Want to start my first garden this year

[lovemachine]

So this year I want to have my first garden. I've never done it before, and I think it would be a lot of fun to start. But, obviously, I have no idea where to begin!

When do you start? Where's a good place to plant your garden at? Where do you get all your seeds and plants at?

I don't know how difficult it would be to grow what I eat now. But certainly it would be cheaper to grow than to buy it at the store. I eat on a regular basis:
broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, asparagus, cucumbers, red and green bell peppers, spinach, blueberries, strawberries, potatoes, green beans

Thats what I eat just about everyday on a regular basis. Now, I don't think I'd want to start off with that many. I'd like to have a basic size and amount for my first try.

So, what do you guys suggest? When do I start in? Where is a good place to put the garden at? Where do you get all the plants and seeds at?

 

[redneckmedic]

You need southern sun light, a slight down hill if possible, and you should have started in the fall for the best soil, but no worries. PM me for more info, I have a 500 sq ft garden.

 

[dom1104]

The first step in productive gardening is soil prep. I would start there.

Gardening is NOT easy. But when it works out it is a bonanza of food.

 

[eldirector]

We've had a garden of sorts for several years. Always enjoy the fresh veggies!

Where to place it?
Good sun, good drainage, and good soil. Mine gets sun starting mid-morning, and stays in full sun the rest of the day. I built it up a bit to get better drainage (was way too wet), by adding in compost (cow poop), gypsum (to break up the clay), and several yards of topsoil.

Where to get seeds and plants
I get seeds from the hardware store and occasionally an actual garden center. These are hybrids, so tend to grow pretty well. You can also get heirloom seeds that you can keep and re-plant each year. That's next on my list.

When?
We start stuff indoors in April/May and move it to the garden in May. We also have a cold frame (tiny greenhouse) outdoors to start stuff in. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and such seem to do well this way, and we can start pulling ripe fruits/veggies in a few weeks or so.

Tomatoes and cucumbers are super easy to grow. As are most peppers, zucchini, and onions. Most herbs grow like weeds (oregano, for example). I haven't tried carrots, but they should be easy. My lettuce never does very well. Potatoes need rocky, well-drained soil. I tried green beans last year, and couldn't eat them fast enough! I'll be canning them this time around.

As others have said, it is all about soil prep. It took me about 2 years to get my garden up to snuff. I started with compacted clay, and it is now in decent shape.

Man, if you get blueberries and strawberries going, I'll be jealous!

 

[redneckmedic]

Read, Read, Read.... 4 season Harvest is a fantastic place to start. Try to get manure tilled into your soil as soon as the ground thaws.

 

[XtremeVel]

Of all the gardening books we have in our library, this is by far the most complete... It will cover everything from selecting your site, prepping the soil, planting air/soil temps, watering, fertilizing, pest control to harvesting...

Click here: http://www.amazon.com/Vegetable-Gardeners-Bible-High-Yield-R-D/dp/1580172121/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=129408

 

[ThrottleJockey]

There are TONS of threads about gardening with a plethora of info over in survival and disaster prep.

 

[kboom524]

Of all the gardening books we have in our library, this is by far the most complete... It will cover everything from selecting your site, prepping the soil, planting air/soil temps, watering, fertilizing, pest control to harvesting...

Click here: http://www.amazon.com/Vegetable-Gardeners-Bible-High-Yield-R-D/dp/1580172121/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=129408

Very good book. We also use this one very good for us Indiana gardeners.

Amazon.com: Guide to Indiana Vegetable Gardening (9781591864004): James A Fizzell: Books

If you happen to get up near Fort Wayne this spring and want some red raspberry plants pm me. I always thin alot of plants out of my patch each year and give them to anybody that can use them.

 

[88GT]

I just did my first last year and it ain't as hard as you might think. Time consuming and energy intensive, but not difficult.

If you're not going to do raised beds, your biggest obstacle to overcome will be soil characteristics. Personally, I'm a big fan of raised beds since it avoids a LOT of the problems/hassles/work of a standard tilled garden and you can create your perfect soil right then and there, and basically every year thereafter with minimal effort. Easier to start with the good stuff and keep that way, basically. Very few drawbacks as well. Just the up-front cost and labor.

I like two books for beginning gardeners based on my own experience.

Amazon.com: The Vegetable Gardener's Bible (10th Anniversary Edition) (9781603424752): Edward C. Smith: Books

Amazon.com: All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space! (9781591862024): Mel Bartholomew: Books

Not the only resources, but probably the two best out there for beginners based on simplicity and ease of understanding.

I started everything from seed and got them from Menards for starters. Didn't figure I needed anything special for my first time out. For the 2011 season, I've requested seed catalogs from suppliers and am being far more choosy about what I pick. Google "seed catalog" or "vegetable seed company" and start from there. If my hard drive hadn't crashed, I'd give you the link of a website that listed just about every vegetable seed supplier that operated beyond its local boundaries. Great resource. If I can find it again, I'll PM it to you.

Some veggies have such long growing seasons that you have to start them indoors in order to harvest before the frost; onions come to mind. Tomatoes too if you want the longest harvest time for them. Others don't transplant well at all and need to be direct-sowed into the garden like carrots.

I grew carrots, corn, spinach, broccoli, bell peppers, jap peppers, tomatoes, green beans (pole), kidney beans (bush), leaf lettuce, zucchini, peas, onions, and sunflowers. I'm adding potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts, and some fruit trees/bushes this year (as well as chickens, but that's a whole different discussion).

Fruits are a different beast to some extent. Depending on your source, they may actually take a year or two to start bearing fruit. Indiana has a berry supplier. I'll PM that info too, if you're interested.

Start now planning. Depending on what you want to grow, you could be putting seeds in dirt as early as March. Even if that dirt is in little trays. I started with about 250 square feet of garden in raised beds (4x8 beds about 20 inches deep). I'd say that was just about perfect for a beginner. Enough to get more than a few beans, peppers, etc, but not so much that I was overwhelmed with work. I'm adding at least 5 more this year now that I know what to expect.

Oh, one more thing. Irrigation. Have a plan for watering when Mother Nature doesn't come through.

And most importantly: have fun!

 

[lovemachine]

Thanks! I'm very interested 88GT!

Thanks for all info guys. Looks like I have tons of reading to do!

 

[88GT]

Thanks! I'm very interested 88GT!

Thanks for all info guys. Looks like I have tons of reading to do!

For the berries www.indianaberry.com

Still trying to find the resource list for the seed catalogs.

 

[88GT]

Aha! Found the list. Not as comprehensive as I originally thought, but it's a good start anyway. And it does have all the major ones like Burpee, Gurney, Seeds of Change.

Mailorder Gardening Association

Each listing is a link to that company's website where you can find a link for a catalog request.

Enjoy!

 

[plowman766]

Like someone else said soil prep is very important if you work your soil when it is to wet you will pay the price all season. We used to put out a big garden but in the last 3 yrs. have went the raised bed route and have been pleased with the results. gardening can be very rewarding but the more time you put in it the better it is.

 

[M88A1]

I read tons of webpages about starting out, the do's, the dont's, the have to have this and that. When talking to my 76 yr old neighbor, thats where I got the best advice since he had raised a garden near to my place. He was kind enough last summer to give me manure from his place which my son and I loaded in a wheel borrow out of his barn to my little cub cadet w/trailer back down to my place. After cleaning out what seemed like tons of manure dumping it on a 60ft by 12ft area along with the compost pile I had been working on all year. My neighbors son was also kind enough to come down right after the fround was dry enough to till with his 6ft 3point hitch tiller and work it in good. My wife got seeds from a local nursery and put them in the little plastic starter kits and they grew excellent, but the rain kept us from getting them in till last sunday. We bought a few already started tomato plants and used seed for the rest. To soon to say anymore but so far just being outside with the family has made it something nice and if we do end up with a harvest even better. We will definately be doing it again next spring using what we learned from the web, here, our neighbor and lesson the old fashion way.

 

[M88A1]

We also ventured into the strawberry, rasberry and blackberry arena. Those are in raised beds 6ft by 18ft, 2 rail road ties high with soil we had to buy. Bought them from indianaberry.com all doing well. The brambles were bare root and now are leaving out and the strawberrys are growing like crazy. We hope to have blackberry and rasberrys next year.

 

[RichardR]

Aside from my more traditional vegetable garden I also grow red raspberries, black raspberries, blackberries, blueberries & strawberries.

My six blueberry bushes haven't greened up at all yet this season (bad sign) but everything else greened up quick & has either started to fruit up or at the very least has flowered up very nicely.

 

[88GT]

Aside from my more traditional vegetable garden I also grow red raspberries, black raspberries, blackberries, blueberries & strawberries.

My six blueberry bushes haven't greened up at all yet this season (bad sign) but everything else greened up quick & has either started to fruit up or at the very least has flowered up very nicely.

How much soil prep did you do for the berries? I wanted so badly to put some out, but feared the sensitivity to soil conditions I kept reading about. I know the garden how-tos tend to speak in extremes and best-case scenarios, but it seemed like I would need to do some serious work just to get an even chance of having success with them.

I still plan on doing it next year, but perhaps I won't have to work my tail off as much. Seriously, I've seen the wild blackberry patches near my dad's. That stuff would survive a nuclear explosion right on it. My backyard can't be that inhospitable.

 

[RichardR]

88GT,

I started about 5 years ago with a root cluster of wild black raspberry canes that I transplanted from a local patch, no soil prep was involved, just a shovel & a bucket.

After my first harvest off that transplanted black raspberry bush I hunted down some wild black berry canes & did the same thing, they did so well that a couple of years ago I augmented the wild ones with a half-dozen nursery bought red raspberries & a half-dozen blue berry bushes, and then this year I planted about 40 or so more spots that I propagated from my existing raspberry plants.

All with no soil prep, just the occasional fertilizer treatment if I notice any nutrient deficiencies.