First timer, need planning help

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bennyG19 Elizabethton, TN Apr 13, 2009

I'm going to try to grow a garden for the first time in my life. I have a spot already tilled and ready to go that is about 20'x3'. I figured I'd plant a one row garden and if it does good I'll do more next year. If it does bad I won't screw up much of the yard. The spot is in full sun against the back side of my garage. I want to grow easy vegetables but don't have a clue what I'm doing. I'm going to recruit some help from my grandpaw but I don't want to drive him crazy. I'd like to grow tomatoes and hot peppers (jalapenos maybe) and anything else that is easy. He said a bush cucumber and bush squash would be easy. Anything else? How do I need to space plan this little garden experiment? I was thinking of using about 8' or so for tomatoes, putting the squash and cucumber at one end and using what's left (6' or so) for anything else like hot peppers, carrots, beans, etc. Any help is greatly appreciated.

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Stephen_Albert Kenwood, CA Apr 14, 2009

You have a great space for a garden. You can consider this 3 x 20 foot bed a large "wide" bed. In a wide bed you can plant more than one row. Across the 3 feet you can plant 3 rows of lettuce, scallions, kale, carrots, swiss chard, beets, sweet peppers, or hot peppers--the spacing between each of these crops in the rows will be listed on the seed packet. You will need the full 3 feet across for summer squash, cucumbers, or snap peas, and indeterminate tomatoes: for each of these plan a space about 3 x 3. For the smaller crops you can grow 2 or 3 rows across and get more crops for your space. A book called Square Foot Gardening can help you plan the space--you can find it at the library.

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bennyG19 Elizabethton, TN Apr 15, 2009

In the process of pulling up some stumps and tilling the ground for this garden, I've been eaten up with poison ivy. I think there were roots in the ground mixed in with the roots I was digging up with the stumps. My neighbor said this whole yard was like a 'poison ivy jungle' before the people flipped it and sold it to us. Is it still safe to plant vegetables or am I going to get poison ivy in all my food?

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feldon30 Houston, TX(Zone 9a) Apr 16, 2009

The allergen in Poison Ivy is an oil. As long as you remove as much of it as you can before bringing in soil for your raised bed I think you will be fine. Ideally, you could have done this digging 2 months ago and then used some type of herbicide that disperses quickly.

One possibility is to lay down a bunch of newspaper or even weedblock below the soil.

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