I want to start a veggie garden but I have never done it before..help?

[Dar]

Quote:
maybe I will just till everything and add my mulch/chicken poo and then cover with a tarp for the winter to bake everything...

I know my mom and aunt always cover their plot with a dark plastic to keep moisture in and to bake it to speed up the breakdown of the organic matter and it keeps the weeds frm getting a hold so that they can plant earlier in the spring

my mom and dad and aunt have had veggie gardens for years but this my my first attempt at it

 

[woodmort]

OK I'd suggest, if at all possible, to get someone to plow it under first, then rototill it but if that isn't possible just rototill the heck out of it--tossing the sod shouldn't be necessary and will cost you nutrients, just till it in good and most will decompose over the winter. The first couple of years you'll have a few weed problems but if you keep at it you'll get them out--half the enjoyment of a garden is getting out in the sunshine and getting your hands in the dirt. Given that it is fall and you live in Ontario, I'd take the 2-yr old as well as any new chicken bedding and rototill that in good as well. By spring it will be composted enough to enrich the soil and help the plants. BTW, I'm a great believer in using black plastic sheeting to mulch the garden--it warms the soil, keeps the weeds down and holds moisture. I even cut holes in it and plant my potatoes in them so I don't need to hill or weed them.

As far as the choice of plants.

Asparagus needs a couple of years to become productive. It does not do well in weedy areas so I'd suggest giving your garden a year of weeding before planting the roots. Mulch the bed well once they have come up--wood chips are best. It will then take about 3 years before you dare harvest any, 4 to 5 before it is really going to be productive.

As far as beans are concerned, I prefer bush but have friends that go for pole beans since they take up less room. Pole beans do, as a rule, take longer to produce but produce over a longer period--I take care of this by make successive plantings. I would suggest adding nitrogen-fixing bacteria inoculant this first year since you're planting were beans haven't been planted before. Once the bacteria are in the soil there is not need to do it again.

Beets and carrots are fairly easy and can be planted early. Unless you have really deep soil, I suggest "half-long" carrots. The last few years I have been using "pelleted" seed for both carrots and lettuce--this allows better spacing of the small seeds. There is a drawback, however, there has to be a lot of moisture present so the clay coating dissolves or the seeds don't germinate. Keep in mind that beet seed contains multiple seeds so there is no way to space them, they will have to be thinned once they get up fairly well. On the other hand the thinned out seedlings are excellent greens, both cooked and in salads.

Garlic is best planted in the fall--I'm about to plant mine if Burpee gets the bulbs to me and the garden dries enough to rototill. The bulbs start in the fall then grow through the spring and summer. They are harvested in late summer.

Onions can be grown from sets or plants put in in the spring. You probably live too far North to consider seeding them in unless you're going to start them inside first. I generally buy plants but they come in fairly large bunches of 150 or more, since I have a big garden this isn't a problem. If you're going small go with a half pound of sets or plants you find locally.

With peppers I have found the best producing are a variety called Ace. They are extremely reliable, produce early and are plentiful. Otherwise it is a crapshoot. I have good years and bad using most other kinds. Again you'll have to buy plants so local dealers will probably have what works best. If you're going to plant both hot and sweet, keep them separate or you may be in for a spicy surprise.

Potatoes should be started from certified seed potatoes bought from a gardening store, not the super market type. This will keep diseases out of the garden. As I said, I plant mine through plastic but if you want to hill them that's fine. Just don't plant them too deep and hill them too high. (Actually when I started my asparagus plot years ago I planted potatoes there first--the hilling and digging kept the weeks down.) Keep in mind too that potatoes take up a lot of room depending on how many you want. I generally plant less than 5 pounds of seed and they take up the second most room in my garden after the winter squash.

Squash is best planted in hills in sheets of black plastic and allowed to spread. I'm assuming you're talking winter varieties--butternut, acorn etc--that will need all summer to develop. Check the seed catalogs for "bush" types which don't need as much room or plant near the edge of the garden so they can run off onto the lawn. Most summer squash--yellow and zucchini--can be found in "bush" types that use less room. The same is true of cucumbers if you are considering them.

When buying your tomato plants get them locally to avoid adding late blight to your garden. Again, given you locale, select early varieties. I am sure the local plant places will have a good selection for your area.

I've been veggie gardening since I was 6 and will turn 73 in 2 weeks. My current garden has be in the same spot for 49 years. It is great exercise and the produce makes for healthy eating. The hardest part is limiting yourself in both size and number of varieties. As you go on you'll add and eliminate varieties--I long ago gave up on sweet corn since it takes up so much room, the coons got it before I did and I can buy it locally cheaper than I can grow it. Order a few gardening catalogs and drool. Oh yeah, chickens and gardens don't mix that well so fence them out until the end of the season--once the garden is done then let the birds in to clean it of pests and leftovers.

 

[Dar]

WOW woodmort

Thanks so much.... a lot of thing you suggested I never thought of...

I have 2 sides of my yard that I can use I was going to do the winter squash and tomato's in a separate plot but not together.. both of those dont need full sun, I have a great location... the area to the west of my house I have full sun from 7am to about 4-6 pm (depending on how early or late in the season).. the area I have on the east side of the house I get sun from about 10am - 4 - 6pm..

each of these areas are about 40`long by about 20`but I know thats wayyyy to big I was thinking of about 10X20 each side to start.. I want nicely spaced out rows to allow the wagon or wheelbarrow down easy.. so I will only have really half of that for a workable garden... and i can make them narrower the following years if i need/want too

 

[PepsNick]

This year I paid absolutely no attention to my garden and it was the best-grown yet. I got a ton of yummies. Maybe that's the trick

 

[woodmort]

Quote:
You're welcome. Living where you do your growing season is about like ours with the exception that the Lake probably holds back the frost a little--we're south-east of you but close to the Catskills so figure to be frost-free from the last week of May until the first week of October but I cheat using row covered hoop houses to start and extend the season.

 

[MyBlackHen]

Hi there, it's great that you are starting a vegetable garden! You have gotten a lot of very good suggestions. A couple of other thoughts:

- have you considered doing raised vegetable beds? Raised beds are frames of wood (usually) that sit on the ground and are filled with a good topsoil/compost mix. Benefits include better drainage and warmer soil. Warmer soil might be good for you since you are so far north. Also, because you are not walking all over them, the soil doesn't get compacted. We have clay in our soil so the drainage stinks and the soil gets compacted. Raised beds have worked very well for us. You can do some things in beds and some things straight in the ground.

- compost pile. Do you have one? If not, this is a great time to start. Your garden will love it! You can add your chicken poop, grass clippings, kitchen scraps (stuff the chickens won't eat), and more.

- start small. I planted a huge garden a few years ago doing the method that you are about to try - we rototilled the ground but we did it in the spring and then planted. Big mistake! We just aerated the weed roots to help them along! It was difficult to keep it weeded and I ended up only maintaining a small portion of it. Starting in the fall is definitely the best thing to do, but starting small is also helpful, so that you can focus your energy and ensure success.

- don't overwater or overcrowd. This is something that I have learned the hard way. Many plants, once established, only want to be watered twice a week. Also, you need to try to not get the leaves wet (some people use a drip hose so that the water goes straight to the roots). Overcrowding the plants can make this problem worse. The plants can develop different types of mildew problems. If you know this up front, maybe you can plan your garden with a watering plan in mind.

Good luck!

 

[halo]

When I wanted to capture a bit of my property for a garden, in order to kill weeds and grass, I got a lot of newspaper and cardboard, and covered the area I wanted with that. I have a lot of old hay, so I covered the newspaper and cardboard with old hay, and some old horse manure, and just let it sit. The cardboard/newspapers and mulch killed the grass and weeds and added a lot of organics to the soil. When I plant in it, I mulch really heavily to help keep weeds down and moisture in. Heres a link:

 

[Dar]

Quote:
I do have a compost .. kinda.. we have a huge pile at the back of the yard that all the chickens bedding has gone into for the last few years... the scraps... but i have never worked it or turned it

 

[SourRoses]

I was planning on doing a garden this year, but it just didn't happen

I plan on starting one in spring though.

So I'm not experienced, but I did a fair bit of research. The best site I found, had a big section on composting, and it's actually how I ended up here at BYC as the chicken people were using the bedding for their compost.... anyway, here it is Main Compost there is a lot of plant specific information.


If I were you, I wouldn't kill myself digging those grass and weeds out, I would do as I found suggested on that site and start some raised beds. They just throw down cardboard and/or many many layers of newspaper... then cover with your composting material.. then give it the fall/winter to break down. Covering it with the plastic is a good idea btw. Don't forget that once the material has broken down, you will have a lot less than you started with, so you should really heap it up, and you may need to buy compost/soil to build it up in time for spring.

I like the idea of composting worms. They do wonders for the soil in terms of their castings, benificial bacteria, and soil aeration. Plus if you end up with too many (and they are conveniently mostly confined in the raised bed scenario) you have chicken snacks!!


I think that a couple of large, rich beds will yeild far more than shallower plantings. I hope your garden does well, and mine to!

 

[IRChicken]

What parallel do you live at?
I live at the 40th parallel. Any plants grown along this line throughout the world can be grown by me.
Why? Because the 40th parallel receives the same amount of sunshine across the globe.
This is the theory and practice of Elliot Coleman, promoter of the Four-Season Harvest, operating his year round farm in Portland, Maine.

Raised bed gardening is what I use, specifically the Square Foot Garden method promoted by Mel Bartholemew.
For the beginner this simplifies the process, reducing complications and making the planting easy to visualize and keep record of.
A no dig no till garden that is simple and requires few tools. I modified a little by using a digging fork on the underlying surface before covering with the raised bed.

Another type of garden is the French Intensive method as promoted by John Jeavons in
How to Grow More Vegetables: Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine.
His method, now called the Bio-Intensive method, is based on French intensive growing techniques developed in the 1800's.

For techniques and principles you will not find any greater teachers than these three, exception maybe for Masanobu Fukuoka.
I would suggest starting with Elliot Coleman and Mel Bartholemew then later expand into John Jeavons.
Elliot Coleman based his ideas from the French intensive garden techniques modified for commercial production. His ideas are common sense adaptations of this method.

For a seed resource try, "Garden Seed Inventory", it is a resource about all seed suppliers in the U.S.

Cheers