wanting to start a garden...

[Gonzo & The Peeps]

How hard is it to start carrots, corn and tomatoes from seed?

 

[vfem]

Well, carrot you can directly sow right into your garden about 3" apart. They prefer well drained loamy loose soil, not hard clay.

The tomatoes you should start inside now, try to get plants with at least 3 sets of true leaves before you harden it off (get it used to outdoor little by little). Then plant outside when the soil remains around 70 and the last chance of frost has past.

Corn can be directly sown too. For the best chance at germination, I let my corn seed sit in luke warm water for 24-48 hours before I plant it in the ground. Corn is wind polinated, so plant them in consecutive rows for the best chance of pollination. Usually 3 rows thick is good, or more!

Hope that helps, good luck!

 

[Gonzo & The Peeps]

Well, carrot you can directly sow right into your garden about 3" apart. They prefer well drained loamy loose soil, not hard clay.

The tomatoes you should start inside now, try to get plants with at least 3 sets of true leaves before you harden it off (get it used to outdoor little by little). Then plant outside when the soil remains around 70 and the last chance of frost has past.

Corn can be directly sown too. For the best chance at germination, I let my corn seed sit in luke warm water for 24-48 hours before I plant it in the ground. Corn is wind polinated, so plant them in consecutive rows for the best chance of pollination. Usually 3 rows thick is good, or more!

Hope that helps, good luck!

That helps a bunch! thank You! :tools

 

[bills]

Good advice from Vfem, but I might add that you may want to use a row cover cloth on the carrots. It's very disapointing to dig up your carrots and find out the carrot rust fly has been busy..:/

Tomato's are fairly cheap to buy as seedlings from a nursery, and may be a good way to start your first year of growing them. Unless you have a greenhouse or a very well lit window, starting them from seed can have it's pitfalls. Do some research on the varietys to grow for your zone, some will do far better than others.

I found that bush beans, and pole beans, were a good beginners veggie. Easy to grow, quick results, and generally good production. Wait for the soil to warm before planting the seeds directly into the garden. Soaking the beans like the corn, can help speed up the sprouting.

Have fun!

 

[lupinfarm]

PEAS are the ultimate beginner veggie! Thats why you see so many kindergarten classrooms using the peas for the "light experiment"

Beans are great too.


Buy your Tomatoes from the nursery, if you don't have the optimum conditions it can be a little difficult. I buy my tomatoes from the nursery, and I try to get the biggest nicest lookin' ones available.

 

[Ridgerunner]

As with everything else, you'll find we have different techniques, different favorites, different soil types, and especially different climates. I think gardening, especially crop and variety selection, is extremely local. And I think radishes are the ultimate beginners crop, if you like radishes. They are extremely easy to grow and they produce within 3 to 4 weeks. Your chickens will love the tops and will eat any radishes you don't want yourself. We are all different.

Carrots - I have not had problems with carrot pests other than a groundhog that likes to pull them up and a fence should cure that problem. Some people obviously do have certain pest problems. That's part of what I mean by gardening being extremely local.

I make a mound about 10" to 12" high of garden soil mixed with compost, length varies but 3 or 4 feet can give you quite a bit of carrots the first time you grow them. The seeds are tiny. It is hard to space them correctly. You can use different techniques. Some people use a seed tape, basically glueing seeds to a strip of paper while inside protected from the wind so you ge the spacing right. (You can do a search on seed tapes on this site.) Some mix the seeds with a fine sand and scatter them. Some just scatter them. I level out the top of my mound and run my two fingers about 2" apart along the top to make shallow groves, sprinkle the seeds in, trying to not get them too thick, and rake the dirt around. My goal is to bury the seeds about 1/4". I always get them too thick and have to thin them. The chickens love the tiny carrots I pull out when thinning. Be careful when you thin them as I have heard (not sure how true it is but I think it is accurate) that the root becomes the carrot and if you get the root bent when thinning them or weeding them, you will get crooked carrots. I try to keep the soil moist but not soaking wet while the seeds are germinating. I think carrots are pretty easy. The hard part to me is weeding them when they are tiny without disturbing them.

Corn - Corn needs warm soil to sprout. If you plant it before the soil warms up, the corn will just rot in the ground. Again, it is a great one to direct sow the seeds. As vfem said, corn needs to be planted in a few rows, not one long row. You get tremendously better polination thay way. I also plant mine in sequence so I get staggered harvests. I plant six or seven rows wide and 10 to 12 feet long every two weeks for 5 different plantings. This spreads the harvest out and gives me about 15 to 20 pints of corn at a time for canning plus some to eat on. Not all, but most varieties tend to ripen at the same time.

After preparing the soil, I make a trench about 3" deep, fill that with compost, then mix that up with the garden soil, then make a depression, furrow, whatever you want to call it, about 1" to 2" deep. I then put the corn in the furrow, probably 2 kernels about every 6 to 8 inches, then cover that with about an inch of soil. Others will have different techniques, but I think you will find that corn is not a great selection for a small garden. It is fairly easy to grow, though.

Tomatoes - You can buy books (or get them from your public library) on growing tomatoes. There are so many different techniques and varieties. I would recomend the first year that you get some started plants and transplant them to your garden after danger of frost is past. I would not direct sow tomatoes in the garden. Something unique aboutt your circumstances may allow otherwise, but I have trouble imagining any circumstances where you are not much better off getting plants to transplant. Many of us do start tomatoes from seed inside to get specific varieties but I'd suggest you buy some plants your first year. There are a lot of threads on here you can find about planting and growing tomatoes.

Anyway, enough typing. Glad you came over to this side.

 

[boggybranch]

I soak my seeds, before planting (I know....duh) in a kelp solution. Have noticed seeds seem to germinate quicker and the seedlings seem to be stronger than they were before I started doing this. I also spray the seedlings and plants with the solution, after they have germinated....right on through the growing season.

 

[lupinfarm]

Corn - Corn needs warm soil to sprout. If you plant it before the soil warms up, the corn will just rot in the ground. Again, it is a great one to direct sow the seeds. As vfem said, corn needs to be planted in a few rows, not one long row. You get tremendously better polination thay way. I also plant mine in sequence so I get staggered harvests. I plant six or seven rows wide and 10 to 12 feet long every two weeks for 5 different plantings. This spreads the harvest out and gives me about 15 to 20 pints of corn at a time for canning plus some to eat on. Not all, but most varieties tend to ripen at the same time.

.

With corn, would you be able to start them earlier if you had raised beds and plastic poly-tunnels on them? I've been heating up my beds with polytunnels, I did it last year and was able to plant out my tomatoes almost a month earlier than most people did.

Could you realistically plant your corn early under row covers?

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

Gonzo & The Peeps- I agree with everything everyone mentioned. Every crop, every time will have some challenges and lots of great experiences for you as a gardener. I would also recommend the beans (which can be planted amongst the corn), radish and peas as good starter crops.

If you decide to stick with corn, carrots and tomatoes I would recommend (depending on your zone) to direct seed all of them once the weather warms up since you'll *probably* have better success with that as opposed to starting indoors.

With corn, would you be able to start them earlier if you had raised beds and plastic poly-tunnels on them? I've been heating up my beds with polytunnels, I did it last year and was able to plant out my tomatoes almost a month earlier than most people did.

Could you realistically plant your corn early under row covers?

A friend of ours in Washington state plants her corn in trenches, then covers with cloth row covers (Typar or similar) and actually leaves them through most of the season until tassels appear. I would think that plastic row covers will do well but would have to be taken off much earlier.

 

[HunkieDorie23]

Haven't grown carrots since I was a child (and that was mom and dad), but corn is very easy, sow direct into your garden after about a week after the last frost date.

One trick I have learned about corn, I use stakes and string to get row straight then I would move the string and stakes to the next row. Leave the string and stakes until after the corn is about 2" high. I had had trouble with crows in the past pulling up the corn and would have to replant. Then one year I still had string over the last row because I wasn't finished planting the garden and it was marking where I quit. All the rows had missing spots from the crows except the one with the string. I have left strings across the rows ever since and no crow problems.

Tomatoes... There are lots of advise on this site and there are tons of sites on the web which is where I learned. Very easy, start indoor about 8 wks before the the last frost. Most important part, have a good light source (I use flourescents) and keep about 2-4 inches above plants or they will get leggy.