Please give a newbie advice - UPDATE p6

[FlyingBlueKiwi]

I'm trying to get a plot in a community garden for this coming year. I won't know until late February if I've got it, but have been offered space in a friend's yard if not.

Please tell me exactly what a total beginner might need to know (I was not raised around gardening)...from what type of tools, to seeds, to care, etc.

Some info:
-we live in a condo that has heavy shade from trees on it's window side...our patio and windows get almost no direct sunlight, so starting things in containers may be tough (dh has tried to get some things to grow, with no success)
-the garden space in the community garden is an organic space, about 200 sq. feet (which seems like a lot to me).
-we are interested in planting a few flowers, but mainly things we can eat.
-a big purpose of this is to involve DS (age 7) in the process. We HS, so can garden during the day.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

[Macky]

You're asking a HUGE question there. That's like asking, "I'm new to parenting. Please tell me everything I need to know in one thread." ;)

Congrats on getting some garden space! :cheer You're going to have so much fun!

I'll ask a couple of questions first, so that I can simplify my long, overly wordy answers. :)

Is the community garden plot established or is it brand new? Is it in-ground or a raised bed? Are you trying to get started will very little cash or do you have a comfortable amount to work with? Most importantly, what does your family really like to eat? Is there anything you're specifically keen on growing because it's hard to find or expensive to buy where you live?

Seeding, growing and care of plants differs according to the plant, so we have to decide what you want to grow first. :)

Windows are probably the worst light sources for growing sturdy seedlings, so don't worry about that. If you're really keen on starting some seeds indoors, we can walk you through setting up a proper grow light for them. My seedling live in our basement.

You can garden 200 sq.ft. with hand tools, no prob. :tu

You'll each need some really good gardening gloves first of all. My favourite are the stretchy kind that fit snugly and look like the palm and inside of the fingers have been dipped in rubber. The snug wrist keeps dirt out, the coating protects you from all but the worst thorns and and snug fit still leaves you enough dexterity to pinch small weeds and seed medium and larger seeds with your gloves on. Get at least two pairs each so you can have a dry pair when the first gets wet or too muddy. They wash very well.

If you're going to be working the plot entirely yourself, you'll need a good, sturdy fork and spade (http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=64727&cat=2,64944&ap=1) (not suggesting these products, just a visual expample). You don't need a shovel (scooped with a point on the end); shovels move soil. Spades (straight and somewhat more flat) and forks work soil, which is what you need. Flat fork tines vs round are personal preference, ime. If the community garden turns the soil in all the plots with a rototiller in the spring, you can probably get by with just an average spade (no urgent need for a fork) for digging modest holes and such. You should only need one spade (and one fork, if applicable) to share.

You and your son should each have a trowel of your own, though, and a hand cultivator if possible. You can buy sets like these (http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=45136&cat=2,51810&ap=1) fairly cheaply. I wear out my trowels pretty regularly and have actually found that my cheap ones last longer than my expensive ones. Go figure. The key for me seems to be finding one that has a really strong neck between the blade and handle, regardless of price.

Buckets and/or trugs are fairly indespensible. How many and what size you'll need depend on what you need to haul. You can use them for harvesting, too.

How will you be accessing water? Does the community garden supply hoses and such or do you need your own? I won't blather on about watering until you reply on that one. It would be good to have your own large watering can regardless, though. They're handy for spot-watering or spot-fertilizing plants that need an extra feeding once in a while.

You'll need stakes and string to mark your seeded rows (or squares, I suppose, if you go that route). A good long tape measure, a sturdy set of hand pruners and a knife are all super handy, too.

Gosh, I'm going blank now. I think the rest will depend on what you're growing and we can address that when you reply with what you want to grow. :)

---------- Post added at 11:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:17 PM ----------

Since I see your location there, I googled "gardening in Maryland" and found numerous links to your local university. Here are a couple of them:

http://www.hgic.umd.edu/content/vegetable.cfm#APRIL

http://growit.umd.edu/GardeningBasics/index.cfm

[FlyingBlueKiwi]

Congrats on getting some garden space! :cheer You're going to have so much fun!

Macky - thanks so much for replying. :heart I'm sorry to take so long to reply. Long replies tend to be high anxiety for me, and so I've been waiting to update until I knew whether we got the plot or not (there would be a lottery if demand exceeded supply).

:lol We finally GOT the space two days ago!!! I think it opens the beginning of March, and have an email in to find that out.

Is the community garden plot established or is it brand new?One year old. It also may be the last year for this garden, as the school system that allowed the community garden to use the land (behind an unused school building) may be re-opening the school in 2013. :no

Is it in-ground or a raised bed? in-ground

Are you trying to get started will very little cash or do you have a comfortable amount to work with? Define "comfortable amount" ;)

Most importantly, what does your family really like to eat? Is there anything you're specifically keen on growing because it's hard to find or expensive to buy where you live?Definitely tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, carrots a few herbs, some lettuce. Squash and turnips. A small number of pumpkins for fall. My husband would like beans and potatoes if we have the space, which it seems like we will.

You can garden 200 sq.ft. with hand tools, no prob. :tu 200' seems like such a large space to me!!!!!

You'll each need some really good gardening gloves first of all. My favourite are the stretchy kind that fit snugly and look like the palm and inside of the fingers have been dipped in rubber. The snug wrist keeps dirt out, the coating protects you from all but the worst thorns and and snug fit still leaves you enough dexterity to pinch small weeds and seed medium and larger seeds with your gloves on. Get at least two pairs each so you can have a dry pair when the first gets wet or too muddy. They wash very well.Excellent info!!! I'm cutting and pasting info like this into a printable document!!!

If you're going to be working the plot entirely yourself, I'm going to be the main person, with some help from ds, and dh will probably get out there once a week.

How will you be accessing water? Does the community garden supply hoses and such or do you need your own? When I was there, it looked like there was a shared hose. I chose my plot based on closeness to the water tank, but it's still about 30 feet away.


---------- Post added at 11:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:17 PM ----------

Since I see your location there, I googled "gardening in Maryland" and found numerous links to your local university. Here are a couple of them:

http://www.hgic.umd.edu/content/vegetable.cfm#APRIL

http://growit.umd.edu/GardeningBasics/index.cfmExcellent...thank you!!! :heart

[Macky]

:lol We finally GOT the space two days ago!!! I think it opens the beginning of March, and have an email in to find that out.

:rockon

Definitely tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, carrots a few herbs, some lettuce. Squash and turnips. A small number of pumpkins for fall. My husband would like beans and potatoes if we have the space, which it seems like we will.

Much of what you listed there can be direct-seeded right into the ground. :tu You have a couple of choices with the rest.

This being your first year, you may want to not start your tomatoes and peppers yourself indoors, as excited as most new gardeners are to do so. You'll have your hands full just getting into the garden itself and getting used to tending plants. Go ahead if you really want to, of course, but if it might stress you out, it's okay to buy bedding plants at first. Some long-time gardeners still buy bedding plants for some things. Tomatoes and peppers get leggy really easily indoors unless you have the right artificial lighting setup. You want nice, stout plants. When you go to the greenhouse to buy your plants, don't necessarily buy the biggest ones. Buy plants that don't look too big for their containers. You want strong and stocky more than height and size in bedding plants.

Carrots: Easy to grow, sometimes challenging to germinate. As a general rule, the smaller the seed, the more shallow you sow them. Some seeds – like carrots – are barely covered. The trick is to keep them close to the surface, but at the same time, not let them dry out. I plant in-ground exclusively and don't give special treatment to very many things, but with carrots, I carry a bucket of peat moss and cover them with that instead of soil. The peat holds moisture better and keeps the top from crusting, which my silty soil is prone to do. They get sprinklings of water multiple times a day to keep them moist. Some people actually cover the row with plastic or sacking, but you have to be attentive and take it off as soon as you see sprouts so they aren't crushed. Once they've germinated, you're home free pretty much. Thin them when they start crowding each other. That's it. Carrots are easy after that!

Lettuce: Seed looks a lot like carrot seed and is sown in much the same way. They germinate faster and easier than carrots, though. Thin when necessary and pick often; most lettuces will keep growing if you just harvest the outer leaves. Lettuce tends to "bolt" when it gets hot. Some are more prone than others. "Bolt" means the plant suddenly decides the end may be near and it should send up a seed stalk. In the space of one afternoon, your lettuce can go from sweet and crisp to bitter and tough. Some people use shade cloths in the summer, but if you live where it can get really hot, it's better to treat it as just a cool-season crop.

Turnips: Another root crop that can be treated much the same as carrots, though the seed is a little bigger and germinates easier than carrots. Root veggies in general typically dislike rich soils. Too much nitrogen causes hairy feeder roots to grow on the main root. All they need is their soil loosened as deep as you can, sufficient water for good growth, no weed competition... and not really any more than that.

Summer squash (eg. zukes, etc.) and winter squash (eg. pumpkins, etc.): You can buy bedding plants for these, but as they dislike transplanting (they have a long tap-root that is quite fragile and easily broken) and are easily sprouted, people tend to direct-seed them and they do just fine. Plant two or three seeds in the same spot (spaced out a couple of inches), then you're covered if one or more don't sprout. If more than one germinate, pinch off all but the sturdiest-looking plant (don't pull and disturb the roots of the plant you want to keep). Squash sends out HUGE vines. I had some on a bush pumpkin (yeah right) last year that were 30 feet long with giant leaves. Read the description of the variety you buy and honour it fully. These are monster plants! Summer squashes can be trellised, but winter squash tend to be bigger and heavier; just let the vines sprawl on the ground.

Beans: I would suggest making room for beans. They fill the freezer faster than any other veggie from our garden and are one of the vegetables where you'll notice the most dramatic difference in taste between garden and store. Green beans come in all shapes and sizes. Yellow beans are smooth and extremely tender. Most purple beans turn green when they're cooked (entertaining for the kids). Bush beans are super easy to grow; plant them in rows so they can support each other and be easier to pick. I plant about 120 feet of row (roughly 360 plants) for our family of four green bean lovers and that lasts us nearly a full 12 months, fresh and frozen. I'm just getting into pole beans and have yet to construct a trellis that can support the mature weight of these things. I'd recommend bush beans for a newbie; they're much easier if you just want to grow and not get into construction. :giggle If you do want pole beans, scarlet runners attract hummingbirds like nobody's business. We never saw hummingbirds here for years; then I started planting runners and suddenly we had an explosion of these gorgeous little creatures. Apparently they're attracted to the red flowers. I had one feeding about two feet away from me when I was picking one day. It was awesome. :cool

Potatoes: I was never a fan of potatoes until I grew them. The taste is entirely different from a potato you buy in the store. They even cook differently (much faster). We don't get complicated with potatoes. Plant and forget pretty much. Hill them a couple of times so the tubers (the potatoes) don't push up above the soil. When potatoes are exposed to sunlight, they turn green and develop a natural poison called solanine. If this happens, you're perfectly safe cutting off the green portions and eating the rest of the potato. Hilling is meant to prevent this, though. The green parts of the plant above ground will flower in the summer and the tubers start to develop after the flowers start to die off. You can dig up baby potatoes any time (poke your hand under the dirt and feel around), but if you want them to fully mature, wait until the plant itself starts to die off. The longer the "days to maturity" of a particular variety, usually the longer it stores. Leave them until they're mature, then dig them up and let them cure in the shade for a couple of days before bringing them indoors to a cool basement. A 5-lb bag of seed potatoes plants a lot, so see if you can maybe share a bag with someone.

Getting late... better sign off now! You're going to have lots of fun!

[FlyingBlueKiwi]

Ok, here's the latest:

-have been reading the UMD site, as well as a book that is specific to Mid-Atlantic (MD, VA, DE, DC) gardening. Based on this I have ordered a ph test from Amazon, which should arrive in a few days.

-just found out that I will be receiving an email sometime between now and March 1st that will give me the security code to get into the garden.

-the book and UM site suggest applying organic fertilizer in late February or the first week of March. I will probably try to borrow a spade and fork for this (there is no roto-tilling), as I would like to try to pick some equipment up at yard sales, which don't really start here until late March.

-two other things I would be very interested in planting, as I love to eat them, are broccoli and melons. I realize melons may be tough if I can't start them indoors.

[FlyingBlueKiwi]

UPDATE 2/28 We've gotten out to our plot twice so far. I was only planning to take a look around the first day (2/23) and perhaps do the ph test, but DS being 7 :giggle we had to do some work. The plot seemed in pretty good shape. It looks like it was planted in a previous season, but not last season. On Day 1 we - using only DS' kid tools - pulled up a bunch of old weeds (temporarily moving them to the edges of the plot), and turned over the top 2" or so of soil. Incidentally, the usable space is more like 12' x 7.5' (90 square feet) than 200...I don't have a clue where the 200 number came from, because even with every inch of unusable land, it's more like 14' x 9'. We also did the ph test, which was roughly 6.5 for five different spaces across the plot.

I had trouble finding any yard sales this early, so I gave in this past weekend and bought a few inexpensive tools (spade, hoe, rake) at Walmart. :bag

Today we went back. The weeds we had moved to the edges of the plot were trying to re-root, so we put them in a trash bag, as I am still awaiting an answer re on-site composting. We also dug up a bunch more weeds. DS and I turned over about one-fourth of the usable plot with spades. We'll probably do the next one-fourth tomorrow.

One the first half is done I will add half a bag of the garden-tone I was recommended locally, along with a bag of local organic leafgro humus. We'll probably get the second half turned and fertilized either later this week or early next.

The water will not be turned on until 4/1 to prevent the lines freezing. Today we brought a few gallons just to moisten the newly turned-over area which was very dry. We'll probably do the same each time until the water is turned on.

My main goal between then and when the water is turned on 4/1 is mainly to keep the weeks to a minimum and periodically turn the soil. Maybe at the end of March I will lay out a few rows. I am thinking six east to west (widthwise "rows") with walking space in between. Is 12" too little for walking space?



[QUOTE=Macky;4451889]:rockon
Much of what you listed there can be direct-seeded right into the ground. :tu You have a couple of choices with the rest.

This being your first year, you may want to not start your tomatoes and peppers yourself indoors, as excited as most new gardeners are to do so. You'll have your hands full just getting into the garden itself and getting used to tending plants. Go ahead if you really want to, of course, but if it might stress you out, it's okay to buy bedding plants at first. [/QUOTE}

No, we are not starting anything indoors. We don't have any sunlight at all. We'll either do plants or seed outside. I did find a nice local nursery with a very helpful owner. :)

Macky, I'm going to be closely reviewing your advice over the next couple of weeks as DS and I layout our garden plan. :heart:heart:heart I may periodically post questions, if that's ok?

[Macky]

two other things I would be very interested in planting, as I love to eat them, are broccoli and melons. I realize melons may be tough if I can't start them indoors.

I'm quite adept at growing broccoli, but melons take a lot of work in my zone and thus I just don't bother. :shifty Some of the other ladies here might be able to help you more with the melons. :)

When you go to buy your broccoli bedding plants, you really want to choose the smaller (but still stocky and healthy) plants. Brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, etc.) will "button" when they spend too long root-bound in pots. Buttoning means that regardless of how lush and healthy the plant may grow, it will form a teeny, tiny little head and then stop entirely. Buttoning frustrates a LOT of new brassica growers until they figure out what's going on. You want to buy broccoli plants that are four weeks old or younger.

Broccoli is a cool-season veggie. It needs sun, but doesn't like excessive heat at all. It's also extremely attractive to cabbage butterflies, which start out as those little green worms that invade cabbages, broccoli and the like. Rare is the gardener who doesn't have to control these wretched things. You can stop the moths from laying eggs in the first place by using a floating row cover (http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?cat=2,2030,33142&p=10527) (best choice) or you can spray/sprinkle various concoctions on the plant itself. The safest spray to use is something called Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis); it's a pest-specific bacteria that kills the worms, but doesn't hurt beneficial insects. It needs to be used regularly (it doesn't kill eggs or adults, only larvae) and re-applied after each rain/watering. You dilute and spray it primarily on the underside of each and every leaf because that's where the yellow eggs (http://growit.umd.edu/plantandpestproblems/Insect%20Pest%20images/ImportedCabbageWorm/ImpCabworm_Egg2_1539_Raupp.JPG) are usually laid.

Maybe at the end of March I will lay out a few rows. I am thinking six east to west (widthwise "rows") with walking space in between. Is 12" too little for walking space?

I'm a little slow this evening. :giggle Is the longest dimension (the 14' length) running east-west or north-south?

Macky, I'm going to be closely reviewing your advice over the next couple of weeks as DS and I layout our garden plan. I may periodically post questions, if that's ok?

No prob, Bob. :) Just take anything I say with a grain of salt, though. I'm not local to you and I deal with different growing conditions. Always have a trusted local source of info, too. There are a lot of gardeners here on GCM, too, who may be closer to you in climate. I think sometimes that I just post most because I happen to be more obsessed with checking this board... and my winter is longer and colder (more time spent dreaming online instead of out in the dirt). :giggle

[FlyingBlueKiwi]

I'm a little slow this evening. :giggle Is the longest dimension (the 14' length) running east-west or north-south?

The longest dimension runs N-S. :yes