setting up first garden help

[usmcveteran]

I'm thinking of setting up a 10 x 15 garden.

What should I grow? Common mistakes people usually make? Invaluable under appreciated tips?

Sorry its so general but not sure exactly what I should do yet and looking for all of your experiences and ideas.

[Guest]

Blizzards a brewin still.... Called for 6inched tomorrow!!

[usmcveteran]

Perfect time to plan a garden..... Maybe talking and thinking about spring will speed things up.

[Robin'son]

Tomato's, peppers, onions, radishes, string beans. Too small for vining plants like squash, pumpkins, cucumbers and melons, though you can let vines run out into the lawn and carefully mow around them. The amounts and selections have a lot to do with if you plan on eating fresh, canning, or both.
Tip's? Hmmmmmm, I always do the bull work and my wife is suppose to tend to it, Hah! So I plan on doing both.

[masterswimmer]

Make sure your chicken wire fencing is buried at least 6", preferably 10-12" around the perimeter. Also, bend the wire at the bottom at a 90 degree angle to the outside so nothing can burrow down to go under the fence.

Use a lot of $hit in the soil. Then you can eat good $hit.

[usmcveteran]

I would like to do canning as well so does that change what I should grow?

Great idea about the bending on chicken wire.


Anyone use rock dust? I plan on trying it out. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00HCMASRE/

[ADK2ndClub]

Last year we grew in what was left of an old silo foundation, just filled it with topsoil, cucumbers grew faster than we could eat them, ended up making pickles. Grew potatoes, lettus and tomatoes. We were very lazy with weeding and still had a high yeild.

[thughes]

Look into raised bed gardening.

[24Pink14Stink]

Grow what you'll eat. For me, garlic, zucchini, potatoes and peppers will never go to waste.

Otherwise, just hops and barley

[Robin'son]

Make sure your chicken wire fencing is buried at least 6", preferably 10-12" around the perimeter. Also, bend the wire at the bottom at a 90 degree angle to the outside so nothing can burrow down to go under the fence.

Use a lot of $hit in the soil. Then you can eat good $hit.

You can eliminate the middle man and just eat $hit!
Robin Man'ure

[DEmerson]

Instead of the azomite consider whats called "green sand" . Look into humic acid and "good bacteria " if you breaking ground in questionable soil
If you are fencing the garden you can grow vine based plants along the fence and train them up the fence...cucumbers , some squash stuff like that... also tomato plants will fair well trained onto an exterior fence and will save a lot of interior garden space.
I agree with raised beds or at least mounded rows. Read and plan for rotation of crops - or semi rotation .. plant your greens and radishes nice and early and you can put longer more delicate plants in with them as the weather warms ...say you want basil ... after the weather starts to warm you can stick some basil plants in with your spinach ... about a month after the basil is in the heat will be causing the spinach to bolt ... just an example you can do crap like that with all different combos.
Some crops are short cycle and you can do multiple plantings in a season. Some you want to stagger so you aren't overwhelmed all at once ( unless for canning )
Tomatoes - There are 2 kinds ... determinate and indeterminate :
Determinates stop growing when fruit sets on the top bud. All the tomatoes from the plant ripen at approximately the same time (usually over period of 1- 2 weeks). They require a limited amount of staking for support
Indeterminate tomatoes will grow and produce fruit until killed by frost. Indeterminates will bloom, set new fruit and ripen fruit all at the same time throughout the season. They require substantial staking for support.

Soil soil soil - You can grow a garden in crappy soil if you keep dumping in fertilizer and junk - or you can make good soil .... soil is a living thing and if you treat it as such it will give you better plants with less work involved . We don't use any chemical fertilizers or pesticides or any of that and we hardly ever need to supplement nutrients and as far as pests go insect damage is usually minimal though cucumber beetles and squash bugs have been a headache the last couple of years. If you can have your soil tested ...PH is an important thing in regaurds to uptake of food and water.

[Stringman]

Great advice Demerson, I also like the hops and barley suggestion! Try some lemon cucumbers, they look different and taste good.

[DarthVader]

I'm thinking of setting up a 10 x 15 garden.

What should I grow? Common mistakes people usually make? Invaluable under appreciated tips?

Sorry its so general but not sure exactly what I should do yet and looking for all of your experiences and ideas.

I think it winds down to what you eat a lot of and if you plan on canning,for us we plant tomatoes,cucumbers,carrots,beets,string beans (yellow and green),this year we our not going to plant as many tomato plants as we have plenty of them canned think we have around 64 quarts still.we also have a small planter bed just for herbs like rosemary,parsley both flat and curly,thyme and a few others..

We also use 5-10-10 for fertilizer to help get things really growing fast of course it all depends if the soil need some help with nutrients which I till into the ground while I am tilling..I also try my best to go out everyday and till up the soil between the rows to help keep the weeds down..I also water everything every day unless it rains..

One of the main things I do at the beginning and the end of the season is till the garden really good with the tiller,at the end of the year when I get done tilling we cover the entire garden with a black tarp which helps kill any weeds from starting plus makes it easier on the tiller to till in the spring time planting..

This may sound weird but this also works for me on controlling any weeds and that is using Preen for gardens,when we use this is when the plants are about 5 to 8 inches tall then will spread some preen out around each plant..

[DEmerson]

Also alfalfa pellets are a really really good source of safe nitrogen .... and they aren't very expensive .... you can till and water them in ... or you can make a "tea" .... I use an old coleman cooler because its insulated - I pour in about a half of a 50 pound bag of pellets and a shovel or two of garden soil or our compost ( either will ad the good bacteria/microbes) and add about 3 to 5 gallons of warm water. within say about 4 hours or so you can smell the difference ..... everything is working hard on the alfalfa .... in about 12 to 24 hours if stirred once in a while and covered it will come up to a little over 100*F - mesophyllic or middle temp. microbes having fun in there .... sort of like the digestive system in an herbivore - anyways after 36 to 48 hours you will have this warm sort of smelly goop that is high in Nitrogen and also full of all those good little microbes that you should have in your soil. What all those bacterias and microbes and fungi do down there is form this community in the soil ... and they will concentrate on and near the root systems of your plants .... some act like very fine roots .... some act as buffers , helping to regulate nutrient and water intake .... if you make nice healthy soil it helps your plants cope with extremes in food water and temp ... and if they are happy and strong they can survive insects and disease better ...
So we till that sloppy mess in a few days before we plant ... can also throw the pellets into compost bins to jump start it . the pellets break down fast so I don't let them come in contact with the root areas of the plants - if you make that mash its already breaking down and worked into the soil so its safer

copy paste : One of the 'potent' ingredients of alfalfa is an alcohol called tricontanol, a powerful plant growth
regulator. So the alfalfa that is rotting away in your garden is
actually 'trickle charging' the
growth
Alfalfa is very high in vitamins, plus Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium,

Calcium, Magnesium and other valuable minerals. It also includes sugars, starches, proteins,
fiber and 16 amino acids.

[Cgrutt]

You've got to grow the stuff rabbits, deer and others love so there's always meat on the table LMAO.
All kidding aside this is a great thread.