Starting a new garden plot from scratch

[easygo]

Johnny's Seed.

I second Johnny's. We have been buying from them since starting the garden. Sometimes even a year (or more) past "expiration date" the seeds performed fairly well.

 

[NorTracNY]

My deer fence is just t-post and 5' high hardwire with a single strand wire at about 6.5'. Deer will ever so often jump it. They also have sometimes failed to clear it. I have 1 t-post that is bent because of a deer getting caught up in the fence. Deer here are HORRIBLE. My dogs protect the garden most of the time, but they are heavily outnumbered.

I've been hessitent to put up a more permanent fence. I don't spray anything near my garden. I need to take down the fence 3-4 times a year to weedeat.

 

[dmccarty]

My deer fence is just t-post and 5' high hardwire with a single strand wire at about 6.5'. Deer will ever so often jump it. They also have sometimes failed to clear it. I have 1 t-post that is bent because of a deer getting caught up in the fence. Deer here are HORRIBLE. My dogs protect the garden most of the time, but they are heavily outnumbered.

I've been hessitent to put up a more permanent fence. I don't spray anything near my garden. I need to take down the fence 3-4 times a year to weedeat.

Our "temporary" fence has been up for 5-6 years now. I have 8' T posts in the corners and every 20 feet or so with 6' posts in between. The bottom 4' feet of fence is square wire fence with two strands of HT wire at the top. The 8' posts give me a fence height of about 6'. The deer have never jumped the fence and we had nine does that hang around the house.

We have a plan for a nicer looking and permanent fence but I have to clear some land first...

Later,
Dan

 

[Heavy Metal Doctor]

Check out thebayougardener.com. Don has a great garden and posts really nice videos of gardening and also using implements to garden.

Yep....those videos where what prompted me to buy the tool-bar from his recommended store. I already had some pieces for a hiller set up, so I didn't want to buy a whole kit (which is what everyone else seems to sell). The price was good enough that it was a better deal to buy it that way, even though I could have made my own in the shop -- I have enough projects as it is.

On the critters eating the garden issue: We tried small animal fence the first year - rabbits figured out how to push under it, even though I thought it was pretty well staked down tight to the ground, meanwhile the deer just went over it.
Last year we tried adding some repellent pellets and even some "home remedy" stuff like dryer sheets staked every few feet apart in a perimeter around the garden -- no luck with any of it - it just seemed like a bunch of work......So now where on to the electric fence idea.

 

[Triguy1]

You can accomplish much of the same benefits that one gets from raised beds by using a hipper to raise a bed, out in the field, but without the timbers and such. You can also plant intensively, which might mean planting onions, for example, 4 or 6 wide, cabbages double wide, instead of planting them in a single file row.

Since I have over 5 acres, I don't worry about concentrating or being overly intensive. One still needs room to walk through to weed, hoe, pick, etc. But, if I were trying to produce as much as possible in a limited amount of space, I'd be very intensive.

bp, Do you use a hipper, hiller, bedder whatever you call it? I picked up a used 1 row cultivator and was thinking of copying one of the mods that I have seen on here to make it dual purpose.