not sure if you’ve moved away from the skyscrapers into a more suburban or country area. If you have, then hopefully you can start building up a compost pile to simply add to your existent dirt. If you are still within a heavily built-up industrialized part of NYC, you may need to consider container gardening in your backyard, in case the dirt is contaminated with heavy metals or other toxins…this is especially important if you’d like to grow food plants. Not as much of a problem if you are only growing plants for ornamental purposes. When in doubt, you can always have your soil tested to see if there are any problems.

Sunflowers of any kind have one big requirement – sunshine. If your yard is sunny, you could definitely plant some next spring!
Other easy spring-planted food crops for you (provided you’ve got good sunshine most of the day) will be summer squash, tomatoes, lettuces, herbs, chard, spinach and peas. All fabulous veggies that will taste better than anything you’ve ever eaten in your life and save you money on your food budget.

Ornamental plants that are easy to grow in a sunny location: this is really dependent on your climate. A local nursery can show you appropriate varieties for your zone, and you goal can be creating a green, flowery place to repose in. Even if you find your yard is shady, you can still create a beautiful ornamental garden.

My choice is always to grow food whenever you can. It really improves life, diet and outlook on life, and I’m hoping you’ll be able to find a way to do this.

I would recommend any of the organic gardening books published by Rodale Press…they are largely responsible for popularizing organic growing practices in America, and this is incredibly important for you learn about as you start gardening. Conventional gardeners use chemicals and poisons to make plants grow, creating sickness for people and their habitat. Organic gardeners feed their soil with good, chemical-free nutrients and choose good combinations of plants so that they actually improve the environment and are able to provide health-giving food and flowers for themselves and others. It’s a huge difference and any of the Rodale Press books will teach you all about this.

A last word about the soil – building a compost pile is the best way, long-term, to keep replenishing and improving your soil and by doing it yourself, you become self-sufficient in providing for the health of your garden rather than having to buy soil from a nursery. A 3 ft. x 3 ft compost pile won’t take up much of your room and will be one of the best ways you can cut down on the amount of ‘garbage’ you send to the landfills while building up some of the best dirt in the world for your plants.

However, right at first, you may find you need to purchase some soil, whether to improve the texture of your current dirt or to fill containers with. My advice on this is to find a source for organic bagged soil that does not contain any type of factory farm waste…no chicken or steer manure. I have become convinced over the past few decades that the wastes of these animals who are generally diseased are not a healthy thing to put where food is grown. Look for organic soil that is enriched with rocks and minerals instead of animal bi-products for your best bet.

I so hope you will find great joy in your new garden! Thank you for asking your question and I hope I’ve helped you.
Mim