Completely new to gardening, advice?

[Empera]

Okay, okay. Hi everyone! Super brand new to TEG, and found it through BYC. First let me tell you all a little about myself.

I'm currently 17 years old and live near Seattle, Washington. I love animals, and have tons of them. Not all of mine, but.. I have 2 dogs, 3 cats, 2 parrots, 2 mini rex rabbits with a litter of 11 , 3 baby goats, 11 chicks with 15 more coming in July, 4 ducklings, 10 full grown chickens, and some fish. Whew, it's some work to take care of them all. And good experience for becoming a vet.

I've always had an interest in gardening, but never the adult influence to help guide me. Plants must hate my mother because she kills anything green that enters my house and is still alive. I live on a plot of land that is about 1/3 acre. My boyfriend and I have decided to start a vegetable garden in my backyard because I think it will be fun and very rewarding.

I guess I'm in zone 7a? I'm not sure. Yesterday we had a friend of a friend come use his rototiller for free. It was super nice of him, since he spent about 2 hours out there.

Here are the veggies we are going to begin our first garden with:
-Carrots (Long Imperator #58)
-Peas (Little Marvel Dwarf)
-Pumpkin (Big Max)
-Yellow Summer Crookneck
-Early Prolific Staightneck
-Cocozelle
-Burgess Buttercup
-Zucchini (Elite Hybrid)
-Lettuce (Great Lakes #118)
-Radish (Sparkler)
-Beans (Contender, Bush)
-Sweet Corn (Early Sunglow Hybrid
-Celery (Tall Utah #527OR)
&& The upside down hanging tomatoes.

So I'm lost. Of course the back of the packets say when, how, etc. Can anyone give some much needed advice on anything? I don't know where to start and what to ask and what I need to know.

 

[lesa]

Hi! You are going to have so much fun! You can do a lot of research, but really gardening is not brain surgery... If your soil is good, you should get a decent crop. I guess one piece of advice I would offer, is to surround your garden with fencing. It does not need to be expensive or fancy. If you don't, you will loose an awful lot of hard work to the critters in your neighborhood. The other thing I would suggest is to spend a few minutes each day, really looking at your plants. This way if you have a problem, you can catch it early. If you see a pest problem- you can hand pick, before things get out of hand. This is your first year, so think of it as an experiment. You will do really well with some things and not so well with others. I loved the idea of the upside down tomatoes. Just remember that they have to be hanging away from walls, trees, etc. I had mine hanging on the deck next to the house, it was doing great- and then we had a windy storm and the bucket bumped up against the house and broke the plant right off!! Also, as a fellow chicken owner, I will remind you that chickens and gardens do not mix. It will take about a day for your chickens to ruin your garden- make sure they stay separated! There is nothing quite as exciting as growing your own food- Enjoy!!

 

[Empera]

Also, as a fellow chicken owner, I will remind you that chickens and gardens do not mix. It will take about a day for your chickens to ruin your garden- make sure they stay separated!

Oh, I completely know what your talking about. We are putting up 4 ft. fencing around the perimeter (forgot to add that). The chickens and ducks have their own seperate living quarters which is rather large and they have plenty of space. I don't let them roam freely (I wish) due to the cats, raccoons, and dogs we have running around here.

Thanks for the advice! The hanging tomatoes are that "Topsy Turvy" thing from the TV commercial. I have it away from anything it could hit or anything like that. I just hope to get nice tomatoes.

Someone suggested putting a bean in the top so the nitrogen produced would help the tomatoes?

 

[lesa]

You know what I mean about fences! In the fall my chickens got into the garden and dug up all my "special" order organic garlic. Scream! They have such a good time, it is hard to be mad! The bean in the top sounds like a great idea. The only downside to the topsy turvy, is they need to be watered a lot. Not much rain will get in there...We had beautiful tomatoes on ours- until the crash! I don't know if you like the flavor of basil? I LOVE it! It is very easy to grow. It smells delicious and tastes wonderful. Completely different than the dried stuff in the market. If there is any herb, you are fond of, they are very rewarding and easy to grow...Make sure you take pics and keep us posted on your progress!

 

[jlmann]

My advice for you is to just have fun with it. It doesn't have to be perfect and I always enjoy "experimenting" with different ways of doing things. With a lot of things in the garden there is no right or wrong way to do stuff - you just have to find what works well for you. Good luck!! and have FUN!!!!

 

[laurenlulu]

I found this website which has a really good tool for finding when to plant everything where you live- it breaks it down by week, and lists what veggies go in then. Thats the hardest part for me, knowing when to plant

http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/color

 

[farmerlor]

If this is virgin ground you might want to get a soil test, though it's getting a little late in the season to get it back in time to tell you what you need....but anyway, virgin soil....your biggest problems are going to be whether you have enough nutrients in the soil and WEEDS. You might want to consider putting some weed barrier cloth or mulch between the rows to cut down there.
Those upside down tomatoes need a lot of water and fertilizer. You should easily be able to get two or three crops out of your greens so try to plan an area where you can plant a few weeks after the first planting and when you're finishing up with the first planting you can start eating the second planting and plant the third planting where the first one was.

 

[digitS']

I say that my garden is measured by the foot - my foot .

You can use a tape measure or a yardstick or you can use - your foot . It kind of "personalizes" the garden, don't you think? After you have an idea of what's out there in the yard, you can even scale it down to a piece of paper, if you want to.

Get lots of stakes and a hammer. I also use rocks or a little pile of rocks. These things will help you keep track of your seed, if nothing else. After all, that seed is going below ground . . . out of sight! When they pop up, you'll need to figure out which is a weed and which plant is a vegetable.

Landscaping books talk about outdoor "rooms." My gardens are sort of blocked off into squares and rectangles with certain things growing in each. For example, the sweet corn is growing in one or two of the blocks, or will be.

I have salad veggies growing in another block. So, that's my salad garden. Come to think about it, the beds in there are 4 foot wide rectangles but this little area is a triangle. Well, its a "room" even if it only has three sides.

It is probably still too cold for you to do anything other than plant your lettuce, radishes, and carrots in your salad garden. Peas can be planted early too and they could go in there, especially since you don't really need a trellis for that variety. Wait a minute, you are in Seattle and peas like it there. Maybe you'd better build some sort of a short trellis or fence for the peas to climb on. That would mean those seeds have to go somewhere that fence won't be in the way.

Just start planting the seed by the packet instructions and see how far you can go. It's nice to have salads on more than just a few days so you may want to plant your lettuce and radishes one-half or one-third, at a time. But, the amount of seed you have will give you an idea how large your salad garden will be after you've got all that seed in the ground.

Sometime over the next few weeks will come a time for those warm-season crops. It won't take many seeds for big plants like pumpkins, winter squash, and summer squash to lay claim to a big part of your garden. Be sure there's room for your beans and corn.

If you've still got room - plant more beans and corn in a couple weeks . . . and then more a couple weeks after that.

Here's an Organic 101 from Seattle's P-Patch gardens. They've got some good info on "Planting, Spacing, Rows & Beds, Soil Prep, Sowing Seeds, etc. And, those folks are right there in your backyard - well, almost in your backyard.

Steve
Have fun !

 

[Empera]

Wow, thanks everyone.

Jeez Steve, you wrote a novel to me haha. But I appreciate the help. I'm not going to take anything TOO seriously, but I do want a good successful first crop.

Lauren, I tried to find what "color" I am but I'm not 100% sure. Haha. I believe I'm yellow or orange?

 

[HunkieDorie23]

Congrats on becoming a gardener. I am planning on having my daughter plant her 1st garden this year, she is 3. She has already placed seeds into cups of dirt in the house.

I am 40 and have been gardening for years. I learn new things every year. The best advise I can give you is to learn the Serenity Prayer and say it everytime something goes wrong.

Last year I lost some corn to coons, we had a county wide fungus that ruin everyone tomatoes and cucumber and melons. So we were able to harvest about 1/3 of what the plants should have produced. This kinda stuff happens every year so don't be discourage. Change what you can change, accept the things you can't and enjoy the fruits of your labor. OK this is a little different then the one hanging on the wall but you get the idea. It is sooooo worth the work.