How big is your vege garden?

Just wondering, how many sqft of vege garden would be "enough".

It's according to what you want to grow, use or can. Once you start gardening (veggie or flowers) there's never enough space.

DDDAL, I am thinking if I don't need to buy veges from grocery store, that would be enough for me.

Hi!
Welcome to the Garden (if you're new here!)

How many square feet of veggie garden is really a relative question. There are folks here with ACRES planted. Some have a few raised beds. And, there are folks like me who plant in a lot of containers. It depends on how much and what you wanna grow and how much space you have to play with.

Look at this newest offering some of us have been looking at.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=6793329

Here's the link to the discussion above: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1012246/

Or how about these: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=6823333
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=6835599
Discussion above is here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1012669/

Scout around some of the threads. Are you interested in raised gardens? containers?

Here's a pic of my harvest last fall:

And this is what I grew most of those in

And these 5-gallon, self-watering buckets!

One more that I'm babying right now.

Thanks Gymgirl, your harvest looks gorgeous, I didn't know that you can grow vegetable from container, amazing.
I am interested in raised bed, since I have toddlers around, I can't spend too much time in the backyard, so i want to know how many sqft can meet our needs.

Since I've been a part of Dave's Garden as a veggie grower (since Spring '07), I've learned that your veggie garden is using what you have, to get what you want. If you've got the whole back 40, go for it! If you have an 18" washtub, go for it!

Just be sure to post pics so we can see what you came up with, hear?

Linda

Last one. Really. I grew turnips, beets, lettuce and carrots in that little trellis bed!

Ivy,
Click on the links I posted above to see some wonderful raised beds. Then Go to the threads.

Carminator1 listed a planting chart for the 12' x 24' raised bed in the pic. She also listed an additional link to closeups of what's growing. Her raised bed garden is phenomenal!

Thanks again Gymgirl. Actually I already got one vege garden, which I just strip off the grass, dig a hole in the ground and then bury my plant. LOL. Right now I have to fight with all the weeds, that is why I want to switch to raised bed. I will read those threads first.

Sorry, Ivy.

Go to this thread for the planting chart. It was Kbumgar's bed.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1012246/

P.S. It really is very easy to get your raised bed started without having to dig up or pull the weeds. Just layer some sheets of cardboard boxes in the spot you want your bed. Get your boards and stand them up to make the sides. Get some short pieces of steel rebar and pound them into the ground to hold your sides up (this is what Kbumgar did -- quick and portable if you want to take it down quickly).

Then, fill 'er up with your Composted Kow Manure ($1.40/40 lb bag at Lowe's/HD), homemade compost (your veggie peels, grass and leaf clippings, coffee grinds, that break down over time in a little pile over in the corner somewhere). KBumgar listed what she filled her bed with. It's all good stuff.

BTW, are you a first time veggie grower, or one of those people who can look at a seed and make it grow?

Gymgirl, I am not a first time grower, last winter I have very good harvest with lettuce and bok choy. But when it came to summer, I have to fight with weeds, birds, rabbits, squash borers, stink bugs etc, together with the hot dry weather, make me very frustrating.

Hi Gymgirl,

Awesome pictures! When does most of your harvest come in? Your bounty last year was fabulous. I hope you have friends and family to share everything with. Delicious!

I am curious about your 5-gallon self watering buckets. I assume that you simply use the lower bucket as the water reservoir? If so, here are my questions:

1. Are there particular vegetables that prefer this setup?
2. How often do you have to fill the bottom bucket?
3. Does the soil ever get too moist? Not moist enough?

Thanks again for your advice....

Kbumgar, Glad to return the favor!

Funny you should ask right now, 'cause I'm in the process of converting my two-bucket system to a ONE-bucket system, to expand my growing space! Check out the discussion here.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=6790298

But to answer your question above:
1. Since my ground space is extremely limited, I'm growing most of the brassicas in eBuckets: cabbage, cauliflower, mustard and collard greens, and broccoli in particular. They did really well, as you can see from the pics. Each bucket holds a single plant (I'm only growing for 2 people).
2. Filling the bottom bucket. I water from the top down until the plants are completely established and the roots grow down enough to drink up water from the reservoir. I can tell when the plant has started sucking up from the bottom with a counting system I use (just a quirk of mine, but some may actually find it helpful). I start counting from the time I start watering in the fill tube, to when the water runs out the overflow hole, "one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two....etc. I count every time I fill up. I can tell when they're drinking on their own, cause I'll get to somewhere around "one-thousand-fifteen" and I'm still filling. I can also tell when I've neglected my watering OR when the plant is REALLY drinking, cause one time my real EBs went up to one-thousand-forty, just a day later!
3. Since the system is SELF-watering, there's no over- OR under-watering! The plants take what they need from the reservoir.
4. This fall, I'll line my eBuckets up and install Bocabob's automatic watering system. There will be a line from the main faucet, on a 6-cycle timer. There will be additional, smaller lines from the main hose that fit into the fill tube of each eBucket. Once it's set up, all I have to do is check for bugs, spray as necessary and keep em cool in summer, and sunshiney in winter!

I've included the pic of my Bonnie cabbage grown in a two-bucket eBucket.

I'm going to a one-bucket design to expand my growing space. Each bucket equates to approximately one square-foot garden, so if you google their planting scheme, you see how much can be planted per bucket. Most of those brassicaes grow so big, you can only do one per bucket, but there are other veggies you can grow more per bucket.

Hope this helps, and wasn't too wordy!

Linda

Awesome response, Linda! Thank you for such an informative post. I can imagine that many people who do not have much space for planting raised beds can do a quite a bit with the bucket system that you describe. It seems like it may even work for people that live in apartments or townhomes with sunny porches. Who would have thought that you could have your own vegetable garden virtually everywhere? :)

Your cabbage is lovely. I can tell that you put a lot of TLC into your plants. It is reflected in the quality!

Kbumgar,
Thank your for your gracious comments!

I forgot to mention there's one other benefit to growing in the eBucket. If you look closely at that cabbage, you'll notice there are no holes. That's not a fluke in the pic. There truly was not ONE hole in that cabbage!

I think that because the plant is elevated in the bucket, and because of it's portability to be moved if attacked, controlling crawling buggies is easier. Snails have quite a ways to crawl up there, so chances of catching them in the act is much easier.

Linda

Ivyao~You can put several layers of newspaper down when you plant and then top with mulch. The newspapers will help serve as a weed block. The mulch will help tremendously, too.

We built raised beds this year. The deeper ones (18" tall) we put down a layer of cardboard, then topped with about 4"-6" of leaves, then we put our dirt in. Mulched it very heavily after planting. The only places we've seen grass growing is along the edges where we left a small gap in between the cardboard and the edge of the bed.

The shallower beds (8" tall), we just dug down a couple of inches after removing the grass. DH pulled out all the grass and weeds and sifted the dirt to remove any seeds. Then we mixed in a planting mixture of compost and other amendments. Topped heavily with mulch. We've had no grass or weeds in those areas.

This fall, we'll pull off the mulch, add amendments (mainly compost), top with several layers of newspaper, then cover with mulch of some kind, maybe pine bark, maybe hay. Then we'll turn it all in the spring and start planting!

I would never do a single garden bed wider than 4 feet, and that is just because when I did a 5 foot bed even though I am very tall, I was unable to reach into the middle and tend to the plants without stepping into the bed, compacting the soil.

So each year, I have added a 4 x 16 bed and am up to 6 of those, and two 4 x 8 beds. So I'm up to 448 square feet. I wish I had more, but this is a manageable number.


I should add that as you are in Katy, TX, subject to nearly all the weather conditions that affect Houston, that what are you talking about, namely not buying vegetables at the grocery store, is called subsistence farming. At least to a limited scale (true subsistence farming means cows, pigs, chickens, etc. -- getting ALL your food from your own property). And I really think this will be extremely challenging in our climate. Gardening comes to a standstill from mid-July through mid-September. Our tomato season is frighteningly short.

Even if you set up a lot of space to garden, and grow as many different crops as you can, there will be months when you'll need to shop for veg at the grocery store. I would try to get the locally produced book by Dr. Bob Randall. The name of the book is unbelievably long, but it's a very good reference.

This message was edited Jul 29, 2009 11:16 AM

Hey Feldon30,
You're right on point regarding the bed dimensions. I can access my small bed on only 3 sides, cause the back side is bordered by some small brush and trees. At 5 ft. wide it's too wide for me to reach across. I'm reconfiguring it this weekend to 4'x 8'or10', whichever gets me closest to the edge of the DH's precious St. Aug. grass without crossing over!

My poor old back will not even let me reach into my 4' wide bed anymore - so this winter I will be switching to double rows of about 2 1/2' each and adding drip irrigation down the center.

Yeah, spacing is definitely a concern. I put in a 12' x 24' bed, though it has a 2' walkway down the middle, so I am still able to reach everything easily. In hindsight, I am wondering whether I would have been better off putting in lots of smaller beds, for example 4' x 6' beds.

It seems that the advantage of smaller beds as follows:
1) all plants can be easily accessed
2) easier to group symbiotic plants (e.g. tomatoes & basil)
3) better control over watering plants with different needs

On the other hand, a larger bed offers:
1) more planting area for small yards (no need to space out small boxes)
2) easier to maneuver for tilling soil between seasons

For those of you that have been experimenting with raised beds for years, what is your preference? Larger or smaller beds?

We did 3'W x 10'L beds this year. We also allowed room on all sides so that we could walk around each side because even at only 3' wide, we still can't reach all the way across the bed without straining.

Since we're having this discussion, I'll ask if you all have bolted your sides together, or just anchored them with pegs or rebar? If not, why not? Does it matter except to maintain portability in case you need to move the bed in a hurry?

Our boards are screwed together.

Here's a pic that shows the basic frame of the beds. This particular bed is 18" high, although we're going to go to a height of only 8"-10" next year. I think we've decided that the three 18" high beds we have currently are going to but deconstructed down to just 8" high and we'll be able to make 3 additional beds with material we currently have.

This picture also shows you the weed patch of a backyard we have and why we need to convert it to all veggie growing space! LOL

Those are really nice beds, StephanieTX! 8" - 10" does seem high enough, and it's great that you can use the wood that you already have to make new beds.

Re: weed patch - don't worry, I think we're all in the same boat! That's why our pictures all only show close ups of the garden plants! :)

Steph, Thanks for posting that wonderful pic! I see which direction to go in now. I was blessed 'cause a house was gutted just a few blocks down from me, and I got to pick through all the old timber. I got several nice 2x12s, 1x10s, 1x8s, and a WHOLE buncha 2x4s, and several flat concrete blocks for either edging or stepping stones.

I can't wait for the weekend!

Linda~DH used exterior screws which are galvanized to reduce rust. He said if he were to do it again, he'd use an angle iron (a little "L" shaped thing) on the inside of the beds to hold them together.

You can see more pics of the building of the beds in my albums here: http://public.fotki.com/stephanietx/2009-garden-adventures/garden-scenes-and-p/

You would be surprised at what you can get out of a small area. This is our kitchen garden. It’s more function than form.

Wow, Stephanie! Your bean trellis in pics 22 - 24 is awesome! Do you have any pics of the beans climbing it?

Gymgirl - we have bamboo growing in a shady corner of our garden, so we cut lengths of it to use as stakes to hold-up 6" pine boards for our raised beds.

I have found 6" is deep enough for everything but things like carrots. There is heavy clay under the beds, which holds lots of moisture. The beds are filled with a mixture of potting soil, Black Kow Manure, worm castings, compost and anything else I have managed to lay my hands on. To fill beds with anything more than 6" would cost too much.

lizards_keep, that looks beautiful. How on earth do you manage to keep the weeds away? Here in AZ most all of the backyards are small and most of mine is taken up by a pool so I only have a 16'x8' section to use and it seems like I have to be out there every day weeding the grass that keeps coming through. My fingers hate me these days.

Kbumgar,
Did you know that Stephanie's trellis actually PIVOTS front to back? Ask her about that!

LOL Linda! That's what happens when you're married to a man who has an engineering bent and loves to tinker, build, and 'tweak' things!!

Kbumgar~I do have pics of beans climbing it, but I'll have to post them later when I get home. Or, they're probably in the Spring Veggie Garden 2009 album at the link to my Fotki albums above.

I wanna know how ya'll set up those web albums. I WANT ONE, too....

Linda, you go to the site you want to host your pics. I have 2 accounts, one at Fotki and one at Webshots. I have a Picassa album, but that's just the pics I post on my blogs. Most photo hosting sites have a free service, but you're limited to the amount of storage space. Then, you create your account and start uploading!

Steph,
PICASSA just started hosting web albums. I'll set one up there. Thanks!

annabelle790 … it’s called a shuffle hoe. As you shuffle it around it separates the roots from the top of the weed or grass just under the soil. It works very well. I can shuffle the area shown in about ten minutes. Do this two or three times a week and you shouldn’t have a weed problem.

Thanks for the compliment, that little plot isn’t high-tech but it will defiantly get the job done with little effort.

lizards_keep, I'm definately gonna have to get my hands on one of those, I just spent another 2 hours out there this morning weeding all the grass.

thanks for all the discussion! I am going for 2 4'x8' and 2 2'x8' raised bed, that is total 96 sqft. already got the lumber cut, will post here once it is done.

Feldon, I know the book you are talking about, it has the recommend planting calendar for houston area, my friend shared it with me, it is very useful.