I have found a place to build a garden this year. I won't get into what my dh did to my last garden. Anyways, I've not much experience when it comes to growing vegetables. Any one have any advice or hot tips on growing veg's. I've searched the web but that's not personal tried and true so if any of you have a green thumb, what are you growing, how do you weed, feed, etc...I am starting on peas soon although it still gets below zero here mabey I seeded to soon? I don't know. I will do carrots and beans for sure. Mabey something else if I have room.

I have a green thumb when it comes to growing indoor plants, but outdoor stuff I feel a little lost, and have lost alot of outdoor vines etc..(waisted money).Thank you!

By Momaroze on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 04:46 pm:

Below zero at night that is, maybe to -1. The woes of posting. The ground is very workable.

By Colette on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 05:20 pm:

Some vegetables can be started now, even if it's cold outside. Peas and spinach are a few - although sub-zero is a little to cold - is that farenheit?

By Momaroze on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 05:24 pm:

No, celcius. Mabey I should start spinach soon too. Thanks.

By Coopaveryben on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 05:38 pm:

I have always grown up with a huge garden....huge. I am doing pots this year. I know what grows good here and when to plant here but I think I would be scared to say since the climates are so much different.

I always liked the Farmer's Almanac, it says when to plant for each area and some other helpful advice.

By Gammiejoan on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 08:58 pm:

I am doing container gardening this year, something I've never tried before. So far I have planted radishes and a mixture of greens. Within the next few days I hope to get some spring onion sets. In another couple of weeks I will probably do some tomato and cucumber plants. I am very excited to see how this project turns out. I am setting the containers on my patio out back.

By Tink on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 09:35 pm:

The whole time I was growing up we always had a garden and Mom put the kids in charge of the tomatoes and zuchini(sp?), Italian squash, because she said they were hard to kill off. I have no idea how they would grow in your climate and I know its too soon to plant them if its still below 0 occasionally. Good Luck!

By Jewlz on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 10:32 pm:

we just put in the ground broccoli and peppers and tomatoes and oh my corn and onions and a whole lot of things .. but we been averaging uumm 75 to 95 for the last month ... sorry im in southern calif ... i cant wait to have a mater sandwhich fresh from the garden

By Mommyathome on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 11:36 pm:

Still debating. We have a huge yard and lots of places to put a garden, but not sure I want to tend to it all summer. I'm also considering container gardening. Would love to hear from anyone that has done it before

By Paulas on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 12:29 am:

Okay..it's snowing today so I don't even want to think about it LOL

By Momaroze on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 08:36 am:

It gets a little below0 late at night on occasion so I think peas for a start will be o.k. and if not I have tons more peas I can plant later. All trial and error. We have such a short growing season here. I'm in a rush to start. I will do some container gardening for sure. Lettuce, onions stuff like that. If you don't mind watering often, container gardening is a great idea and no /or hardly no weeds to deal with. For zuchinni I am going to throw a huge mound of dirt and manure down and plant there. I may put something down first to repel the weeds then go ahead with the dirt. That is about it for me. I have an area almost weed free (old goat and sheep pen) so I'm hoping I won't have to tend to it that often over the summer. My last garden was full of weeds, forever weeding but this new garden should be great to work in. I'm excited too, can you tell LOL.

Container gardening looks so beautiful when everything is green and growing. Let me know how it goes for all you container grower gardeners out there.

By Colette on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 09:10 am:

I just heard of a great tip to use to keep weeds out of a veg garden is landscape fabric. Till and rake your soil, roll the fabric out, mark on the fabric which plants are going where, cut a "X" or "0" for the plants and plant them, at the end of the season, just roll the fabric up to reuse next year. I've used it in flower beds but never thought to use it in the veg garden.. I can't wait to get planting...

By Momaroze on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 10:15 am:

Colette, that is right. I rushed to get my peas in but that is o.k. not many weeds in my garden area. I want to expand a little further as the garden is a little too small. Lots of weeds next to it. Landscape fabric will work great for that area.

By Cat on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 04:19 pm:

No garden for us. We live on 1/10th of an acre so there is no room. The boys do want to plant something though, so I will find a big half barrell or something and do pumpkins (that's what they really want! lol) and maybe some lettuce and carrots or something small like that. A few weeks ago Randy wanted to plant some pepper seeds from a bell pepper I was cutting up. I've never grown peppers from seed (we always got small pepper plants when I was growing up--my parents had a HUGE garden) so I wasn't sure they'd grow. We put some in a small (8") plastic pot with potting soil, and I've been taking it outside when the weather's nice (like today) and bringing it in at night or if it gets cold. Well this morning there were a bunch of little sprouts coming up! Randy was thrilled his peppers are finally growing! I'll probably have to thin them out (just dumped the seeds in) but that's okay. We'll have a whole bunch of pepper plants. Wonder if we'll get any good peppers.

By Texannie on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 04:47 pm:

Our garden is the produce section of the grocery store. I would like to have some tomato plants though.

By Annie2 on Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 02:29 pm:

My father had a huge garden and many indoor plants. He also dappled in fruit trees. He wanted to be a botanist but became a dentist instead.
I can only grow kids and not plants. I don't even try anymore. I have one Christmas cactus which is hanging on but I have no idea how.

By Babysitbarb on Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 03:15 pm:

I grow a veggy garden every year but, last year I was so lazy with it and didn't take very good care of it. I usually only plant Tomato's, cucumber's,and zuccini. I use to plant a huge one and I just never had the time and energy to take good care of it. I do plant a lot of flowers though and that is more my specialty.

By Tink on Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 05:06 pm:

Annie- I even managed to kill off the one cactus we've had. I watered it too much! lol Good luck to those of you that are gardening, I am so jealous of your green thumbs1

By Echo on Friday, April 16, 2004 - 04:03 pm:

We plant a mid-sized garden every year (in South Jersey)
As far as weeds go, I've never tried the landscape fabric, but it sounds good. I swear by Preen. (which wouldn't be good if you were going for an organic garden) but if you're like me and don't care, it's great. It works by inhibiting seed development so hardly any weeds ever grow. It also will work on your veggies too, so you would have to scatter the Preen after all seedlings have emerged, or use seedlings that are already established. I use it once in the begining of the season and it lasts the whole time. I think I only had to pull about 20 weeds total last year. If you're interested you can get it at a Garden Store. Some even come with fertilizer in it.

By Momaroze on Friday, April 16, 2004 - 06:53 pm:

OH MY GOSH ECHO! My ds and I said it at the same time AWE what a cute baby. My ds (he's almost 7) said you have the cutest baby ever. I have a 5 month old ds. Can't wait until he is a little older, he is just begining to bloom!!!

Thanks for the gardening tip!

By Echo on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 10:10 pm:

Thank you for the wonderful compliment. Good luck with your garden. I'm starting mine tomorrow.

By Ginny~moderator on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 06:30 pm:

I've used the fabric weed block and it is wonderful. For a roughly 15 x 20 foot vegetable gardening, I got by with about 2 hours of weeding a week using the weed block. (Some weed seeds just land on top of the fabric and put their roots through.) My mom, who always read all the hints in Womans Day, got the plastic coated wire hangers and cut them approximately in half, ending up with 2 v shaped pieces of some size. We'd overlap the weed block fabric about 4 inches and use the coat hanger pieces as anchors, shoving them cut end in so they were close to the ground. Otherwise, a good wind will pick up the edges. Just till and fertilize your garden patch, lay out the weed block fabric, and cut an x wherever you want to plant something.

I did mostly garden growing of veggies, but what is great for container gardening is the mix of leaf lettuce or, I think it is called meuselix. We had three large containers, about 2 to 2-1/2 foot square. We filled the bottom 2/3 with old pantihose filled with the foam squiggles to take up space and provide drainage, put some of the weedblock fabric on top and then put in the soil. We put the containers on little platforms with wheels so they could be pushed back into the shady part of the driveway when the sun was too hot. I planted the containers about 10 days apart and I'd go out and cut leaf lettuce for our salad, and as one container was cut down I'd reseed it. We had leaf lettuce for our salads most of the summer this way.

My mom bought a rototiller for us, and I must say it was the best investment she ever made. Our soil here is mostly clay and was planted with zoysia grass, and the rototiller made it possible to really till the soil fine and add in whatever we wanted, with a minimum of muscle work on my part.