Never had a garden....where do I start???

[pjkobulnicky]

One more thing .... potatoes

Potatoes are trivial to grow with almost no effort and fresh young potatoes, gently washed (cause the skins are very fragile) steamed, served with butter or buttermilk or yogurt, etc are one of the best, and nutritious, things in the garden and will remind you of eating sweet corn.

Pick a sunny spot. Turn over the soil. Put some manure down (any kind, even rather fresh is OK). Put your potato eyes down facing up about 1 foot on center and then cover with about 6 inches of old leaves, compost or natural mulch of any type. They will grow like crazy. Keep mulching throughout the year as the plants grow. You can harvest some young potatoes when the blossoms all fall off or leave them go until the plants die down for full sized potatoes. DO NOT let the potatoes get to light as they are growing (actually it will be because the mulch that you put down originally will decompose and settle down to the level of the potatoes) ... keep them freshly mulched. When you harvest for storage keep them cool, dry and DARK.

BTW ... I buy locally grown potatoes (which are usually cheaper in the store than national brands) and use them for seed rather than spending a lot on formal seed potatoes.

 

[SewingDiva]

There is lots of good advice here, so I'll add just two:

1) Grow what you like to eat
2) Many veggies are attractive plants in their own right and look pretty mixed with flowers in a potager garden. My faves are swiss chard, kale, cabbages, lettuce, peppers, herbs and squashes.

Tomato vines, othe other hand are not really that pretty...as much as I love my heirloom tomatos they are always in the back!

~Phyllis

 

[aquarose]

How exciting! Actually my first garden was in Queens, which is also one of the five boroughs of New York City. (In addition to Manhattan, where I lived before Queens, and was dying for a little earth to call my own). My yard was about as big as a postage stamp. I had such fun though. Being small, it was very manageable. So I think Pat's advice about starting small, you can always get bigger later, is very good. Also, get yourself a Burpee's catalog and a Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog. These can be very educational about planting times, zones, etc.