Anyone doing a vegetable garden?

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2004
Anyone doing a vegetable garden?
19
Tue, 01-10-2006 - 2:48am
Hi, everyone. This may be a dumb question, but actually, I got to thinking about it. Several years back, you could rent a small piece of land near university and grow own vegetables, corn, etc. One friend back home actually grows a lot of vegetables in the summer months and shares her cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, whatever, with neighbors. Does anyone still do this to save money? I have been thinking about trying to garden a little--nothing fancy, but things like cherry tomatoes, beans, squash, etc. Does it really pay off? Whiz.

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 01-10-2006 - 6:11pm

Thanks Whiz! I have another gardening question-maybe Heather will know the answer. We have a mole or moles in our yard....yes, we've had wasps, yellow jackets, mice in the house and now a mole or moles are digging all over the yard. Obviously this will be a gardening issue. Any humane suggestions?

Taleyna

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2005
Tue, 01-10-2006 - 6:54pm

Last year was my first experience with a vegetable garden, and I'm planning on expanding it somewhat this year. Right now it's about 2'x4'. We had tomatoes a peppers, and sage parsely and basil. I won't be doing sage again, althought it did well, we almost never used it. The basil and parsely we used ALOT. This year I'm going to do snap peas and maybe some beans.

My neighbor and I shared our gardens and shared watering responsibilities. She grew a few mixed lettuces and spinich, which produced all summer. That saved me so much, because I like to have salad daily, and love all the different textures.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 01-10-2006 - 7:10pm

Sorry, I've never had moles so I don't know how to deal with them. I know other organic gardeners do have trouble, and I haven't seen a cure-all solution posted. I know for individual plants you can often cage the roots to prevent mole damage. I've also heard that they don't actually eat roots, just dislodge them. There are some things you can plant that they don't like the smell of (daffodils, I think?? Maybe garlic? I'd have to look it up), and you can surround your garden plants with these to prevent mole damage.

That's the full extent of my understanding of moles. Sorry it's so puny. And sorry you have that issue. Good luck!

Heather

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2004
Tue, 01-10-2006 - 7:43pm
Hi, Heather and Pat, also. I want to give big hugs to you both for your ideas. What about beneficial bugs and worms? I also want to put in flowers, ground cover, etc. Dumb Q---do you go "buy" ladybugs, earthworms, etc. for the garden? We have lots of snails, so I pour beer on them (I dont drink beer, occasionally DH does), or vinegar or soapy water. The soil is brick-hard (no grass), so I am planning to water a little first. What about zucchini? Any luck with it? Whiz.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2004
Tue, 01-10-2006 - 7:49pm
Hi, Aerandel. I enjoyed reading about your grandparents' garden. It brought back fond memories of yellow tomatoes, white sweet corn, etc. I am still on my diet (20 lbs and hanging on!) so I want to incorporate a lot of veggies. I eat soup and salad every day at work, so I want to be able to also grow stuff for these meal items, or make home-made sauces, soups, etc. It is also a way to get in some exercise! Have to start saving $$$ for this, but you all say it is inexpensive. Soooo--do I order the seeds and plant indoors first, or just start outside? Whiz.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 01-10-2006 - 8:10pm

Hi,

About your brick-hard soil. If not even grass will grow there, you may need to do more than just water to get it started (sorry!). I was assuming you were starting with basically average soil, but severely compacted soil needs to be broken up a bit before you start. So, a tiller might not be a bad idea--or you can just turn the soil a bit with a shovel. The rest of my advice remains, but I worry that if you have brick-hard soil, the worms won't be able to get through it to begin work on your garden.

As for buying beneficials, I've been tempted from time to time. But the bottom line is, if your garden is not a tempting place for beneficials to live, they won't stick around to eat your bad bugs anyway. And if it *is* a tempting place for them to live, they'll come for free. Basically, they need water, shelter, and food. You can provide those things by planting a good variety of plants, mulching heavily (most insects will shelter under mulch or in some sort of greenery), avoiding pesticides and herbicides, and making sure your soil stays moist. It also helps if there is a wild or semi-wild area nearby for them to overwinter and/or shelter in, or to seek food when your garden doesn't provide enough.

Snails: don't pour beer on them. The way the beer trick works is you place a shallow dish of it, they come to drink, get drunk, fall in, drown (unfortunately, it will collect beneficial bugs too, so it's not my favorite method). Pouring the beer on them won't drown them. If you want to pour something on them, you can pour salt, but you'll have to collect the little buggers first and place them in a dish (salt is VERY bad for your soil--never pour it directly on, as it's nearly impossible to rid the soil of). Alternately, you can collect them and snip them with scissors (ugh! But I know people who do it this way). To collect snails, set out a dish of water and visit it around dusk. Likely, you'll find them congregated for a sip before they head out to forage.

There are also plants that snails don't like that you can try, or you can put a spiky mulch (rough wood chips, sharp stones, etc.) around your plants, and they won't be able to cross to your plants. You can even just rim the garden with something spiky--like glass shards in cement, a miniature alcatraz--to keep the snails and slugs out. Don't know that I'd want to lose my balance around such a rim, though.

I've had terrific luck with zucchini. Some people get squash vine borers which can devastate a crop and are difficult to combat, but I think you are unlikely to have trouble with them at least the first few years (and after that, you'll have some experience under your belt and can work on ways to combat them). They have to find the crop and reproduce to sufficient population levels before they become a problem.

The best thing you can do for your garden is to build a healthy soil, water appropriately, and provide a diversity of plants to support a wide variety of lifeforms. These things will help your plants fend for themselves, and will attract the beneficial armies you need.

Good luck,

Heather

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Wed, 01-11-2006 - 8:33pm
I think a vegetable garden is a great idea, wish we had more space to garden here. One idea I had that I didn't see mentioned was your local County Extension Office. Many will test your soil and provide free resources on what will grow in your area. You might want to check this out to get the most bang for your buck if you plant a garden this year.

Proud sister of a Marine:

Photobucket

Avatar for skinny42
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-12-2003
Thu, 01-12-2006 - 3:08pm
I'm doing one for the first time this year. I have grown herbs and tomatoes before, but this is a much bigger endeavor. A fellow I work with has very limited space and sun, and my yard is huge, so we're kind of going in together on this big, cooperative garden. We're going to plant like 16 different vegetables and 10 different herbs. He is a much better expert than I am, so I'll learn a lot, and I'll have fresh seasonal veggies and herbs from about March to late fall. I'm very excited!
Avatar for endomagazine
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-09-2004
Mon, 01-16-2006 - 3:17am

Hello,

I'm not the most spectacular gardener, but we have several vegetables that spontaneously grow well in our backyard, so this year I'm planning to actually nurture them. The dog ate some spaghetti squash seeds last year and "planted" them. He also did the same with tomato seeds. So, every spring, the squash plants sprout and give us a few squashes before wilting. The tomato plant does the same. I'm hoping to weed out the squash plant, since it produces more than we can eat in a week. The tomato plant will be transplanted to a sunny corner.

I took a suggestion from an earlier post and bought some inexpensive seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom (www.rareseeds.com). Total price came out to $19 including shipping & handling.

I'm going to plant the following:

Vegetables:
Cucumber - Lemon Cuke
Chef's Choice Mixed Greens - my husband loves exotic salad greens
Rocky Top Lettuce Salad - another salad green type
Squash - Winter - Jack Be Little - these are the tiny pumpkins you see at markets
Tomatoes - Purple - Black Cherry - little tomatoes yum!

Flowers:
Job's Tears - makes natural beads
Sunflower - Teddy Bear - I love sunflowers and this is a dwarf plant
Sunflower - Mexican Sunflower - something pretty to hide our plastic fence

Sincerely,
Lindsey Schocke

My Little Trick: Make $800+ a month:
http://2-b.us/?i=33800/ivillage

Sincerely,
Lindsey Schocke

Geeks on Tap: Mission Accomplished

Pages