Beginning veg gardening for cheapos?

Sorry about your back. I've injured mine a few times and suffered a lot with pain and even numbness in my feet. I found a very simple set of stretching exercises, nothing strenuous, really helped.

I won't be digging in the garden for awhile yet. We just got a foot of new snow today. I have started tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants under grow lights but they'll have to wait until June before its safe to go outside permanently.

 

I'm also sorry to hear about your back. By all means, don't worry about double digging for the corn unless you're very sure about your back. The corn will do Ok, but if you injure/screw-up your back... that's a life long problem. Sorry, I'm sure you know that.

As to the grass.... Ah, yes - weeds... one of the big three gardener's enemies (weeds, disease & bugs). Definition:weed - a plant growing where you don't want it.
There are as many ideas for controlling weeds as there are weeds, or gardeners, or stars in the sky, or some such thing as that. Most organic approachs center around mulch (organic & inorganic) and cultivation. There are others as in some "No Till" gardening systems.
In my opinion one of the basic things to keep in mind about weeds, disease & bugs, is that when we plant gardens we are also creating perfect places for all three. When we improve the soil we are creating a better place for almost all plants to grow. And when we group plants close together we are making it easier for diseases & bugs to survive and thrive. The ancestors of most of our modern food plants did not grow together in clusters. An insect eating a, for instance, tomato plant might have a hard time finding the next tomato plant. By grouping plants together (a garden) we are creating an abundence of easy to get to food & that can lead to a population explosion. Same goes for diseases, the further apart their host plants are, the harder it is for diseases to spread. The closer, the easier.
Sorry about the old hippie gardener rambling there, just a little of my personal gardening philosophy.

Things have been the usual, run-of-the-mill, crazy here. I'm still planing to send you some more seeds so don't worry about the hot peppers too much, there's plenty of time. They really like very warm soil for germinating & some have low percent germination rates and take a while.

Peace and get well soon,
poor_old_dad

 

Right on... thanks for the advice on the corn - I have that part all dug except for the pathway area to form the "U" shape. So I'll just single-dig that area. Other than that, I just have the last few feet of the east row to finish (where the cucumber and hot peppers will be going)... My back feels mostly better now, but you know how that is! I don't want to be going full-speed yet, for fear that I'll just make it worse. But hopefully in a few days I'll be able to finish that part of the project.

My seedlings don't look to hot. We've just had a bit of a cold snap, and though I brought them inside I don't know if they'll recover. The sweet peppers, maybe the tomatoes, and *maybe* a couple of the zucchini and cucumber plants might be allright. but most of the zuc's and cuc's are looking pretty sickly. Ah, well, I suppose I can always try again! If any of these are salvageable, I'll keep them around and transplant what I can. And I'll start new trays of just about everything to be on the safe side... (and to be on the REALLY safe side - I went down to the co-op the other day to check on what they had, and they do have some reasonably-priced young plants that were grown locally without chemicals. So I could even buy a couple of those to tide me over....)

I'm trying not to worry too much about the weeds. I know that to a certain point I can't stop it... (and like I said, it'll probably get a little better every growing season we stay here) Every couple of days when I go out there to water everything I'll pull up what I can, and that helps. Nature knows how to take care of itself, I figure, but it's just as worried about the welfare of the grass and bugs as about that of my peas! As for bug control, the only thing I've thought of besides planting marigolds was ladybugs. I know you can buy them somehow (need to look into it, still...) and people around here have said that aphids get really bad in this area.

 

Yeah, I just looked at your weather forcast. The young ones need to be indoor pets for the next few days. Looks like tuesday of next week ya'll will be back out of the freezer again.

As to the co-op plants, I've used them in a few places over many years and have found them to do very, very well. And there are good things to be said about trying things from different sources too.

Peace,
poor_old_dad

 

buy some potatoes and put them in a dark cupboard until they start growing shoots then plant them in the ground at around april or may and then in autumn dig them up and tou wil have many many potatoes

 

I sometimes start squash indoors but only about 2 weeks before transplanting them outdoors. They don't seem to like having their roots disturbed.

I save some potatoes every year to replant. To get them to sprout shoots I put a few apple slices into a bag with the potatoes and keep them in a warm sunny place about 1 month before I plan to pant them outside. The apples give off ethylene which stimulates shoot growth. Banana skins will do the same thing. When the shoots are a couple inches long I cut the tubers into pieces, let these dry a couple of days, and then plant. Its worked for me for years and I get about 75 to 125 lbs of potatoes every year.

I use lots of hay and straw mulch on my gardens to keep down weeds and conserve water. Some I buy but a lot I cut myself. The mulch is anywhere from a thin layer to over a foot thick depending on the type of plant.

 

Don't put much faith in Marigolds, around here they are a favorite of the snails and earwigs and usually the first things eaten. Proper water and air circulation will do more for the health of the garden then anything else. Don't over or under water, don't over plant. When I was first gardening I read a book by Ruth Stout I think it was called something like "Gardening without a Sore Back". She recommended mulching for weed control, and she used things like newpaper, old carpet, lawn clippings...mulch is your friend.

Over the years I come to think of birds as my best line of defense against obnoxious insect pests. By putting out feeders during the winter and keeping a little food in them through the spring and summer, I find they get most of the worst little buggers, and toads too. I never disturb my toad friends when I come acrossed them. And hey having the birds around is a gas. I love to watch their interactions.

 

Hello helpful people! It's been a while since I've checked in here, thing's have been hectic and I've spent every spare minute I've had (which isn't much, and not nearly enough!) in the garden.
I've got a few updates and questions about what I've got going already, and a few things I've already figured a better way to do (for myself, I mean). In the garden, the lettuce and radishes are coming along great. I've been munching on fresh garden radishes for a couple weeks now, and now that the lettuce has come into it's own we've had salads for a few days as well. I finally managed to plant the corn, just a few days ago, and I haven't seen anything of it yet. I chose a "honey and cream" hybrid, I hope that was a good choice! The peas are coming along well, also, I think, but I'm unsure.... I thought they might die, actually (and some of them did) because of the freeze we had a couple weeks ago, but many of them seem to have recovered well. Somehow I had thought snap peas grew lower to the ground though... I didn't realize they would want to climb and I didn't put anything there to support them. It seems like they're hanging on to each other and dragging themselves down. I'm not sure if I even still can install anything like a trellis this late in the (pea) game, and I'm not sure what would even work for a wide row like this. I'm also not entirely sure how much more growth to expect... How long will it be before I start seeing pods?
The potatoes also have me scratching my head. I didn't know how fast they'd grow! I don't think I dug the trenches deep enough, I'm already built up even with the ground and they're probably about a foot high! I don't want to pull too much dirt from other parts of the garden, so what should I do? Should I buy some kind of hay or mulch and cover them up most of the way, or am I supposed to let them go and grow up now anyway? (It seems silly to allow for more leaf development, and if I cover them up then those stem/leaf areas get turned into more of the root system, right?

My little seedlings didn't fare so well, but I should have at the least a few sweet peppers, a couple/few zucchini, and a few cucumber to plant. None of my tomatoes made it. I plan on getting new peat pots and trays and starting more seeds soon, but in the mean time I think I'll buy a few plants of everything to keep things moving.

Next year... I think things will be much smoother. Having everything laid out and planned ahead will help I'm sure. First of all, I'll have everything dug already, and I'll just go through and turn the soil and prepare everything at once. Is it safe to use the same basic layout plan two years in a row? I know, with corn especially, it can be an issue, but the way it is seems so good! I want to do the taters like you said, in chicken wire or something above ground, external. I was thinking in it's place onion and/or garlic would be great. To do that, I would plant in the fall, and mulch over it well, right? The other thing I thought of is really just a common sense thing that occurs to me now that I'm experiencing gardening, not just reading about it... since the lettuce takes longer to mature than radish (but neither seems to really take space away from the other) I'll start planting the lettuce ahead of time so they'll be ready around the same time. And I'm sure I'll get a lot more of everything planted and healthy in the future.

OK.... I'd better head out there and water before I get on with my day.

 

Hey radishes are a trip and one of the quickest easiest things to grow. Enjoy. I like radish and butter sandwiches. Many things require certain minimum temps and number of hours of daylight to do really well. These are things you will learn as you continue to garden.

Remember you can plant more radishes off and on through the growing season, not just once.

 

Do they continue to do well this late in the year though? I planted two of my garden sections with the lettuce and radish, because of hurting my back, etc. setting me back time-wise so much. But I did like P.O.D. recommended - planted half of the bed at a time, with lettuce and radish, and the other half about a week later. After that I started the next section and did the second half of that one about a week later (so it was four weeks of planting all together) But I haven't planted anymore because by the time I was able to work out there again I thought it was too warm.

Any ideas about the potatoes? Should I leave them as they are at this point or cover them with something else?

 

Radishes are so quick I plant them like five times during my growing season.

I've stopped trying to raise potatos around here, it's too hot, but the most success I ever got from them was using the old tire routine. If you have access to cheap straw go ahead and try it. You're going to get some little taties from your efforts, but there are a few places in the world with the right soil types and climate that can really make a go with them.