Gardening.. Thinking about giving it a go :]

[Bini]

For about a year now, hubby and I have considered starting a small veggie garden.

Neither of us have home-grown produce before, so we're definitely newbies in that respect. But his parents and my parents, continue to insist that gardening not only is a great past time endeavour but rewarding to harvest your own fruits and veggies. Sounds nice BUT since we are new to this we wouldn't want to plant something that requires a lot of maintenance. What are good seeds to plant that don't need too much attention? Our neighbour grows melons and squash, he's hardly ever outback watering them or tending them, and they've grown beautifully! In fact, he harvested not too long ago.

So like I said, we're new to this and aren't really sure what are some good fruits and veggies to grow here in Utah (SLC). We eat pretty much all fruits and greens. So it doesn't really matter what we end up planting, it will be eaten. Would it be safe to assume that we're probably looking at melons and squash for low maintenance? Any suggestions on certain squash that grow really nicely in these here parts?

[dazed-and-confused]

well...tomatoes are very simple....and as you noticed, squash is good, too....but, fact is, my experience has come from arizona and florida, and new jersey......not sure about growing in SLC...sorry

[dazed-and-confused]

but i LOVE green beans...lol

[sixpacktr]

go to the square foot gardening website to learn a very simple way of gardening. I did that this year (with a 4 X 4 box) as well as having a small area to garden (dug up a prior flower bed to plant my tomatoes in, as well as peppers and some other things, not more than 15 feet long by 4 feet wide). Got my seeds from both Heirloom Seeds and Baker Creek Heirloom seeds (be sure to get non-hybrid seeds, which is why I went to these two places for seeds). I had great success in both areas. The square foot garden was very easy to do, almost no weeding (really, I spent this year about 30 mins total, all summer, weeding), and everything grew great. I got a bunch of peas, some edamame (soybeans), 3 harvests of radishes, some okra, some carrots, and some onions and tomatoes from this little patch. My regular patch has strawberries, tomatoes, cukes, zukes, peppers, Japanese radishes, lettuce, and carrots. (made Fried Green Tomatoes the other night with the tomatoes that won't ripen, as it is already cold here in Buffalo, and they were fantastic)

I will use both again next year, but probably build another box so that we can can more stuff for long term.

Also got a dehydrator from Wally world. I am in LOVE with that. Much easier than canning, and stores in a much more compact space.

We love our garden, and love the fresh produce. I will have lettuce for a couple more weeks, until it gets really cold here, and then I'll get everything ready for next year.

Good luck.

[Akita]

I have no idea about your climate zone, but tomatos, green beans, various squashes, and potatos grow like weeds for me with a minimum of care. Ask at your local garden center for the best varieties of these. And always experiment each year with different crops and varieties of old favorites. You may just suprise yourself. I'm a pretty picky eater but I've found that I LOVE some veggies straight out of the garden that I wouldnt consider eating otherwise. Fresh homegrown can really make a difference!

And dont let your failures get you down. Every gardener that I know can grow cukes like they are dandelion weeds but i absolutely cannot get more than 1 cuke per plant regardless of what I do. This is after decades of gardening of all types. Some things just arent explainable.

PS: compost and earthworms are a garderner's best friends. And the best fertilizer you can put on your garden is your shadow.

[California_Dreaming]

The square foot gardening is great. Mother Earth News ran an article about how to get the most from your garden. I have found that raised gardens are easier to tend, you don’t have to bend over as far and it seems to keep the weeds down.

In past years I have had to throw away about 75% of the crop because we can’t eat it fast enough or we get tired of a particular veggie. This year I enrolled in free classes from the University extension service on food preservation. I mainly wanted to learn about pickles and marinara sauce, but ending up attending all classes (1 per week) for 5 months because it was so helpful. This year nothing from the garden has gone to waste. Yes, canning does take a little more effort then dehydrating but it will last longer in storage. Both canning and dehydrating are good methods of food preservation.

I have found that tomatoes are great and easy to grow and the final product can be canned into marinara sauce, diced tomatoes and stewed tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes are good for salads and for eating as snacks. Zucchini will grow like weeds, but be sure to pick when they are small, like the size you buy in the grocery store; overnight they will grow into monsters if you don’t pick them.

Think about planting what you buy in the store. Get a good book like “Western Gardening” (not an endorsement), but it is good and lists by area of the country. To increase the yield, try adding chicken manure (very high in nitrogen), but a caution, it must be added and let sit for a couple of weeks prior to planting or it will burn the plants.

Before your summer garden has finished producing, start planting your fall & winter garden plants in sprouting pots. Then when you pull up the summer plants, your fall and winter plants will be ready to go into the ground.

Don’t forget about trees. I have a dwarf navel orange tree and have just planted dwarf tangerine trees that will ripen about four months after the orange trees, thus keeping me in citrus for about 6 months a year. (I asked the local nursery about why anyone would have lemon trees and I was told “If you don’t have a lemon tree you need one. If you have one, you have one too many.)

Last year I planted an o’henry peach tree (needs to be sprayed 3 times per year) and this year I planted a dwarf bartlet pear tree. I’ll have fresh fruit year round. If you have trees why not have them produce something for you.

Good luck in gardening; I have found the best tasting fruits and veggies are the free ones.

[Bini]

Thanks for the feedback :]

A friend of mine grows Japanese eggplants, so I thought about trying those. And hubby likes spaghetti squash, so we'll give that a whirl too. OK here's the thing, our backyard is mostly grass with only a small area that is dirt. The sprinklers barely hit that spot and there's zero shade. So now we're (or I am) considering gardening in a pot. Has anyone done this? I did a quick google and pulled up a couple sites but haven't read through it all yet. It seems that you can grow pretty much anything and everything in a pot. Beans seem to be the more popular choice of crop in a pot. Anyway, I was thinking that it may be easier to do that and grow right out of a pot on our back patio..

I just realised that the pot idea totally defeats the whole "gardening" experience =/

[ADoyle90815]

Tomatoes actually do pretty well in pots, as long as it's big enough to allow the roots to fully grow. The main thing I've grown has been herbs since I love using fresh herbs in cooking.

[California_Dreaming]

This year, to expand my garden I started using pots. I can move them anywhere the sun shines.

Gardening in pots is easy and low maintenance. You just need to remember to water often; as someone told me, plants in pots can’t go out for lunch. Consider a drip system with bubbler heads or spray heads. Connect to an automatic watering timer, if your lawn sprinklers are on timers just add another valve or two. I find that a second timer works well because lawns and gardens need different amounts of water. This also helps if you decide to go on vacation.

I have large pots that are 22” across and 22“ high with a slight taper. I bought them at Home Depot or Lowes. Just make a mixture of dirt, compost and manure and your veggies will love you. This year I planted 6 tomatoes plants of the globe variety (Early Girls, Celebrity, Big Boy etc.) in pots. (I plant that many because I can the tomatoes into many different products) The cherry tomatoes and the roma tomatoes can also be grown in pots. Romas make great salsa.

In past years I made planter boxes out of 12”x 8’ boards. Buy two 12”x 8’ boards, cut 12 inches of each board and you have a 7’x 12” raised bed. 12” means that you can reach 6” in from each side. Just make the sides and place them directly onto the patio and filled with dirt. To support the corners, place 4x4 posts for the sides and ends to be screwed into. If using this method either on the patio or to create a raised garden bed; use redwood, but do not use pressure treated wood as it contains lethal chemicals that can leach into the plants and the crop.

A friend of my son is into organic container gardening and uses 5 gallon buckets as his pots, just remember to drill drain holes in the bottom. I personally think that 5 gal is too small.

In another post I’ll tell about my cages that I make for tomatoes and for beans.

[California_Dreaming]

To support the plants, in pots or in the ground, you need a good “cage”. Don’t bother with the premade ones at the garden shop or hardware store, they’re too expensive, not large enough and built cheaply.

I make cages out of concrete reinforcing steel (yes it does rust, but will last many, many years) 5 feet high, with 6” grids this size grid will allow your hand into the center to pick the fruit and more importantly to retrieve the fruit in your hand. Measure the circumference of the pots and make the cage accordingly. Take the loose wire at the end that you cut and wrap it around the other end of the cage making a circle. Cut off the excess wire so you won’t scratch yourself when reaching in.

I usually cut of the bottom horizontal wire off so that I have spikes that will sink into the ground for added support.

Reinforcing wire comes in a very large roll. I paid about $130 for a roll and made over 12 cages so far for myself, made a bunch to give to my friends, still have about half of the roll left. Consider having a friend split the cost. P.S. don’t count on wire cutters or tin snips to cut the wire. I find that a reciprocating saw with a hacksaw blade makes short easy work.

The worst part about beans is cutting the vines off the lattice work at the end of the season.

I’ll try to describe how I made lattice this year.

First I drove rebar into the ground to drop PVC pipe over (my PVC uprights were over 6 feet tall and the vines still kept growing). Space the uprights about 3-4 feet apart. Then use PVC for the top & cross bracing to connect the uprights tops. I made two rows (12 inches apart as that is the width of my planter boxes.) Connect each of the posts in the row and connect the two rows together at the uprights with cross PVC. Take a look around the PVC section of the hardware store to find the connectors that you need.

Do not glue the connectors to the pipes as you will want to disassemble the lattice at the end of the season to plant your fall or winter garden. The rebar can be "wiggled" out of the ground.

Then use twine to make a grid in the sides. My grids were 6 x 6 inches because I had an vertical string at each plant. The cross twines supports and gives additional places for the vine to grow. At the end of the season, I just cut the horizontal and vertical twine and the vines came down. Then I dissembled the PVC and slid off the securing wrap of twine on each post.

Hope it helps and encourages you to grow your own veggies.