I am so Confused!!

Hello!

I am in NW Louisiana, zone 8a.

Last year was my first experience with vegetable gardening and I had some small scale success. The jalepenos did the best but everything else was marginal. It was enough though to make me try again this year. In fact, I think I am a little obsessed at this point :) Anyways, I have been trying to take in everything I can like a sponge and I feel a bit more confident but I still have some questions about the fundamentals.

We just moved into a new home so I am building my first raised beds ever. Last year I had all containers. I want to do four beds maybe 3x6 each running north/south with two next to each other and two behind like, = =.

1. I need laymens terms for this stuff. I am confused about what exactly to put in the beds. I know compost, but what kind? Is manure okay? What would the soli be called? Top soil, potting mix, potting soil, dirt, what?? Is this something to look for at Lowe's or can I just get dirt from people posting on Craigs List?

2. Fertilizer is confusing for me. One bed will be strawberries but otherwise I have cukes, tomatoes, peppers, bush beans, several herbs, collards, cabbage, squash, zucchini, etc. I see all types of fertilizers that say 10-10-10 or 12-28-4 and I'm not sure what to use. Is it possible that each beds inhabitants will need different fertilizer specs? And how do I now which to use for what?

Do you use before planting, while planting, after? How often? Is this the same as feeding the plants? I think that some of the terms may be interchangable in gardening sometimes and thats what gets me.

I am totally confused by the chemical and soil components of this venture! I think I am just overwhelmed by the specific knowledge needed to grow each type of veggie.
But I am already hooked and love to garden- I'm just not very good at it.

Thanks in advance.

Just relax. What you are experiencing is the confusion from a mixture of gardening techniques. If you are building raised beds, restrict yourself to recommendation from raised bed folks. Typically these folks will be organic, so they will add compost, composted manures to build a nutrient rich soil base which will not need additional fertilizers. I am an old time traditional grower, Just plow up a field, disk it, add a little 10-10-10 and plant. Most vegetables do well with this arrangement and I am too old and lazy to do anything that requires extra work. Manures are great for the soil, where available but you have to shovel a pick up load to get the nutrients in a bag of 10-10-10. It is usually best to incorporate nutrients into the soil before planting. In light soils and using concentrated fertilizers, side dressing ( placing a ring or line of fertilize into the soil about 6 inches from the plant can be useful. Remember more new gardeners use too much fertilizer rather than too little.

Hi April and welcome to Dave's Garden. If you choose to use composted cow manure and will be buying it, I'd highly recommend Black Kow. It comes in a bright yellow bag with black writing on it and I find it at Lowe's. I've tried other brands but they are a mix of a little manure with lots of sand. Black Kow is just cow manure and works really well helping to build good soil. BTW, I grew up in Bossier City :-}

Hi, I live all the way across the north part of the state from you in Delhi. The guys are giving you some good advice. Gardening is a process where when you think you know it all, you will find out how much you have to learn. I've garden the biggest portion on my life and have learned a lot about winter gardening this year. I learned that the extreme cold weather we've had doesn't bother leaf lettuce at all. The hard freezes will rot turnip roots but doesn't hurt rutabagas and that carrots actually grow there roots really good even with the temp do in the 30's. A couple of pieces of advice about raised bed gardening, make sure your beds are at least 8 to 10 inchs tall and make every thing run up.

Good advice Jim. I've also gardened for the majority of my life. I had a winter garden this year too--I have time now that I'm retired :-} Another thing that laughs at the cold and even all the snow we've had is cabbage. I have several heads still standing that look great--they just turned a little purple from all that cold but that hasn't affected the taste. And I learned years ago that carrots actually seem to grow better during the winter than they do in the heat of summer. And a bonus is that there are fewer weeds to deal with during the winter. Hang in here with us April--we'll have you growing all kinds of garden goodies before you know it!

Hey farmerdill! I've got 5 milk jugs of bell peppers under lights. They germinated in 9 days and look great. This'll be my 1st real attempt at peppers from seeds. Right now the seedlings are getting 2nd set of true leaves but are starting to lie down. Does this mean they might be too crowded and need to be out into individual Solo Cups? My plan is to up pot and sell the excess seedlings and would like good healthy stock to offer. Think still to cold to put them outside cause they'll stall. LMK if need up pot soon. Oh, there are about 7-9 seedlings in each gallon milk jug. Been giving weak solution of MG and Epsom Salts. They do look good cept for laying down. Also when uppot, how deep? I noticed what looks like little root bumps at the base of each seedling. Do I cover up 2 the cotledons or true leaves? Thanks!

Gymgirl, at that size I would pot them up if possible. They are crowded which leads to spindley stalks. They will probably do fine the garden, but if want to sell them, folks want stocky plants. As for planting depth, I like to bury them to the cotyledons, they don't seem to benefit like tomatoes from deeper planting. In your zone you may be able to Jerry rig a cold frame or miniature green house to put them outside in a sunny sheltered location. I use 4 x fours and old storm windows to construct cold frames, but I have been known to build an A frame or use PVC pipe to build basicly a small hoop house. Use constuction grade clear plastic for the covering. Works well as long as night temps stay 30 degrees or more.

Thanks Farmerdill! Our temps are dipping into the high 20s low 30s tonite. I'm gonna see about rigging up a cold frame or hoophouse, cause I've got about 70 mater seedlings that will need individual uppotting soon. They're already outside in milk jugs. I'm loving Winter Sowing!

Those milk jugs are a newfangled twist on what we oldtimers did with coldframes . Same principle, but a cold frame can be built to handle larger plants.

So, Farmerdill, my goal with a hoophouse/cold frame is to get the plants outside in the temperate daytime sun but protected from the cold at night?

GymGirl, I used to raise plants in a cold frame all the time. Very simple to build one. Similar to a raised bed, except higher on the back side and over all deeper to give your plants room to grow up. Sides are wood and the top is a cover of visqueen on a frame and hinged on the back. I used a warming wire under the soil. I had the wire fixed to a piece of hardware cloth for easy handling. It only takes pennies a day to operate. Works really great. When the sun is out you have to open the top a little or it will get to hot.

This message was edited Feb 16, 2010 11:59 AM

Exactly. They will also benefit from the green house effect in the hoophouse cold frame. On a good sunny day they will get quite warm to the extent that that you may need need to give them some ventilation. I frequently have to raise the covering an inch or so on my cold frames by putting a block of wood or a brick under it on the downwind side.

Jim is describing a hot bed. We use to accomplish the same thing by putting a foot to 18 inches of fresh cow manure in the bottom of the hole. Heated up nicely. Cold frame ( only solar heat) works nicely for established plants or cool starting plants like brassicas. The soil holds heat through the night so as long as the temps are just around freezing they hold enough through the night. I prefer both hot beds and cold frames to be below ground level as soil is a great insulator.

I plant cabbage in the fall as well, Nature Lover. The only problem I have ever had was one year the heads got real big and tight and a hard freeze split them and rotted them. I had Savoy cabbage out this year and the heads are smaller and looser. The hard freezes we had didn't hurt them at all.

If turnip roots are big a hard freeze will rot them as well. My rutabagas it didn't bother at all.

I planted carrots for the first time this year. I harvest some from the older ones and pulled up a couple from some I had planted real late into the fall that LocaKelly had sent me. They were tiny things about 3 inchs long and about as big as a kitchen match. The other day (about a month later) I pulled up a few and they were about 8 inchs long and as big as my finger. Those things are growing with the temps in the 20's up to the 40's. Live and learn. Another surprise was some leaf lettuce that was planted. I thought it would die when it frosted but it survived even the weather down in the teens for a week. We had fresh lettuce for supper last night.

You are right farmer dill, I didn't have access to fresh cow so used the heating wires. I would start my seeds as well as grow them to setting out size. I use to make an A frame out of visqueen and plant squash and set them over the row. Anchor the sides down with a few bricks and make the ends where I could fold them back for ventilation. I'd be eating squash when most people were just planting. But..... I've gotten lazy in my old age and just wait for the ground to warm up.

My hoop house need to bend over the above ground spa which is what my jugs are sitting on top of in the sunny patch of the yard. It is roughly 5x5' and about 48" high. I'm thinking three 20' lengths of 1/2" PVC bent over should give me enough height to leave the milk jugs open and sit the 16 oz solo cups (individual up potted plants) there too. How much head space should I expect? I could pound in six pcs. of 1" PVC as stakes. Am I on track? DH ready go HD for matls. Thx! Also what about the long piece that goes on top the curve to keep it steady? Do just measure center of each piece, mark n drill holes to screw that anchor length? I know it has a name.

How's this? Decided against going over the spa and went with the concrete launching pad instead. Had the DH put all the mater milk jug seedlings under the hoop and covered with sheets. Need to find the plastic cover. Here's construction pic.

Here's covered.

I don't understand how this thread got so off topic but I might as well go with it.
Farmerdill- You posted that you pot up your peppers to the cotyledons. So burying part of the stems won't hurt the peppers? How about eggplant? I have SO many started and I surface sow the seeds I've never really known how deep to up pot the peppers and eggplant. I just don't want to do anything that would damage the seedlings. Now all I have to do is find someplace to put them after I pot them up, so they will stay warm enough and have enough light. They are growing faster then I remember and its been unuaually cold here, I'm not potting up until I have to.

Peppers and eggplants do not benefit like tomatoes from deep transplanting. On the other hand its not rocket science , what ever I transplant in the vege line, I put a bit deeper than it started, but not much. Plants are much tolerant than we think.

I realize that they don't benefit. What your saying is it won't hurt them either? From what I have read eggplant and peppers seeds are sown at about 1/4 inch deep (mine are surface sown) so if I pot them up to 1/2" beneath the soil surface that won't hurt them.
Some of the peppers varieties are much taller then the other varieties. I don't want to use the term "leggy" because the whole flat of 1 kind is tall (almost touching the lights) and the type right next to it is further from the light but developing fine (not stretching).
I don't want to screw it up now! by potting up too deep. If that's even possible.
Lisa

That's how I inadvertently hijacked this thread, to which I offer my apology!

Farmerdill was in the right place at the right time!

And since we're still hija....oh, shoot. I'm starting a new thread. Bells and Eggplant Questions...

Ya'll meet me over there.