How does your garden grow?
This weekend, me, the wife, and kids built a raised garden. Ours is 10X4. Gonna put some tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and some veggies. Any suggestions for something I might be missing? Junior wants to do watermelons.
Update: I didn’t know it was a survival garden.
Coincidentally, compost is easy to get when you share a border with a cattle farm.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:48 am
Have you thought about strawberries or raspberries? The raspberries especially grow like weeds but make great home grown treats in the heat of the summer. Storing seeds are great for food storage, too. http://tinyurl.com/cj9npe
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:56 am
Man. Every time I decide I’m going to start something, everyone else starts up. Then it becomes a “survival” something, and everyone automatically thinks that I’m getting on the bandwagon of doing it. lol
Ah well. Either way…I’m starting my little garden this year too. It’s too early to plant most things (except starting them inside), but I did plant three strawberry plants this weekend (they are good to go this early). I’ll wait another 20-30 days before tomatoes and cucumbers.
My little garden is about the same size. Probably 12×5 or so. I tilled and fertilized the spot late fall last year. I’m pretty much growing the same things as well. Adding strawberries and snap peas. Maybe some dill and will probably do some basil and rosemary somewhere nearby.I stopped by Tractor Supply yesterday and they were selling chickens. I was tempted. heh (except for the ordinance that says you can’t raise chickens in Davidson County)
For me, I just think it’s me getting back to my roots when I grew up in the country. My family pastime was sitting around the living room breaking beans. I hated that at the time…but kind of miss it now.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:57 am
Oh…also planted a few blueberry bushes around the yard last fall. Might be something good as well.
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:13 am
There is never enough room.
My garden is 25×25 (not raised) and packed to the gills, but I still can’t grow everything I want.
Watermelon will take over your garden. Highly advise giving it or any other melon of gourd its own area in the corner of the yard if feasible. I also very highly recommend ordering your melon seeds from a good source such as seed savers. We’ve had 100xs better luck with heirloom varieties than with the hybrid junk they sell in stores. Same for all veggies really but watermelon is especially notable.
I also advise starting your seedlings three weeks ago.
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:14 am
Cherry tomato plants are great for kids.
For the absolute in strange plants, try okra. Looks like a demented Christmas tree. With spiky stalks. And okra comes off them, which is also darn odd, unless like mine, your mother raised you right.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:49 am
1 celery plant. Screamin’ handy for a variety of recipes when you run out in the fridge.
I like to go to the market and see what the most expensive veggies that I would normally buy. Those are what I plant. Because even though we like the fall atmosphere corn gives us, in season we can get it for about 10 cents an ear. Our garden space is more precious than that.
p.s. Zucchini Squash, if they take off, are a little shop of horrors kind of plant. One plant can feed two or three households. Same w/ cucumbers.
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Pea pods fresh off the vine are hard to beat.
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Good idea for melons and squash (and other ground crawling vines) is to go vertical. Plant them near a very sturdy trellis or tree that they can climb and encourage them to climb. When they begin to produce fruit, place the fruit in a nylon stocking and attach it to the tree/trellis with a cord or a hook. As the fruit grows, the nylon stretches to accommodate and still support the fruit to keep it off the ground, even watermelons (although I use a mesh bag or a large cheesecloth for those).
March 23rd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Leaf lettuce from seed is incredibly easy to grow. Cut what you need for dinner. Ready in six weeks or so and grows back after you cut it.
Swiss char is easy to grow, keeps growing in cold weather, and will re-seed itself.
Fill in empty areas with seed flowers like zinnias.
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Basil and Parsley grow well near tomatoes.
Cucumbers should be at the southern end of the frame. They’ll run east and south seeking the sun, even on a trellis, and if this is toward your other plants it’ll be a constant battle. Mine last year took off and filled the space between the fence and frame but were easy to keep out of the frame when planted on the southern end. Try the pickling cucumber for tasty small fruit. They will require daily picking when producing. One yellow fruit gone to seed can shutdown the plant.
I had luck, too much, with okra in my frame last year. 8 plants but don’t even think about planting them until after May 1. However, they shade a lot, so north side of frame, and require daily picking otherwise they go to seed and stop producing. Not to mention, the prickly fuzz can irritate your skin. Ammonia worked for me to make the itching stop.
Watermelons will use your whole frame or run out toward the rising sun so plant them isolated somewhere else.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I started working on my tire garden way back in December. Where I live trying to dig into the dirt is akin to digging concrete. I had to haul all of my soil to the site, after a lot of afford I now have an excellent set up and source of extra produce, that will help cut on the bill at the grocer.
I posted details of my Tire Garden
on my blog if anyone would like more information or has an interest in in doing this.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I’ve never had any luck growing tomatoes in the ground, even in my raised planters. Their needs are different enough from the rest of your garden that you’re probably better off growing them in pots.
I’d also recommend laying out a soaker hose in that bed so that it runs along the bases of whatever you plant, and then just leave it there. Makes watering easy, just hook up the soaker and run it for an hour. Works best if you then put 2-3″ of mulch over the top of the hose.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:44 pm
knot is correct about zucchini and yellow squash.
Also, Unc you might want to set up a separate pot to grow mint for mojitos/juleps. Just make sure you grow it in a pot, since mint will take over the universe if you turn your back for five minutes.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Yeah, I think the people who bought my last house now have a mint lawn.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:54 pm
We grow catnip, and it’s actually even more aggressive than mint. It has worked its way down underneath a 12″ tall raised planter to spread roots out into the lawn.
March 23rd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I recommend Jerusalem Artichokes, but given that their closest genetic relatives are bamboo and kudzu, they must be grown in a hermetically-sealed, contained environment. Rather good little tubers, though.
Apart from that, okra, radishes, carrots, and beans of any variety are relatively simple (though beans generally require something to grow on). We always wanted to do corn, but that seems to require four rows of at least 25′ in length (or something like that), and we never had the space. Blackberry brambles are great, but also tend to take over the world.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Minor nit: unprocessed manure, while a wonderful fertilizer, is not the same thing as compost.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:54 pm
but it is an ingredient.
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Mine’s about 12×15. The back yard has a fair slope, so I outlined an area with concrete blocks and filled it in; it let me get a good level area, and has very good drainage.
Sweet peppers, squash, and a habanero in one corner are suggestions I’d make.
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Kid friendly:
Put in some radishes. They take about 21 days from seed to maturity. This short time helps kids be patient and continue to participate while the rest of the garden chugs along. Also,they can be planted in and among the other veggies to make good use of space while plants that will grow bigger are still small.
Cherry tomatoes are also a kid magnet and can be grown in pots along a trellis, leaving more space in the garden proper.
Finally, try growing a couple of unusual things like purple carrots or snake cucumbers. Those cucumbers are the tastiest ones I’ve every eaten and they look very interesting. IOW, new colors and shapes make it interesting and you will find some tasty varieties that will become favorites.
Also, consider the potential depredations of rabbits and other varmints and think about fencing.
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
I’m originally from Alabama…yet I still hate okra. Ugh.
March 24th, 2009 at 3:03 am
Second on the snap peas! Best food fresh from the garden ever invented – even raw.
Okra is not a vegetable, it is the pod form of space alien babies. But okra grows like a weed and will interest the kids – until you make them eat it. Then I recommend one pod per gallon of gumbo to acclimatize the young ‘uns to eating space alien pod babies. When they are teenagers, fried okra will cure them of drinking too much beer the day before.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Tobacco is hard to start, but grows up pretty and can live in a pot. It’s “sacrificial”: bugs and cankers that would otherwise infest tomato will go to the tobacco instead if they show up, sparing your food crop. The leaves are only easy to use if you’re a pipe smoker, but just proving you can make it grow gives the same satisfaction you get from owning a reloading press. Pretty little flowers, smells good and makes its own quiet statement.