Gardening questions from a complete novice...

[Sue G in PA]

With the previous thread on gardening, I got to thinking about it more. As we are switching to the school-all-year mode, I wanted to plan some "fun" yet educational things for our spring/summer to keep school light. I'd like to plan a garden. Not just throw seeds in some dirt and pray flowers come up. BTDT and ended up with a big mess of flowers I wanted to pull up as soon as they came up! Vegetable gardens would be great, too, but mine never yield any edible veggies (animals usually destroy them before harvest time!). Are there any good resources out there for gardening flops like myself or for children who want to learn? I'd like to plan a flower garden AND a fruitveggie garden w/ 4-5 different fruits/veggies that we eat. TIA for any tips or suggestions.

Oh, one more thing...how difficult is it to grow corn and how much space do you need? We eat a TON of corn when it's in season and my dc always wondered if we could grow our own.

[Claire]

Corn can be planted as closely together as one foot apart in a small-space garden. You need to have a block of corn, because corn is pollinated by wind. The tassels need to be close to each other. If, for example, you planted a single row of corn your ears wouldn't have many kernels on them!

The Square Foot Gardening book is a really good way to plan and start a garden. The book (latest edition is supposed to be best) is available on Amazon.

Most fruits grow on trees, so it can take several years to get a yield. Strawberries can be grown in the square-foot garden, although they won't yield fruit until the second year. Blueberries require acid soil and would not be something for beginners to try. Raspberries benefit from some really substantial staking, so also wouldn't be a beginner's choice. Pole beans are easy to grow, and you can build a shelter with them easily (bamboo stakes tied at the top, for example). Most children are enthralled with sunflowers that grow 8 feet tall. They require watering every day -- a great job for children, especially since they grow so much in a week. What kinds of vegetables do you like to eat?

[gardenschooler]

I like 'Square Foot Gardening' for vegetables. You might check at your library for it. And yes, you can grow your own corn! It's very easy *and* very rewarding.

[Sue G in PA]

Anybody else have any more suggestions for a gardening flop like myself? What are some of the easiest veggies to grow? Fruits? Flowers? Sunflowers sound like fun.

[KristineIN]

I just want to comment about corn, you really need to plant a lot to make it worthwhile. We did it one year and didn't hardly have any.

Have fun!
Kristine

[amy g.]

We are really, working hard at gardening this month. I've made a bunch of newspaper pots to start seeds in. You SHOULD buy sterile seeds starting medium, but I don't want to spend the money, So I send the kids to the woods to dig sand which I nuke in the microwave (you can also use the oven).

For sprouting, I put them under heat lamps left over from raising chicks. When they sprout, I'll change those out to florescent lights placed 1-2 inches above the plant. I also put a fan on them. For some reason, this keeps them from getting leggy.

I agree that a square foot garden is nice. I have 9 4X4 squares that I keep planted with lettuce, onions, herbs, beets and Swill chard. My tomatoes and peppers did not do very well in the SFG, so I'm trying some other options this year.

Building a raised bed can be expensive. My Dh made a huge one for me before we had kids. We always had an impressive garden. When we moved, I didn't want to spend the money to build a new one. For the 10 years I lived there, I never planted anything that did well.

Last year, we bought over $800 worth of lumber, peat moss and compost for our garden, and everything thrived. My goal, this year is to at least double our garden space without spending any additional money. Fortunately, I've been diligent in my composting all year, so that is really going to help.

I buy my seeds from Baker's Creek. They have a great forum.
http://idigmygarden.com/

[mellifera]

Strawberries can be grown in the square-foot garden, although they won't yield fruit until the second year.

One thing about strawberries: They tend to take over whatever area you put them in. You need to keep an eye on them so that they don't spread to where you don't want them.

[Mrs. H.]

Square Foot Gardening has already been mentioned, but I want to make a note about it: make sure you get the newest edition, not the 1980s one. The older edition is good, but is much more "scientific" and not nearly as user-friendly as the new book.

Lasagna Gardening, and Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces.

Month-by-Month Gardening in *insert your state's name here* These are great books written for each state, and separated into different types of plants. It tells when to plant and what to plant for your area, and shows you what type of maintenance should be done each month. Great resource.

Also, check out your state's agricultural exntension office...they probably have a website with tons of free info and publications for home gardners. Just google your state's name and 'agricultural extension'.

[gardenschooler]

Another thing about the corn (in addition to what Kristine said) is that I've found I get twice as much if I put some extra effort into enriching the soil. You don't necessarily need a *huge* block, but to get enough to freeze and last awhile, you would. When we plant corn, we plant just one small block, and get plenty for our small family, but it's all ready to be harvested at once.

You also have to plant your corn sort of deep, and not in terribly loose soil, so that the stalks don't blow over in the wind once they're tall. And you might need to keep a lookout for racoons and crows. Our dog scares them off here. :) Another thing on planting - we plant them sort of close together and then thin them out once they've sprouted. If they're too far apart, they won't pollinate. If they're too close together, it will decrease the harvest. And plenty that we've planted go mysteriously missing, despite the dog staying on watch!

So it's rewarding in the fact that it's fun for the kids, but not necessarily the best use of space. I think it is very educational for them to actually grow their own, though! It's pretty neat to see those tassels and little ears growing. Dd9 planted a 'Three Sisters' garden last year (corn, beans, and squash, all together), and got a decent yield. We did squash instead of pumpkins because of space.

Lettuce is super easy, as has already been mentioned. You can also plant your lettuce to be in a shape or a border around something else, or even initials!

But it's the same thing as with the corn - ready all at once. These kinds of veggies are generally recommended to the home gardener to be planted in successive plantings - a little more every two weeks or so. Of course, if you did that with corn, you would need a whole field!

If you want something that keeps on producing, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and beans will just keep on going.

For our tomatoes, they're always in a small space, because we grow them upright (using tomato cages). Enriching the soil, rotating the spot where you grow tomatoes, and making sure they have plenty of sun are very important - in other words, not where they will be shaded by the corn! (or sunflowers, for that matter). We plant basil and marigolds nearby (sort of underneath, but these don't like to be shaded, either, so sort of in a circle around the tomatoes).

There are some great kids' gardening books on the market, but I would suggest you also get a basic 'how to' to know what to be on the lookout for. You will save yourself a whole lot of trial and error. Have fun!

[momo4]

I second lasagna gardening and square foot gardening. I also like this one. I am a novice gardener too, but these books make the most sense to me.

How To Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine

[Doran]

The Square Foot Gardening book is a really good way to plan and start a garden. The book (latest edition is supposed to be best) is available on Amazon.

This book has lots of fans. I've personally never used it, but I've heard so many good reviews about it that I would heartily recommend it. I just had too big a space and too much required from it to go with this idea. :)

I would not recommend corn. While it may be fun for your kids to see it grow, each plant produces only one ear (or maybe it's two?....either way not much!), and in order to have more than a meal or two out of it, you'd have to succession plant it. It's also among the trickier things to grow without using pesticides (corn ear worms are hungry little critters!). JMHO.

Things that are usually easy to grow and fun for kids that you might want to consider:

Spring plant:

VEGGIES
radishes
green onions
lettuce and salad greens
sugar snap peas

FLOWERS (plant late spring):
Pansies (buy plants)
Love-in-a-Mist (seeds)
Zinnia (seeds)


Summer plant:

VEGGIES/FRUIT
cucumber
tomato - esp. cherry types
squash - summer or winter varieties
pole beans - Blue Lake is a decent variety
heat tolerant lettuces (Romaines/Batavians)
cantaloupe or muskmelon

FLOWERS
Sunflower (seeds)
Marigold (buy plants)


You can repeat some of the spring plants late summer for a fall harvest if you live in a place that has mild falls. Radishes grow quickly (30 days) and lettuces will continue to grow until the nights get too cold.

The book will guide you through. Just do what you think you can handle, even if it's just one "square". Have fun!

Doran

[Claire]

Anybody else have any more suggestions for a gardening flop like myself? What are some of the easiest veggies to grow? Fruits? Flowers? Sunflowers sound like fun.

Here are a couple of tips I have found useful for seeds. For beans and peas, I pre-soak them in water so they germinate faster once they are in the ground -- usually about 4 hours to 24 hours. There is also a powder you can buy that helps ensure they thrive. If I have the powder, I just roll the damp seeds around in it before planting.

For small seeds, I love this method. Find a plastic top from a container that has a shallow rim. (Deli containers, ice cream buckets, etc. all work fine.) Thoroughly wet and wring out a paper towel, and place that inside the plastic top. Scatter the seeds on top of the damp paper towel, making sure that paper and seeds are all below the top of the rim. Wrap the whole thing in saran wrap. Check every day to see if they have sprouted. Once they sprout, carefully plant into a small container of soil.

Oh, and here are some of the easiest plants to grow. Peas and beans, because the seeds are large and easy to handle. Also, they usually grow like weeks as long as they get water and sun. Just be aware that if you buy the types that need staking, you will need to gather brush (for shorter pea varieties) or some kind of pole system (for beans). Gardening stores carry relatively inexpensive bamboo poles that you can stick in the ground to make a teepee (tying them together at the top). Sunflowers and marigolds are easy.

IMO tomatoes are easy if you just read up on them a little before planting. Buy an inexpensive cage at the gardening center for each plant and install the cage right away to give the tomato plant support. You can even plant a tomato in a garbage bag of soil (plant sticks out of a hole in the side) and hang it (but you need a wand on the end of your hose so you can water it every day). You can get very imaginative with plantings.

For the small container of soil, there are many inexpensive options. What I usually do is purchase a small bag of starting medium at Walmart. I get out some small paper cups (water drink size), stack them, and ram a sharp pencil through the bottoms from the inside to create a hole to let excess water escape. I tamp soil into them, and use them as my starters. When ready to transplant outside, I just peel off the paper cup.