OT: Gardening assistance needed

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sikiguya

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I am sitting inside, looking out on the freezing cold weather, with 4-6 inches of snow to come tonight, and dreaming of spring when I can plant my first garden.

I want to know some good tips and types of veggies or fruits that veteran gardeners can suggest to me. Our new house has a large rectangle garden out back. Used to be farmland so I am sure the ground is fertile. Also, do you suggest wire fencing to keep critters out?

I know that I want large tomatos (the bigger the better-no coment from Toggles please! LOL), peppers, cucumbers, and maybe some types of squash. Is asparagus hard to grow? What about watermelons/pumpkins?

Thanks for your help. I am a city girl so this is all new to me!
 
Go to the library, Heather!

I suggest for vegetable culture....The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash. Not just recipies, but growing talk. The recipies are great, too.

Asparagus is not difficult, but needs at least two years after planting to have a harvestable crop. One of the hardest aspects of selling the house in 1996 was losing my asparagus bed.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Gardening

Have gardened all my life. Grew up on a cotton/wheat farm in Oklahoma. For tomatos for constant good big try a parks whopper normally you can find the plants at Lowes/Home Depot/WalMart, K Mart or a local nursery. A local nursery will be able to help on a varitey that grows well in your area. There are 2 tyes of tomatos determinate and indeterminate. Determinate will set a full crop of tomatos all at once then not produce anymore. A in-determinate will produce smaller crops but all season. Tomatos need to be staked or grown in cages. We use cages and then string two wires through them that are attached to the T-Post that you drive in the ground. This keeps the cages from blowing over in a storm. Also any beefsteak tomato is good. Peppers do you want bell, banana or chili these need stakes also.

Cucumbers are in two different types also pickling or eating. Some varities are good for both.
 
Gardening cont.

For the cucumbers we have an 8 foot hog wire that we attach to 2 t-post that we used to have the vines grow up on. This keeps them straight and sure saves garden space.

For squash we grow both the zuccini and yellow crook neck. Totally different flavors. These take up lots of space unless you get non running types. These are planted in hills your row should be about 6 or more feet wide and space the hills about 4 feet apart. A hill is where you build a mound of earth (dirt) and plant six plants or six seeds. 2 hills each of both varities will feed you and the neighbors. Must check and pick everyday or you will get leg size squash. Watermellon and pumpkins really take lots of room as they sprall all over.
 
Asparagus

As Lawerance/Maytagbear said it take two years before you can harvest. These are perniniel (sp) and will come back year after year forever if kept up. Lookup on the internet on how to get your soil in shape for planting the roots that you purchase. New Jersey or Martha Washington are good plant varities. The plants themselves are ver pretty and fern type leaves. You really have to watch aspargus beetles during the summer after you have harvested the early spears. We have used both seven dust but prefer a pyrthemin based spray as more organic. This comes from an african daisy. The early sprouts are the spears that you break off at ground level. When they start getting smaller than a pencil you need to stop harvesting and let grow.
 
Thanks Lawrence. I will check out that book at the library. I have to go turn in my grocery store receipts there anyway. The local store gives a certain % to the library for every receipt they get. As far as the asparagus goes, I think I will forgo that venture. I have no idea how long we will be here (in this house/area) so I might not even get to see the fruits of my labor! LOL

Charles-Thanks so much for the great info. I was hoping to get plants and not start from seeds for the tomatos. We have a large nursery right across the street from us so I will go there in the spring so see what they have. My husband wants chili peppers. My daughter wants the cukes but I am ont too sure on those. There is only so much she can eat and no one else likes them! We have a good sized garden already but we live on 1 acre and I can add onto the garden if necessary for larger/viney items or move those to the back of the lot. I would send a picture of the space but it is snowing already and I don't like to be cold! I would love zuchinni and yellow squash. Those are my favorite to make on the grill with a good steak. Can't forget the mushrooms but I am not going to attempt those. We have a mushroom farm about 7 miles up the road from us so I will just get them there. Gotta support your local farmer! :-)

Thanks again for the great info. I will keep this all in mind when I go shopping in a few months.
 
Garden itself

Is your garden already tilled? If so great. If it has weeds and grass you will need to dig it with a spade. Backbreaking work or rent a tiller to break up the garden. As soon as you can work the garden soil. To work the garden go out and take out a spade full of the soil then take a handful of the soil if it sticks together it is too wet to work. If it forms a loose ball that crumbles easly then is very workable. If tilling you need to make several passes going deeper each pass. Don't try to go deep in one pass it will kill your back and arms. With either a front tine or rear tine tiller let it dig in but not buck (jump up and down) It should dig in some and want to move forward. To plant the soil should be around 60 degrees or higher. The seeds won't germinate below this tempature. If your soil has been worked good before you might just have to get a garden fork and turn the soil. Other items you will need is a good hoe (no comments Toggle's) to keep your weeds under control until the seeds come up and have grown to the point you can mulch. We use newspaper (start saving it now) then cover with grass clippings from yard, leaves from fall or best wheat straw you can buy at a nursery or farm supply. Do not buy and use grass straw you will end up with grass growing from everywhere. Call or go by and see your county extention service they will have for free lots or gardening books and printouts.

To plant your tomato plants buy strong good looking plants take off the bottom leaves leaving the top 4 to 6 leaves then wrap a 1 inch pice of newspaper around the stem under the leaves and plant the tomato deep to where just the tops leaves and a bit of the paper is showing. The paper will keep cutworms from eating through the tomato stem. I am sure Sudsmaster will have more to say also as he gardens also. Are you planning on canning and freezing for winter use?
 
Surplus veggies

Go on and grow the cucumbers at least one or two plants for your daughter then any surplus send to work with your husband. The same with squash. The zuccini we take extra and shred up and freeze in 2 cup batches in ziplock bags to use in winter for zuccini bread. We also make a squash casserole that we cook up and then process in jars in our canner to have in winter.

Tomatos you can freeze whole in your freezer then when frozen just put in big ziplock bags. In the winter if you need good tomato you just pull out of the freezer place in warm water for a minute or so then peel the skin off chop up and use instead of canned tomatos. Or just slice and use on a sandwich much better than the wood tomatos in the store.
 
I love veggie gardening and had a huge one back when we lived in Calgary on the acreage. Big enough that I had the big Troy Bilt tiller/cultivator and one of those little Mantis types as well. Along with the tiller I got a book put out by Garden Way called The Joy of Gardening featuring Dick Raymond who used to do tv gardening years ago. The book is geared towards/featuring the Troy Bilt tillers but the principles of his methods apply to anyone or type. It's a great book, maybe out of print now or available thru Amazon or at a library.

For starters here's what I learned and utilized over the years. Just grow what you like to eat and do it with the least amount of back breaking or bending over as possible.

For example carrots: Nothing tastes as good as a carrot right out of the ground. Those dried sticks they sell in the grocery store posing as carrots don't cut it.
To grow enough carrots to feed the neighborhood in as little a space as possible do this.. Forget forget forget planting carrots in neat little rows, evenly spaced,, you're wasting precious space.
Instead make a raised row as wide as you like, perhaps two feet wide, well fluffed up soil LOL.
Take a handfull of carrot seeds, you should buy bulk seeds for this, not those little packets, and shake seed them all over the raised row just as if you were planting grass seed but not quite so thick but close.
Tamp them down with the end of your rake and cover lightly with about 1/4 inch of soil.
When they begin to sprout in a couple of weeks and begin looking thick like a Chia pet,,take your rake and rake it through them evenly which will thin them out. a week or so later repeat this. As the carrots begin to form you can begin picking hundreds of primo baby carrots. And all the while you're pickingi those delicious baby carrots you actually thinning leaving room for the remaining ones to grow larger. and so on and so on and so on...
All the while you've barely had to bend over to accomplish all this except to pick the carrots LOL
It works.. In an area 2 ft wide by 6 ft long you can get loads of carrots..
 
BTW is Mantis still has that try it for year and return it deal going on you might want to take advantage of it.. My little tiller isn't a Mantis, it's a Ryobi but they're almost identical and well worth it for gardening if you do a lot of it.. Takes all the pain away
 
Zucchini . . .

. . . is very easy to grow and around these parts you can't give it away during the summer. There was a story going around a while back that when the season was in full swing, people were placing bags of zucchini on doorsteps, ringing the doorbell and running away fast.
 
I've been gardening for the past 10 years or so.

A rototiller is a good move. I prefer the rear-tine type, these have more power and drive to really turn the soil.

Try working in a substantial amount (3-4 inches) of good compost into the tilled soil. Your plants will thank you.

I recommend Green Crop bush green beans - very prolific and tasty. Also, if you have a fence (or build one using concrete 6x6 mesh), try an italian squash called Trombetta di Albenga. Amazingly prolific and long-lasting - it will be producing long after the zucchini and other bush type squashes have mildewed and died. Tasty too, with no seeds. Renee's Garden seed packets carries the Trombetta squash.

Tomatoes are ok from plants, but for the really unique varieties growing from seed can't be beat. You need to start them indoors about a month before you plan to start gardening outside, though. And don't let smokers touch your tomatoe plants - or your tomatoes will get Tobacco Mosaic Virus.

Another favorite is swiss chard - easy to grow early. Leeks are fun too, albeit another "winter crop". Don't forget cilantro, basic, sage, oregano - whatever spices/herbs you like to cook with will taste much better if you grow your own.
 
~I know that I want large tomatoes.
The bigger the better only applies to one's savings account!

When does one start planting in various parts of the country? Here it's generally mother's day. (MAY)
...and how about in Salem, WI?

VOILA, big plump juicy tomatoes!

1-31-2008-21-16-10--Toggleswitch.jpg
 
Now Toggle-----

wherever did you find that photo of me from 8th grade?

Great gardening tips folks! Much appreciated.
I am used to gardening in my native Georgian red clay, so it will be a challenge to get my garden up and running this year in the rocky soil here in the western side of Virginia. Will pay the local county extension service a visit here shortly and get an idea of what to do. I did not can anything for the last two summers, so this year I MUST get busy!
 

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