Vegetable Gardening

[Aggie_Ama]

Okay the gardeners/fruit growers finally piqued my interest. I am considering if I can get DH to resign himself to helping build and let me have the space putting in a small vegetable garden. Based on my CFO (lives same geographical area) and my fabulous Mammaw I think I could have some success with squash, cucumber, tomatoes in my area. My Mammaw also grew corn but I don't have the extremely huge yard or the patience she was blessed with. I am thinking larger tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, squash, zuccini and cucumber (and getting Mammaw's pickle recipe mmmm).

Our backyard is rock under 1" of sandy loam so it will definitely be a built up garden for sure. We have a perfectly rectangle lot, 50X150. House is relatively close to the street (I bet not more than 20' back) and 1630 sq foot. So I guess the backyard is probably 80-90 foot deep still. It is long so I have room to work with but DH probably won't let me have too much as he has "visions" of a large covered patio. Okay back to the task at hand.

How much room would I need? It is full sun right now but there are plans to put in a large shade tree practically middle of the yard with a canopy that one day will shade 90% of the width or more (we are thinking a Monterrey Oak ~30-40 ft canopy). What type of fill dirt? Can I just build up with landscape timbers? How many plants of each? We are a house of two, don't eat that many tomatoes but homemade salsa might be a task. We would steam the veggies as we both loved steamed squash. So this is more just for fun than anything. What else do I need to know?

[OakLeaf]

Squashes need a lot of room to spread out. Lots of people around here grow them separately from the rest of the garden. They're pretty plants (I think), so people put them around their mailbox, around the house or walkways, or just in random places in the yard.

With tomatoes, it depends on how much canning/freezing you want to do, and also if you're not a super-diligent gardener, yields can vary a lot from year to year. A dozen to 18 plants are enough for DH and myself, but for instance, this year with 10 plants (plus one cherry and one tomatillo), less than ideal weather and a distracted gardener, we got a total of 4 pints of sauce and no other preserved tomato products.

When you build up your beds, don't use treated or creosoted lumber. I would guess that the recycled plastic timbers should be safe, but I really don't know, so I'd want to read some more about it. In my own garden, rather than built raised beds, I just mound up beds at the beginning of each season. That gives me drainage and soil depth, but I can still till and amend the garden all at once, and build up a deeper and deeper topsoil year after year. But my soil is over clay, so that's different from rock...

[buddha_bellies]

It's probably better to start small and expand as you go along. Gardening in a big space might be a put off after you realize how much work / time is taking you. I would say start maybe a off 4 - 4'x4' bed and see how much you like. You can always expand if needed. But don't forget there's only the two of you! Unless you're vegetarians, I doubt you can eat all that food. I'm not sure where about you live, but first to do is find out what "zone" you're in. It basically tells you what you can grow when. http://www.garden.org/zipzone/

Unless you live in the hottest zone down in the States, tomatoes do well in full sun. Most vegetables needs at least 6 hours of sun. Lettuce and some other leafy vegetables can use less sun.

And I like to have raised beds that are about 4'x4' with about 2 feet of foot path for wheel barrows. 4' is good because you can reach in the bed without stepping in it. Ideally, you should have about 12" of good quality compost/soil. Not sure if you have access to "sea soil" down where you are. But I had some one year and everything I planted with that soil grew like crazy!

If you need more help, try http://www.gardenweb.com I learnt a lot asking people in that site. Or email me directly if you have more question Gardening is my passion

[Aggie_Ama]

Oh 4X4 sounds alright. Or maybe two 4X4 so I can position them along the fences. My mom had a graden ages ago and recommended 8X8 but that is a large square. We are Zone 8B, so that is good to know. I already learned a bit about zones and soil planning a shrub/flower/landscape bed with DH.

I will check what the soil places have, I went cross eyed at the selection buying landscaping dirt.

[GLC1968]

A great resource for raised beds, particularly if you are starting small is:
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
The soil mix used here worked great for us - as did the trellis.

For your environment (which is similiar to the climate we had the last summer we were in NC), tomatoes, squash, green beans, peppers and cukes would do well. Those are all the things that suffered here because it was such a short summer this year. You could do all this in one 4x4 space if you planned it out right. You would have plenty for eating, but likely not much for preservation/canning unless you happened to have a bumper crop. If you did SFG, you could also do succession planting and get spring crops, summer crops and fall crops from the same 4x4 space (particularly since you would have a long growing season). It's surprizingly less work than traditional 'row' gardening and it uses less water!

[Aggie_Ama]

GLC- That site is intriguing and looks like it would be something taking little work from DH (a plus). Plus, I guess if I hate gardening I could turn them into flower beds at that size. The backyard is completely barren with just a bunch of struggling Bermuda, I am sure DH would warm to the idea of a tidy garden. I hope.

I don't know how I could forget my Mammaw growing beans and peppers! I only remember the corn, rows of it.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I thought you'd have to dig out about 12 inches to get rid of the grass? Are you going to have raised sides?
Karen

Going to have a 6" raised board all around the garden perimeter (to keep soil from washing away) but will have a series of raised 'berm beds' for planting and mulched pathways around the berm beds.

Vegetable gardening is a practical way of keeping your household healthy and it is also cost efficient because you don’t have to spend much about buying vegetables anymore.

Yes. We figure the money we save on growing our own veggies will pay for the cost of putting in the garden in about... 50 years.
Just kidding (sort of)- this garden will not save us money for many years to come....but it will give us a happier healthier lifestyle, and that's worth a lot! Sort of like our bikes.

[smilingcat]

Going to have a 6" raised board all around the garden perimeter (to keep soil from washing away) but will have a series of raised 'berm beds' for planting and mulched pathways around the berm beds.



Yes. We figure the money we save on growing our own veggies will pay for the cost of putting in the garden in about... 50 years.
Just kidding (sort of)- this garden will not save us money for many years to come....but it will give us a happier healthier lifestyle, and that's worth a lot! Sort of like our bikes.

Hi Lisa,

Ohh I think your garden will more than pay for itself much sooner than later. You'll have better health and that alone is worth more than any money. It's the hidden cost you don't see. Not to mention, you will be enjoying fresh food which you can not get from a grocery store.

Our vegetables are not coated in the food grade wax. It is also free of pesticides and other harsh chemicals. We also harvest varieties of vegetables not available in the grocery store. We are growing three kinds of zuccini, one is called 8-ball. yes its perfectly spherical. Great for stuffing.

Wow. I keep forgetting how green the east coast is. It's very pretty... with land.

smilingcat

[Tuckervill]

That will be quite a garden! Such fun! Who cares what it costs?

I have a big garden like that, but it's covered in plastic, because I don't have time to grow right now.

Karen

[withm]

Last night I went out to cut some parsley for my dinner. I had 4 big healthy plants the other day. It was gone! I was blaming the neighbors but that didn't make sense.

I looked a little closer and found the culprit. There were 4 of these guys chomping away, fat and happy....

After a lot of research online I found out they were parsley worms - and they turn into beautiful swallowtail butterflies.

No more parsley. Sigh.

[NoNo]

On Sunday, I went peach picking. I have 30lbs sitting in my fridge, awaiting their jammie fate I still have a few zucchini that I'm figuring out what to do with. Went to a friend's last night for dinner and we exchanged goods. I got a bunch of Roma and grape tomatoes from their garden, they got some peaches and eggs from my aunt's chickens. I wish we could go back to the bartering system

[withm]

I canned 13 pints of spiced peaches, 6 pints of brandied peaches, and 4 of pears with white wine. I'm about out of pint jars, but have lots of 1/2 pints still. If I could still get some cherries, I'd love to do some cherry preserves.

[Jolt]

I just picked a lot of cherry tomatoes, broccoli and green beans from the garden this morning. When picking the green beans, I found bugs everywhere! They're sort of rust colored with black spots, looking somewhat like ladybugs but I caught one eating one of the beans. I also saw some prickly-looking yellow larvae on the leaves--ick! So, I went online to try and find out what these bugs were and found out they are Mexican bean beetles. I sprayed the plants with this hot-pepper concoction that we use to repel bugs from some of the other plants and we'll see if that helps. Maybe I'll go out later with some gloves and a container of soapy water and pick off as many of the bugs as I can find. Here's a link to info about the bugs in case anyone else is dealing with these guys: http://www.uri.edu/ce/factsheets/she...eanbeetle.html

[NoNo]

This is what we canned the other night. 6 half pints and one pint of peach jam, 6 pints of spiced peaches (my goodness that syrup was delicious!), and 4 pints of sliced peaches. There are a few more of each coming. I plan on going pear and raspberry picking, and then it's tomato and apple time!