Any Gardeners Who Want to Share Tips for a Newbie?
amaysngrace
Posts: 742 Member
I have always been interested in maybe starting a garden, although I am intimidated by the garden tools and my lack of knowledge on soil or anything else related to gardening. My grandfather was a sharecropper and turned an empty lot into a garden. There are still pear trees that grow over there in his garden, before he went to a nursing home. However, I still have no clue where to begin or what I need to know before I attempt to start my first garden. I particularly would like to hear from people who are successful with gardening that can share some tips with me. I would really like to try and grow a few things from the ground up, but I do not want to screw up. Any suggestions?
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Replies
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Where do you live? What's the climate like?0
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Where do you live? What's the climate like?
I live in Missouri and the weather is all over the place. We even had snow like two weeks ago! We get four seasons usually, but looks like we have been getting four seasons in one week lately lol!0 -
If you're growing from seeds start indoors and to set up a garden, my suggestion would be make a box where ever is best for the plants being grown and put some cardboard down on the ground below where your soil will go to prevent weeds. Also make a compost bin, to make compost you need nitrogen rich items like vegetable matter from the kitchen or gras clippings and carbon rich items like paper or dead leaves. When you start layer them like lasagna and after that you need to mix it up. Also when you're not growing your main veggies it would a good idea to grow cover crop to prevent erosion by wind or water and where your cover crops die just push them down after you've planted your plants and they act as great weed control and return nutrients to the soil.
Just info from my horticulture teacher0 -
First, don't worry about screwing up with your garden. Start small. Container gardens do well right out the back door. I keep my herbs there. Till up a small about a 5 x 3 area, remove all grass & weeds. You can take a soil specimen to your local Ag Dept, to test your soil and they will let you know what your soil is lacking or just work in a little Lime Powder from your local So. States, WalMart, Lowes, etc. If you want tomatoes, choose the tried and true, Big Boys, Better Boys... Dig a small 5-6 " hole, place a small amount of fertilizer in it, Remove the last row of leaves from the plant place a small amount of water in the hole then the plant, cover with soil and pat the soil down, to release air pockets. Water now and every morning. Put a small amount of aluminum foil around the stem to deter cut worm from devouring your plant. I always plant an extra plant for the neighborhood rabbit. Put tomato cages over your plants and when your plants are at least 6"' sprinkle Preem around the plants, this will keep you from weeding all season. It last about 3months. You won't need more than 6 tomato plants. 4 for you, 1 for insects and 1 for the rabbit. I'm not the best Gardner but this process works. As the tomato plants grow, guide them through the cages. After I prep the soil, I turn the cages upside down and mark the soil. Place the plants in the center of the marked circle. Turn the cages right side up and insert them in the ground, with the top rim touching the top rim of the next cage and tie wrap them together for stability. The plants can get heavy when the tomatoes are almost ripe. You will learn by trial &error. You'll have enough room in that size plot for 2 green pepper plants, 2 red pepper plants 2 yellow banana pepper plants, seed rows for carrots, they will be growing after the pepper plants are finished and into the fall. You'll also want to plant a few marigold plant around the perimeter to keep most of the rabbits out, they are not suppose to like the smell. Don't fret, have fun, gardening is suppose to relaxing. You can friend me if you would like.
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First, don't worry about screwing up with your garden. Start small. Container gardens do well right out the back door. I keep my herbs there. Till up a small about a 5 x 3 area, remove all grass & weeds. You can take a soil specimen to your local Ag Dept, to test your soil and they will let you know what your soil is lacking or just work in a little Lime Powder from your local So. States, WalMart, Lowes, etc. If you want tomatoes, choose the tried and true, Big Boys, Better Boys... Dig a small 5-6 " hole, place a small amount of fertilizer in it, Remove the last row of leaves from the plant place a small amount of water in the hole then the plant, cover with soil and pat the soil down, to release air pockets. Water now and every morning. Put a small amount of aluminum foil around the stem to deter cut worm from devouring your plant. I always plant an extra plant for the neighborhood rabbit. Put tomato cages over your plants and when your plants are at least 6"' sprinkle Preem around the plants, this will keep you from weeding all season. It last about 3months. You won't need more than 6 tomato plants. 4 for you, 1 for insects and 1 for the rabbit. I'm not the best Gardner but this process works. As the tomato plants grow, guide them through the cages. After I prep the soil, I turn the cages upside down and mark the soil. Place the plants in the center of the marked circle. Turn the cages right side up and insert them in the ground, with the top rim touching the top rim of the next cage and tie wrap them together for stability. The plants can get heavy when the tomatoes are almost ripe. You will learn by trial &error. You'll have enough room in that size plot for 2 green pepper plants, 2 red pepper plants 2 yellow banana pepper plants, seed rows for carrots, they will be growing after the pepper plants are finished and into the fall. You'll also want to plant a few marigold plant around the perimeter to keep most of the rabbits out, they are not suppose to like the smell. Don't fret, have fun, gardening is suppose to relaxing. You can friend me if you would like.
^^^THIS^^^ I grew up gardening right beside my mom and it really isn't very hard. There is an absolute TON of gardening information on the Web and at your local library. Also, as the previous poster mentioned, you can get specific help from your local county agricultural agent. They are always happy to test your soil to see what it needs and make recommendations for your specific area. Good luck! When you are eating your own home grown organic vegetables, you will be happy you put in the effort. 0 -
My family lives in Oklahoma, which I think has a similar crazy climate to missouri, lol They do hot peppers and tomatoes every year. These are relatively easy ones to start with. If I were you, i'd pick up a couple different types of tomato plants and pepper plants (you can do bell peppers if you don't like hot peppers) and put them in pots or in the ground and follow the instructions that come with them. For me, gardening is just a lot of trial and error. I'm on my 4th year now and still feel like I learn new things out there every day Hope you enjoy it! Feel free to add me, I always love talking gardening!!
Kyli0 -
I've done "Square Foot Gardening" for years. It's effecient, easy and scaleable.0
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I second the recommendation for square foot gardening. It's an easy method usable both in your garden beds and in containers. The method's inventor has a very easy to follow book you can buy, but there is also a lot of free information available on the web about square foot gardening.
Your local garden centre is a great resource for learning about gardening in your town. They'll know what plants work there and can give you some suggestions.
If you have any family or friends that have gardened for some years, ask them if they have seeds they can share with you. Many gardeners keep seeds from their own plants, or have left overs from the commercial packets they've bought. There are advantages to both seeds.
Saved seeds from their own plants are quite likely to grow for you because the plants they were from have been successful in the climate and soil there.
Left over commercial seeds might also do well. If they the same seeds they've been buying year over year because the seeds grow into nicely producing plants then you can trust that you'll have a good chance for success with them too.
Another reason to check if friends and family have seeds to share is that they may also have old pots you can use. The longer someone has been gardening the more likely they are to have saved up a collection of plastic cell trays from the garden centre or have extra old pots in their sheds. They may also have old tools and gloves. (If you don't know anyone, check for a local freecycle group and make a request.)
Two of my fav. places to learn about gardening are youtube and Gardenweb.com forums. Gardenweb has a forum for just about everything (including seed and plant swaps, which can help you save some money when starting) and youtube has a variety of how-to videos on just about any gardening topic.
Exactly how you go about gardening depends on if you want to grow food or flowers as there are different soil considerations for food then flowers. If you have had a house fire at your home or a neighbours and had run-off from the water used to put it out in your yard, of if you have used insect repellents or weed killer, the chemicals in your soil will take a long time to degrade to the point of safety for eating produce grown in that soil. I'd suggest getting it tested or use container gardening. Chemical contaminates in your soil don't matter as much for flowers.
The easiest thing to do for instant gratification is dig up the dirt in your yard where you'd like you garden 1ft deep and mix in new soil, or buy pots and fill them. Use plants from the garden centre in your newly tilled garden or pots, and ta-da, instant garden.
If you want to see the seeds develop you'll need to get seedling starting trays/pots (plastic cells or biodegradeable pots), fill them, and plant seeds. Wait 2-3 weeks, keeping them watered, and you'll get seedlings. However, we are in mid May now and it'll be June when you get seedlings, so I suggest buying at least some plants from the garden centre so you can make the most of your growing season.
And that's about it. If in learning about gardening you find yourself overwhelmed with information you could honestly ignore it all, and just get a bag of soil, seeds, and find a spot to plant, and you'll do fine. Gardening is one of those things that is simple, but can become complicated by thinking about it too much and trying to do it "right" or "best." I have to remind myself of that point yearly as I learn about different ways to grow things and want to try them all (winter sowing, hydroponics, greenhouses, vertical gardening...).
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.0 -
If you're going to put things directly in the ground, you need to get your soil tested. It's really easy; you can have it done at your county extension, some nurseries do it, or you can buy an at-home kit. If your soil has any deficiencies or pH issues (fruits and vegetables like soil on the acid side) you can fix that first so your plants will do better.0
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I second the recommendation for square foot gardening. It's an easy method usable both in your garden beds and in containers. The method's inventor has a very easy to follow book you can buy, but there is also a lot of free information available on the web about square foot gardening.
Your local garden centre is a great resource for learning about gardening in your town. They'll know what plants work there and can give you some suggestions.
If you have any family or friends that have gardened for some years, ask them if they have seeds they can share with you. Many gardeners keep seeds from their own plants, or have left overs from the commercial packets they've bought. There are advantages to both seeds.
Saved seeds from their own plants are quite likely to grow for you because the plants they were from have been successful in the climate and soil there.
Left over commercial seeds might also do well. If they the same seeds they've been buying year over year because the seeds grow into nicely producing plants then you can trust that you'll have a good chance for success with them too.
Another reason to check if friends and family have seeds to share is that they may also have old pots you can use. The longer someone has been gardening the more likely they are to have saved up a collection of plastic cell trays from the garden centre or have extra old pots in their sheds. They may also have old tools and gloves. (If you don't know anyone, check for a local freecycle group and make a request.)
Two of my fav. places to learn about gardening are youtube and Gardenweb.com forums. Gardenweb has a forum for just about everything (including seed and plant swaps, which can help you save some money when starting) and youtube has a variety of how-to videos on just about any gardening topic.
Exactly how you go about gardening depends on if you want to grow food or flowers as there are different soil considerations for food then flowers. If you have had a house fire at your home or a neighbours and had run-off from the water used to put it out in your yard, of if you have used insect repellents or weed killer, the chemicals in your soil will take a long time to degrade to the point of safety for eating produce grown in that soil. I'd suggest getting it tested or use container gardening. Chemical contaminates in your soil don't matter as much for flowers.
The easiest thing to do for instant gratification is dig up the dirt in your yard where you'd like you garden 1ft deep and mix in new soil, or buy pots and fill them. Use plants from the garden centre in your newly tilled garden or pots, and ta-da, instant garden.
If you want to see the seeds develop you'll need to get seedling starting trays/pots (plastic cells or biodegradeable pots), fill them, and plant seeds. Wait 2-3 weeks, keeping them watered, and you'll get seedlings. However, we are in mid May now and it'll be June when you get seedlings, so I suggest buying at least some plants from the garden centre so you can make the most of your growing season.
And that's about it. If in learning about gardening you find yourself overwhelmed with information you could honestly ignore it all, and just get a bag of soil, seeds, and find a spot to plant, and you'll do fine. Gardening is one of those things that is simple, but can become complicated by thinking about it too much and trying to do it "right" or "best." I have to remind myself of that point yearly as I learn about different ways to grow things and want to try them all (winter sowing, hydroponics, greenhouses, vertical gardening...).
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
Thanks, good information, lots of it though!0 -
I would start with some easy things first. My Mom was a master gardener but I was not born with a green thumb. A few things that we easy to grow inspite of my poor skills were cherry/grape tomatoes, yellow squash, spinach, and lettuce. I have grown them in the ground and in containers. An added bonus is kids sometimes are more willing to try something they've helped to grow
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Where do you live? What's the climate like?
I live in Missouri and the weather is all over the place. We even had snow like two weeks ago! We get four seasons usually, but looks like we have been getting four seasons in one week lately lol!
Excellent, go to the local extension office, and join a gardening seminar.
Gardening may be easy, or it may not be. I was looking in my planters (I built them) today, and my lettuces, radishes, and beats are all sprouting quite nicely. I don't know how to garden, but boom there they be.0 -
I would start with some easy things first. My Mom was a master gardener but I was not born with a green thumb. A few things that we easy to grow inspite of my poor skills were cherry/grape tomatoes, yellow squash, spinach, and lettuce. I have grown them in the ground and in containers. An added bonus is kids sometimes are more willing to try something they've helped to grow
Yes, these are all vegetables, I do not mind eating. I tend to buy these at the grocery store a lot, so growing them would save me even more money.0 -
Where do you live? What's the climate like?
I live in Missouri and the weather is all over the place. We even had snow like two weeks ago! We get four seasons usually, but looks like we have been getting four seasons in one week lately lol!
Excellent, go to the local extension office, and join a gardening seminar.
Gardening may be easy, or it may not be. I was looking in my planters (I built them) today, and my lettuces, radishes, and beats are all sprouting quite nicely. I don't know how to garden, but boom there they be.
Sounds like a plan!0 -
Best tips I can give you:
There's no shame in buying seedling plants rather than growing it direct from seed. You are a bit late to start off a lot of things and getting the seedlings from somewhere else will save you time and the aggravation of trying to get things going.
Better to do a little every day than only one big session a week. So better 15 minutes every day than one 2 hour session on a Saturday.
When transplanting anything, remember, green side up.
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Best tips I can give you:
There's no shame in buying seedling plants rather than growing it direct from seed. You are a bit late to start off a lot of things and getting the seedlings from somewhere else will save you time and the aggravation of trying to get things going.
Seriously, I'm an avid gardener, and this year I built a greenhouse. that was a mistake.
I started some seeds under a light in my house, and they came up perfect, and big and strong.
Tried to start more in the greenhouse, and I found out why greenhouses SUCK. All the seedlings COOKED
If:
Cloudy, then greenhouse cold
Night: greenhouse cold
Sunshine: ALL the heat in the greenhouse, it was 30 degrees outside, but 130 inside my GH. 10x16 foot greenhouse...
So I made a vent, to keep the temps more even, but then the wind blew out of the north, blowing right into the vent, getting under the plastic and almost tearing it off, and if the wind blows when I have the door open to circulate air and keep temps even.. it blows inside.
To top it all off, when the sun isn't shining, the temp inside the greenhouse is equal to the outside air temp, so you have to heat it, which makes me wonder why I went to all the time and expense of building a greenhouse when I just have to pay to heat it, but vent it during the day, even when it's below freezing outside.
It's not gardening it's MALARIA!0 -
I have some terrible, evil advice. I grow sacrificial cabbages in my garden. I grow organically, so there can be bug problems. All the bugs are super attracted to the cabbage and they leave everything else alone. :drinker: The cabbage is completely destroyed, though. I didn't do sacrificial cabbage this year and now the bugs are moving into all the other crops. My bad. Next year there will be cabbages. :laugh:0
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Dont weed. Buy black weed block cloth and cut X's in it where you are gonna plant stuff. At the end of season yank up the plants and then roll up the cloth.
Its too late to start many things from seed so dont bother right now.
Drilling holes 3 inches up the side of plastic kiddie pools makes an easy and cheap raised bed that has a water reservoir at the bottom.
Manure is better than all the miracle grow in the world
You can pollinate tomatoes with a 5 dollar electric toothbrush wand. (Not the bristle part)
Trellising cucumbers leads to more fruit and less space used.
Never plant mint in the ground. Always plant in a container because it spreads like crazy and is impossible to kill once its established.
Bury tomato plants extra deep so roots will come out of the shaft and the plant will be more efficient at taking up water and nutrients.
Always plant twice as much as you need to compensate for the possibility of a bad harvest0 -
Best tips I can give you:
There's no shame in buying seedling plants rather than growing it direct from seed. You are a bit late to start off a lot of things and getting the seedlings from somewhere else will save you time and the aggravation of trying to get things going.
Seriously, I'm an avid gardener, and this year I built a greenhouse. that was a mistake.
I started some seeds under a light in my house, and they came up perfect, and big and strong.
Tried to start more in the greenhouse, and I found out why greenhouses SUCK. All the seedlings COOKED
If:
Cloudy, then greenhouse cold
Night: greenhouse cold
Sunshine: ALL the heat in the greenhouse, it was 30 degrees outside, but 130 inside my GH. 10x16 foot greenhouse...
So I made a vent, to keep the temps more even, but then the wind blew out of the north, blowing right into the vent, getting under the plastic and almost tearing it off, and if the wind blows when I have the door open to circulate air and keep temps even.. it blows inside.
To top it all off, when the sun isn't shining, the temp inside the greenhouse is equal to the outside air temp, so you have to heat it, which makes me wonder why I went to all the time and expense of building a greenhouse when I just have to pay to heat it, but vent it during the day, even when it's below freezing outside.
It's not gardening it's MALARIA!
Yeah---greenhouses really don't work very well in northern climates unless you build them large enough to put in some kind of methods to store heat. Even the big commercial greenhouses have a tough time staying in business because of the cost of energy. When energy was cheap, greenhouses worked a little better.
We saw plans once that my husband and I always wanted to try (but never got around to it). It had a big vat of water in the center (to use as a source of watering the plants and as a heat sink). It also used a masonry wall and floor as a passive heat sink as well and it had insulating blinds that automatically closed at night and partially to cut the heat when the sun was threatening to scorch everything. It was in Pennsylvania, I believe. It was pretty elaborate. If I recall correctly, it belonged to an engineer. He had some system set up where he circulated the warm water from the vat around through the greenhouse at night and when the sun didn't shine. With the cost of energy these days, employing heat sinks to control the energy swings is probably the only way to have them make sense economically. But :flowerforyou: for trying.0 -
Just wanted to add that I looked this morning at my garden and wanted to squeal like a girl.
My borage is sprouting, my lettuces are growing well, my french radishes are sprouted up as well as my golden beets. My sweet onions are growing strong, and my chives are starting to sprout finally. This is pretty awesome.0
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