Need help first garden

I am so new to this that it is not funny. I have done some reading and have the spot choosen in my yard but I have a few questions. Any help would be appriciated.
Are all seeds equual. Is there a good and safe brand of seeds to purchase?
I have been told it is better to purchase small tomato plants than to plant tomato seeds?
Should I be concerned about the PH level of my soil?
Is there any veg that I should stay away from this first time out?
Any suggestions on first timers mistakes to avoid

It's certainly easier to buy tomato plants than to start them yourself. To start them yourself, you need seed starting trays (I do not like peat pots at all), sterile seed starting mix, and fluorescent grow lights and a space to set all this equipment up for 2 months.

Have you got the book The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Ed Smith? It's a good all-around type of book.

First you have to plan out how much space you are going to give your garden. The amount of space you have will determine what you can plant. How much sunlight the area gets (vegetables need 6-8 hours a day of direct sunlight) is a huge factor. Trees that shade your yard can be a problem. The angle of the sun and angle of your property will determine whether you can plant tall plants next to short plants. You'll need to decide whether you are going to build raised beds or do a traditional garden with walkways.

I would say by far the easiest to grow are beans and tomatoes. Cucumbers are pretty easy to grow if you give them something to climb.

It is not cheap to set up a garden the first time around. You can perhaps find recycled materials and if you know a horse farm or other source of compost/manure that will help a lot. If you've got cow or horse manure and piles of leaves you can grow some great stuff for cheap.

Thanks. I am going to look into getting that book today. Looks like I have a lot to learn but I am hoping to have some fun with this and include my grandkids.

I would say fun is one of the major requierments ;). I'd also say that starting small is a good idea. It's easy to buy way too much then all of it suffers. Part of it tho, is just going out and doing it.

Good luck

Beans are certainly the most fun for the kids because they come up so fast. Just sow them, water the soil, and they come right up.

Went out and got the book already. Looks like some interesting reading ahead.

If you like the taste of radishes, I always suggest planting radishes between other vegetables. That way, you have a VERY fast growing veggie to enjoy, and you can maximize the growth space you are using.

In addition to the book, I also recommend that you get very familiar with DG. *grin* There is so much good information in here that you can learn a TON of stuff, just by poking around.

Tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, and squash are pretty easy to grow. I would advise buying tomato transplants. You can also buy cucumbers and squash transplants but I have found that if you sow seed in a hill and fertilize correctly, they will do better. The beans, you will need to sow. The soil ph is important. You will need to know what it is; however, I think you will be able to grow the above listed vegetables even if the soil is not perfect but you may not get the production you would like if the ph is not suitable. The biggest mistake you could make is to over-fertilize your vegetables. Also, choose a site that will drain well but not wash.

Mistakes - Okay here goes!

1. Don't spend a lot of money on something you don't yet really know about.
2. Don't over plan your garden - think small and simple ideas to begin with.
3. Don't over work yourself trying to get things done, you'll live to regret it.

Good Advice

1. Join a local gardening club or 4H group.
2. Contact your County Co-op Extension Office, talk to a local Master Gardener
3. Stay in tune with folks at DG for all kinds of help and advice!

Good Luck and enjoy your new adventure!

Al

One more for the mistakes
If you or your family wont eat it dont grow it, use that space and time for something you like

I second fremar's comment, though it is fun to grow stuff you're not too fond of or sure about if you have the space. That way you know if/how it grows in your area, which could come in really handy if you're hungry and have to rely on your garden to eat!! Brussel sprouts would taste like ambrosia (I think - lol) if you're hungry!!

I hope to find out about the ambrosia soon enough Kelly.
here's my brussel sprouts I planted about 6 weeks ago

Very cool lookin' brussel sprouts!! Let me know how they taste - lol. Personally I like them, but the rest of the family is like "eeeeeeewwwwwwwww"!! Here they pretty much have to be grown in the fall/winter, so I still may try them this year.

I love brussel sprouts, especially in the Fall after a good hard frost when they're sweetest. Steamed with hot salty butter sauce. The rest of my family can hardly stand to watch me eat them! Ugh! I gave up growing this one, but I do share a plant or two with a friendly neighbor who also enjoys them.

Fremar, you've got a good point though. Garden space is valuable to most of us as well as time consuming and if you don't enjoy eating it, it's just not worth growing. Plant something you like and your family will eat.

Al

A favorite garden book: Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte. The idea is companion planting. For example, if you plant basil and tomatoes together, both benefit, etc. Some companion plants repel insects that prey on other companion plants. For example, if your roses are attacked by aphids, plant marigolds nearby, and the roses are protected. Beans and corn are famous companion plants.

Happy gardening. I think vegetable gardening is the most fun of all.

So I am starting my first garden. Have the stuff that needs to bo growing, growing, and have decided on a spot. So I got out today and tilled the garden area!!! I did a soil test and found out that I have 0 Nitrogen and low Potash. So first of all what should I do? I was thinking of adding Liquid Fish Emulsion to the area for the Nitrogen. I have NO IDEA what to do for the Potash. Then I got to thinking why can't I get a Miracle Gro hose feeder and just give it a few doses before I start planting and then continue to feed the plants all summer long.

I also started my first full-scale garden at my new house this spring. My favorite book for starting out: Mel Bartholomew's "Square Foot Gardening" . Here's how I did it:

1. Buddy up with a local farmer who has aged horse manure - at least six months old, smells like dirt, dark and crumbly. Set up a weekly pick-up date and offer to load it yourself. I can fill a F250 full size pick-up bed in about an hour by myself. Bring him hot coffee and doughnuts if he offers to load it for you with his bobcat.

2. Pick a sunny, well drained spot for the garden, the closer to the house and hose, the better.

3. Build your raised beds. I chose to use a 4'x8' garden bed made out of 2"x6"x8' untreated pine. These boards cost about $3.50 each at Lowe's and were the best bang for the buck. Cut one of the boards in half and use deck screws to fasten them at the corners to make a rectangular box.

4. Set your box where you want it and line the bottom with (black and white only) newspaper, about 6 sheets thick to smother the grass. Then fill your box to the top with the manure. You can also use other things - refer to the book "Lasagna Gardening" by Pat Lanza for stuff to use and how to get it cheap or free.

5. Top the manure with another heaping inch or two of good potting soil or peat moss. I was able to find another horse owner who had a pile of manure that was aged for a year, was of perfect texture and chock full of red wrigglers to use for my topper.

6. Measure 24" on all sides for walkway and working space and set your next bed. Repeat the filling of your new raised beds. I set a total of 7 beds over four days spread out over the last month. One truck load filled about 3 beds.

7. Walkways..... You can leave it grass if you wish to mow and weed-wack and it will look good. I decided to fill my walkways with mulch so that it didn't get muddy and I had less mowing this summer. I asked the local tree trimming service if they needed to get rid of any of their chipped wood from trimming the trees on my street. They left five cubic yards of chips in my backyard the next day. Free. I spread it on the walkways about 3" deep. I may need to rake it back up and place landscaping fabric under it or pile a bit more on to kill the grass, not sure yet.

8. Grids. Measure down all sides of your beds and mark off 1' sections with a sharpie. Go back and staple a grid pattern over your bed with yarn or twine so the the entire bed is divided into 1' squares. Took me about 15 minutes to do each bed.

9. Plant.

Jarsh83,

Though a chemical fertilizer will be easier to start with, it will cause you more problems in the long run. Your earthworm and microscopic organism population will eventually leave or die out and them your soil will lose texture, fertility and get compacted. You will have to keep dropping $ into fertilizer all summer and your plants may not be as healthy. Several master gardeners that I have spoke with live by the philosophy "feed the soil and the soil will feed the plants". Do you have access to free aged manure or compost? If not, you can buy it from a local garden store or Lowe's. Studies on soil amendments affecting soil fertility have shown that long-term, soil is much more improved by adding organic matter, from leaves and grass to manure and compost and actually negatively affected by adding chemical fertilizers. It's also much cheaper because the value of your soil goes up (like a house) instead of down (like a car) as it ages. However, you can get the biggest bang for your buck if you just build raised beds, put all the organic matter in raised beds on top of your soil and plant in the raised beds. I did years of research while I was living in an apartment to find out the absolute best way to go for small scale food production so that my first year gardening would be an investment and not just wasted effort.

Jarsh you got some great answers in the other thread from Horseshoe who has been doing this a long time the organic way.

I avoid all Miracle Gro products if I can. I would rather have healthy soil and healthy plants. It is is great to turn over the soil and find it full of earthworms.

I would look at a balanced, organic pelletized fertilizer. TomatoTone, GardenTone, there are many products and they contain all kinds of goodies and soil activators including dried molasses, bone meal, blood meal, dried manures, etc.

My best advice would just be an echo on this thread....

.............. hang out at Dave's Garden and LEARN, LEARN, LEARN!!!!!!

I swear I learn something EVERY time I log in... NO lie!

LOVE this thread! I've been gardening almost 10 years now but this will be my first real veggie garden and I'm so pumped I have such great advice to lean on!!

drea_kat .... i think i'm square foot gardening next year! AND i'm out in the country and a LOT of my neighbors have horses!!! whoohoo!!! pay"dirt" LOL!

Cajun,

You've got me dreaming of all the tomatoes and melons and other produce I could grow if I had an unlimited supply of horse manure and shredded leaves.

What do you use for irrigation in your raised beds? Soaker hoses, drip tape, drip line? In using 6" high sides, then the plants go down into natural soil, right? Can you make the sides 12" high and put wire mesh underneath to keep out gophers (and will they climb up sides)? I have a neighbor with well aged horse manure and mixed it in with ground soil last year about 1/3 manure to 2/3 soil. Even though I lined the dug out 'hole' for garden with chicken wire, gophers got in. I think a stronger wire mesh and sides that can't be gotten into are called for.

You can learn alot reading, but experience is the best teacher.Finding a gardener in your area to watch and learn from can be alot of help for a first year garden.

Just thinking, all new gardeners-- if you have just dug up a space to plant vegetables, what was growing in that space first? If it was lush with "weeds", grass, or clover, etc. the soil likely will support vegetables.

I have a raised bed in the back yard and irrigate it using two rain barrels. Barrels are filled from run-off from the roof. I have the barrels elevated on brick platforms and fitted with hoses so gravity allows water to flow onto the raised bed.

Adding to catmom1's comment above, part of the joy of gardening is learning from experience and trying out new things.

I need some thoughts on what I am thinking of doing. I want to lay newspaper on the garden bed for weed control. Then cover it with a thin layer of topsoil. I also want to get some red worms and put them on top and let them work down. I am wondering if I can put coffee grounds, egg shells, banana peels ect. in the vegetable garden to feed them. We are not talking like TONS of scraps either just a little every once in a while.

Jarsh

P.S. I know it is a lot, thanks for any help.

You might check out "lasagna" gardening. There are books on it, but basically, they put down layers of wet newspaper then add layers of assorted organic matter on top of it, until it's 8 to 12 inches deep. The newspaper will attract worms that are already nearby, and they will eventually mix up the layers. If you use fine textured layers, you can plant in it right away. Google it for more details.

Looks like you've got some great advice already - I'm a newbie myself, and I'm going to learn right along with you. My favorite site that I've found so far is http://www.zipharvest.com. Lots of good information.

sdant...

This is my first ever veggie garden too. Thanks so much for starting this thread. I am learning right along with you!

Happy Gardening!

Lisa

Great thread! I'm new here and was happy to see a couple people mention Lasagna Gardening. I've just started reading that book and it looks so easy. I live in a rural area, though I'm in a subdivision near town. I'm going to ask the farmer that I buy my side of beef from every six months if he has any compost or aged manure I can have.

The only thing I am really worried about is the amount of sun my yard gets. There is a section in the middle of the yard that gets the most sun, but there are trees all around it. I may do some container gardening on my upper deck as well.

What are the best veggies for containers? I've started tomato, cucumber, radish, green bean and pepper seeds, all have sprouted. Now I need to figure out what to do next! :-o

Start small. Have fun. Expand every year.

Read up on organic growing, and decide if you think the extra work is worth the effort. I do, but the opposite philosophy is well represented here too.

When you make a mistake, learn from it and move on.

Radishes, lettuce, bush beans, basil, onions, potatoes, carrots and tomatoes are about the easiest things to grow. Cucumbers and peppers are almost as easy.

You are now too late for seeds this year for tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, so buy flats. Buy heirloom tomatoes, not hybrids, so you can save seed from them for next year.

Grow onions from sets, potatoes from seed potatoes. Everything else on my list grows well by direct seeding outdoors.

You don't need $200 bucks of trays and computer controlled grow lights to grow tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers from seed indoors. I get excellent results from Jiffy 7 pellets, and a $1.87 packet of 7 oz. plastic cups.

Remember, it's all about the soil.

Ed