I’m out of town visiting family today, so I had no idea I was an Austin Chronicle cover girl (!!) until friends started texting me the news. 😲💖
This moment feels especially sweet—five years after our 2020 Stay Home Garden Club was named “Best Green Thumb Inspiration,” Joy Max Jardin is back, this time as “Most Joyful Homegrown Seed Shop.”
Thank you to everyone who’s shared their first sprouts, first blooms, and first harvests with me over the years. And yes, we’ve had our fair share of crispy failures too. This is Texas—gardening here is not for the faint of heart. 🫠🌵
Maybe you come by on Sundays for #joymaxnaturechurch. Maybe you’ve just come here today—either way: welcome. The Joy Max method is all about the least effort for the most beauty, bounty, and benefit to wildlife. My advice for the moment is, don’t start now. Instead, start a bed by piling cardboard, vegan compost scraps, and leaves where you want to garden in the fall. When the weather cools, it will be ready and waiting for you.
🌱🌱🌱🌈🌈🌈
📸 by the wonderful Jana Birchum @janab04 📰 @austinchronicle Best of Austin 2025
This is a long overdue announcement that the shop favorite COMPOST THE PATRIARCHY hat is now available in an iconic, if ironic, "dad hat." The attempt to limit the bodily autonomy of humans in this country, and especially this state, is not something that I can keep quiet about. I donate about a third of all the profit I make from these hats to @abortionfunds so consider buying them for all your freedom-loving friends. joymaxjardin.com/shop is the easiest way to keep up with current availability. The bucket had already sold out of the green option and then was restocked before I had even managed to post they were available so I can't guarantee how long these colors will be available. Thank you to all the fellas buying these for their female partners, the man-sized holes we are digging in the garden aren't for you. 🌻💀🪱
My annual contribution to #worldnakedgardeningday is surrounded by love-in-the-mist, nothing between me and that airy Nigella foliage but my dollar store gardening gloves. Nothing soothes my nervous system more than being in the garden. Immersion in green nature or viewing images of green environments has been scientifically proven to lower cortisol levels and heart rates. So even if you aren’t at “this” level of immersion, get some green into your day. It’s still all around you, waiting to hold you when you need it. Photo by @sheadigg 💚👩🏻🌾💐
Every April, this ‘Magical’ Bearded Iris tries to distract me from tax day and I love her for it. I got her out of a bin at @tngaustin not knowing what would happen. Five years later, she still takes my breath away.
Happy Easter!! This April has been all poppies and primroses in the garden. Usually by now I’m up to my elbows in ranunculus, but the cruel late freezes really walloped them back to the leaves. I’ve only had a few bouquets of them so far, and the blooms have been so tiny compared to years past. But the primrose is popping off, hummingbird moths visiting every night to pollinate even more flowers, distracting them from my tomatoes (they spawn the dreaded hornworm). The rain this weekend brought has exploded the garden to new life. It’s a perfect time to plant seeds and enjoy your sanctuary. Mental health is a crop that needs tending and in these uncertain times, the garden can offer both refuge and nourishment. I’ve been away from regular posting, but I’m coming back to you. We all need to garden if we can. That may mean something as small as sprouts in a jar or a basil plant in the window. Tending life, harvesting, caretaking, it all can add so much to a daily experience and empowerment in the face of so much we have no control over.
I hope you have time outside today. Try to listen for the wind in the leaves, the birdsong, and notice that life is all around you, waiting for you to join in.
Let’s get growing,
💚JMJ
President’s Day is a perfect day to plant potatoes in central Texas. If you haven’t chitted yours yet, there’s still time. Let seed potatoes sprout before planting by placing them in a cool, bright spot. If your potatoes are large (bigger than a golf ball), cut them into chunks after sprouting with at least one strong “eye” each, then let the cut sides dry and callus for 1–2 days before planting to prevent rot.
Seed potatoes are sold at nurseries but if you have organic potatoes from the store that sprout, go ahead and plant those puppies! 🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔
I love a grow bag for this. Plant them 4-6” deep and add more dirt to the bag as they send up shoots.
#potatofan #growpotatoes
Joy Max Jardín is for Lovers. 💘 And let me tell you how much I love chard. Even if you don’t eat it often, it looks so beautiful and is just so easy to grow that I highly recommend adding it to your spring planting (go ahead and sow those seeds now) for that “I’m a real gardener!” esteem boost. I also have these darling love cards that I made but never fail to remind you about before Valentine’s Day. Go ahead and stock up. Love needs not to be confined to one day. 🥬💌
“It takes far more courage to stare down the barrel of a gun while you’re armed with only a whistle and a phone than it does to point a gun at an unarmed protester.”
“These agents, and the president who sent them, are no one’s heroes, no one’s saviors—just men with guns who have to hide their faces to shoot a mom in the face, and a nurse in the back.”
— Adam Serwer, The Atlantic. Photo by David Guttenfelder, The New York Times
We had our first frost this weekend. Overnight, all the summer holdovers like this African Blue Basil, got their ticket punched. The coming weekend will be colder. If you have any tender crops, get your frost blankets ready.
On this Small business Saturday, I want to say thanks to everyone who’s ever made an order, left a review, asked a question, shared a triumph, shared with someone they know, or become a friend through my little shop aka labor of love. It means more to me than you could ever know. 💐
Black Thumb Friday is happening till Monday and everything is 20% off. Literally the whole shop. Fall seeds? Yup. Ranunculus? Now shipping!
If you’ve been thinking “maybe I’ll try those fancy lil ruffles,” just go for it. They’re way easier than they look and they make you feel like you’ve got your life together. They also deliver such joy in the dreariest days of early spring.
Go wander the shop, grab your fall picks, shop gifts like a “compost the patriarchy” hat and treat your future garden self. Sale ends Monday.
Each autumn in Niigata, Japan, the rice harvest leaves behind mountains of straw. Rather than discard it, students and artisans gather the husks and braid, bundle, and bind them into monumental creatures of myth as part of the @wara.art festival. This year’s five creations feature figures from local folklore: a tiger, a nine-tailed fox, a water dragon, a Golden turtle, and a fish spirit.
For our nature church service this morning, let us contemplate that even what is ordinary can become sacred, when touched by human care and imagination.
#WaraArtFestival #joymaxnaturechurch
