veggie growers - first garden
boyohboyohboy wrote: help i need gardening 101 class! this may sound so stupid, but i would rather sound stupid and get it right then end up with a mess for all the work I am putting into this garden. we have a 10 foot square area we are planting in..we dug it down a foot and then put plastic down and added soil...then I am at the stage now to plant potates, tomatoes, onions, spinach, thyme, sage, carrots, peppers. and a seperate area for watermelon (the kids picked that one). anyway, when i plant the tomato seeds do i put that wire round thing over where the seeds are or do i wait to do that until they have grown up? and am i forgetting anything else?
sparkys2boys replied: I'd wait until they strat growing and you may not even need the cages at all. Have you added some peat moss or manure to you soil? It really helps! GL with the garden!
grapfruit replied: I have a brown thumb. I'm just saying GL!!!
PrairieMom replied: You put plastic under your soil? like under where you are planting your plants? I have never heard of that. I am no expert, but I would think that it would keep your roots from spreading where they need to and possibly make it so they can't support your plants. As for tomato cages, I would wait until your plants need support before you bother putting them up.
Hillbilly Housewife replied: I've always put the cage up before you need to... because it's just easier... lol but you dno't have to.
Watermelons need LOTS of room, they spread down on the ground, and should have a few feet around each plant, same with squash.
If you want to save room, plant potatoes vertically, like in a barrel or something. Like tomatoes, any green part of the plant you cover up with dirt WILL root and strengthen the plant... and your barrel or whatever will continue to produce the potatoes the higher up the plant goes. I used old tires, stacked. But I DID paint them with latex paint, to make them look "pretty"...
Carrots are a pain to plant, I find....and since they take so long to grow... we usually pick them as baby carrots. We get more out of them, since we plant them spaced out, timewise.
Onions also take forever to grow, they won't be ready until late fall. (in our zone, anyways.)
Peppers are fairly easy... thye need a fair bit of space, too. As for the color - yellow orange and red peppers are just a different stage of maturity than green peppers. Green peppers are the earliest, and so the most often picked... then I'm not sure of the order they change color... at least that's what i read on a couple gardening sites a while back.
I don't plant herbs in my gardens..because they're prone to overtake them. i keep those in containers. actually, last year I also grew our spinach in containers.
Not sure how you're starting your plants out, I get the impression yuo're going to just spread the seeds and then thin them out afterwards? I use peat pods.
Good luck!
boyohboyohboy replied: what is a pea pod?
boyohboyohboy replied: this lady here told me that since the soil that was down was full of rocks and nasty, (our home was just built and there are construction materials all over,) that it was best to put the plastic down to keep the plants from getting into anything bad.. so i just thought that was how you kept your plants from being "contaminated"? should we poke some holes in the plastic? the ground is just clay and rocks. and apparently prior to that there was some kind of pond there, i worry about the chemicals that might be in the ground..
i can see where i need to back up before we plant...
coasterqueen replied: Tara said everything I was gonna say.
PrairieMom replied: huh. I don't know. I guess it depends on if you are going to be organic gardening, and how serious you are going to be about it. I post to an organic gardening site, I will post your question and see if they have any ideas. Our soil here is really all clay and rocks too, but I have never heard of putting plastic down.
boyohboyohboy replied: well maybe i should skip that part, and not lay down the plastic. i cant say i was looking to do it organically, just wanted it to be healthy with all jakes allergies, i try to be careful. thats the main reason for the garden is him. i will watch for your post about the plastic. its raining today so we cant work on it anyway.
PrairieMom replied: Well, if you are going to use fertilizers and all that anyway, I don't know why what ever is in your ground would be much worse, ya know? and then there is the argument about chemicals that could "leach " out of the plastic you put down... so I don't know. They are really serious organic agrdeners there, they have discussions about fertilizers like we have about breast feeding! LOL.
I posted your question, and will keep checking, that board is way slower than this one tho, so it may be a while. I guess that is the difference between old granny gardeners and young mommies.
coasterqueen replied: We have clay soil and can't get anything to grow well in it - that is why we went with raised beds to grow our veggies in. If you are worried about what is in the ground, etc why not go with something like raised beds? Then you can start it out fresh with organic soil and know that what you are growing WILL grow (since it's not in clay soil) and in a healthy manner.
PrairieMom replied: Here is some advice:
I would not have put down plastic as some of the plants would need to grown down farther than the foot she dug up. Also the plastic will trap water and possibly waterlog some of the plants. too much water at the roots can make things like carrots and potatoes rot instead of grow.
Instead she should put down 7-10 layers of newsprint to keep out any weeds that might be down that far in the soil. THEN put the dirt back and go from there.
I am guessing that she is in a warmer climate as most people up this far start their tomatoes indoors. They can be started direct from seed but they will take a bit to get growing.
As far as the tomato cages, I would wait on them until the plants get growing (and then I would grow them "up strings" - but that is me).
Hillbilly Housewife replied: Peat pots are just little pre-bought planter type things... you start your seeds off in them and then transplant them directly into your garden later.... Same idea as half a toilet paper roll or whatever.... they're just filled with peat moss, so they retain water.
boyohboyohboy replied: ok, so yes the idea behind the plastic must have been to keep the weeds down.. but i think i am going to forget about plastic. then what is a raised flower bed? how do you raise it? is there a certain type of soil to buy. i went to lowes and saw there are tons to pick from. how do i know how much fertilizer to use? and should i start to grow any certain veggie inside first? or can i just try it outside? this is my first garden and first plant ever!
lisar replied: Well I am no expert but I do have a veggie garden growing like crazy right now.
thyme, sage needs to be put somewhere else. It cant go in with the veggies and no plastic under these. The water HAS to have somewhere to go they dont like to be soaked.
As far as the tomato cages I put them up when the plants got to be about 4 inches tall.
I have never heard of anyone putting plastic under the garden though. Maybe for a flower garden but not a veggie garden.
boyohboyohboy replied: was there a reason that the herbs cant grow with the veggies? i thought i would put them in there own seperate area but in the same bed..and if they cant, can they go in a large pot? i got two large planters for out front of the house, so they could go there....
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