Missouri Gardening - Help Please?

[mickey328]

If you have a fence of some sort, you can plant peas up near it...they'll happily grow and climb right up it. If not, you can put some chicken wire for them to grow on.

Raised beds are excellent...they can be as long as you like but shouldn't be more than 4 feet wide...that way you can reach clear to the center from either side, and you don't have to actually walk in them.

Something you might want to check into is Square Foot Gardening. You can get an amazing amount of food out of a really small space using that system. If you live near a library, they may well have a copy you can borrow; it's well worth the read!

Don't be afraid to plant some flowers and herbs in amongst your veggies, too. Marigolds are great at repelling certain pests and look pretty as well. Just remember not to let them go to seed though or you'll end up with a yard full of them, LOL. Basil and garlic are great planted among tomatoes...garlic keeps a lot of pests away and makes pretty flowers too. I have garlic all over the yard, near the tomatoes and roses as well...had a couple heads from the grocery store that started to sprout so I took the cloves and just walked around shoving them in the ground, LOL.

 

[jbirds2012]

Generally, you want to plant a week or so after the last frost date. We typically plant around Memorial Day. Most vegetable use only the top 4 inches of soil or so. Things like beets and carrots are usually planted as seed, so they can go in a bit earlier than more tender plants. Spinach likes colder weather and is also a seed, so it can go in earlier as well. Broccoli is generally bought as a started plant and can tolerate cooler temps as well. Onions are usually bought as "sets"...little bitty onions, basically, and they can go in reasonably early too. Tomatoes are very susceptible to frost, so make sure you're well past the frost date before putting them in. They can be started by seed, but I find it easier to just buy plants. The tags on the plants will tell you how many days it will take for them to be ready to pick. I usually put in at least one early plant so we have some to eat earlier on. They need regular watering or they will develop blossom end rot, so even amounts on a regular basis are needed. They love the heat too so make sure they get plenty of sun. Squash is hardy but tends to vine and take a lot of room so space them a good distance apart. Green beans come in two varieties..bush and pole. The bush variety grows about 2 feet tall, but the pole variety is a vine and needs something to climb on...like corn stalks, sunflower stalks or a pole or stake. They can grow to 6 feet or more.

I've never grown sweet potatoes, but regular potatoes need a fairly light soil. They'll grow in clay but are a pain to dig out of it without wrecking them. Mulch them well so the soil doesn't get too hot...the plant part likes the sun but too much heat in the soil will kill them.

Missouri is in zone 6 and 7 which is really conducive to just about any sort of veg you want to grow. Check the labels on the plants or the backs of the packages of the seeds and you'll find a lot of information there.

We never plant corn...it just takes too much space and needs a LOT of water...I find it just easier to buy it at the farmers market when it's in season.

Are you planning on canning, freezing or dehydrating at all, or just planting for fresh eating? Remember that most things will all come ripe at about the same time...I mean all the beets you put in at one time will be ready to pick at the same time...that sort of thing. If you just want to fresh eat items, it's a good idea to make staggered plantings eg plant a row of carrots or two, and 2 weeks later, plant another row or two. Oh, and carrots and beets and other seeded starts need to be thinned...if you leave all the seedlings growing where the seed fell, you'll be disappointed because none of them will have room to grow properly.

If you've never had a garden before, now is a great time to start preparing for it. I assume you have grass now? If so, you can simply cover the area you want to use as a garden with cardboard or several thicknesses of newspaper and throw some soil over it to hold it in place. The lack of sun will kill the grass. In the spring you can remove the covering and either dig or till the soil to a depth of about 4 inches. It sure beats trying to dig out all that sod by hand!

If you don't have a compost pile, now is a good time to start one as well. Come mid summer or early fall, you'll have some wonderful fertilizer to put back into the soil of your garden.

You can also plant all sorts of stuff your chickens will eat as well. Any leafy greens are good for them and as a rule they love them. Chard, spinach, lettuce, beet tops, carrot tops, sunflower seeds, they love the seeds from cukes and squash as well.

WOW you are incredible !!! can i call you mom ?

 

[mickey328]

LOL...call me anything but "late for dinner"

 

[cousin dave]

This is late reply but hopefully still in time. Some things I have learned.... Corn needs about six rows at least eight feet long to self pollinate. carrots need a bit of sandy or looser soil than what occurs where I live in eastern MO. however mixing radish seed in with your carrot seed, in a broadcast seed bed, will give the required thinning, as the radishes mature faster than the carrots. Zucini loves MO. watch how much you plant because everyone has some and is hard to give away. Plant potatoes on St. patricks day, harvest on the forth of july. plant garlic in sept. Tomatoes grow very well here, consider growing enough to make juice for winter. Sweet potatoes require a lot of room for vine growth, ( a 25 foot row ended up thickly covering about 35 feet, 8 feet wide. Consider green beans, pole or bush.
Think about a rain barrel, we generally have some extended dry periods over summertime.
Hope this helps, by the way? what part of MO. are you in?
cousin dave

 

[mdbtalon]

Those vegetables you chose should grow fine in MO depending on your soil (since you are using raised beds this should not be an issue). I would also add that if you like things like peas, broccoli, spinach, carrots they can be planted earlier in the year for good results (up to a month before expected last frost date). Things like lettuce can also be planted a couple weeks before expected last frost date. If you wait too late for crops like these they will burn out early in the summer heat.

Only thing I would caution you against with your plans is the corn. Especially for new gardener corn can be frustrating to grow and requires quite a bit of space in order to get sufficient pollination. Most people I know that try out corn still end up buying it at the farmers market....