Ready! Set! Grow! Here Are Great Places To Shop For Your Garden

We're closing in on planting season here in Montana.

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In Montana we're a bit of a mixed bag of zones.  As you can see below, it's from about 3a to 5b.  It really depends on where your garden is located.  In Great Falls, we're full on 3b-ish to 4a-ish.  This matters a lot when choosing perennial flowers and plants for your vegetable garden.  We have roughly 95 days in our growing season.

I've noticed since 2020 that by Memorial Day Weekend (When I was taught to get everything in the ground.), the selection at our plant stores is quite dwindled.  I've decided to modify when I BUY my flowers and vegetables this year in order to have the best selection.  I'll still wait until Memorial Day Weekend to plant.  I just store my plants in the house until then.

You'll notice I buy everything already started.  There are a few exceptions to that rule, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, cilantro, radishes and the like.  These are plants I like to plant myself.  For the leaves and the radishes, I like to stagger my planting.  I generally do a row of radishes and such every 2 weeks.  That way, once it starts rolling, I have a steady supply of fresh veggies and herbs.   Since I live in an alley in town with no garden space, I use bags for my spuds.  The only other vegetable plants I do are tomatoes, peppers and zucchini.  I like to get an early producing tomato and a beefeater variety or something similar.  You have to wait a bit longer for those, but they sure are worth it.

We have plenty of places for you to shop and get the widest variety of what you're looking for.  I know I have a favorite plant or two from each of these locations.  By shopping early, I'm hoping to actually get them all this year.  The last 2 years have been a bit disappointing plant wise.  Not because they're not offered, it's because I waited too long to go make my selection.

Plant Stores In Great Falls

On this map, I noticed they left off Ace Hardware, North 40 Outfitters and the Farmer's Market.  You'll find them included in the gallery below.

Happy planting.