Garden tips

[dfranksmith]

I'm tired of lousy tomatoes so I promised myself that next year I'll plant a vegetable garden come hell or high water. I've got a few basic questions that maybe someone will be willing to answer.

What all can I do this year to prepare the soil? I've tilled it once already. I'm going to take a page out of Bird's book and chip a bunch of branches and green compost into the plot. I've got a bunch of tree trunks that are too rotten for firewood, but they'll burn. Should I burn them on top of the garden plot and then till in the ashes? Any other tips?

The existing plot is about 20'x40'. Is this a good size for two people? I know this is a hard question, but any rules of thumb will be appreciated.

Is there any advantage to plowing furrows in a small garden?

Finally, if I keep the plot small like it is, I can buy hoops and polystyrene sheets to get a greenhouse thing going. This will let me get my tomatoes in early and hopefully keep the deer out. Anyone have any experience with this? How well did it work? Where did you buy the equipment?

Thanks in advance
Don

 

[Thomas]

Dfelgar,
I don't have a green thumb,but maybe I can help you keeping the deer out of your garden.

Couple of tricks you can try.
1. Human hair,just go to your local hair salon get as much as you can than spread the hair around also in the mids of your graden.
2. Human urine, just do your thing in different locations often.
3. Bleach & Ajax powder & Human urine mixed up in a bottle,than pour little bit different spots in and round your garden.

I'm sure some of you are smiling and think I'm little nuts, but number 3 does work to keep the deer away plus those darn moose.....haven't found anything yet to keep the bears away.

Good luck with your garden.

Thomas..NH

 

[dfranksmith]

Thomas,

Thanks for the tip. Good thing you can't see my garden from the road. I can't imagine saying, "Good afternoon, ma'am. Don't mind me, I'm just applying a little deer repellent..." .

 

[W5FL]

Look through some of the post in rural.

Any type of composte helps. With wood, you will need to add nitrogen fertilizer a little more than usual.

Don't need a green house in the summer in Texas.

Horse manure or cow manure worked in the soil in the fall sure helps the next years crop. It usually has weed seeds.

I have never tried to raise a garden 20 x 40 but you can do a lot in a small space by planting to utilize more of the usuable area rather than have big spaces between the rows.

I would normall figure that this would plant 6 40 foot rows of vegetables. I planted 6 120 ft rows of sweet corn this year. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[W5FL]

Since you have 9.5 acres, try tilling up about 1/4 acre 100 x 100 and experiment a little with what you like and what grows well. We found a cantalope that averages about 9 pounds and is far superior to any that I have EVER bought in the store. They take a lot of room, but are really worthwhile if you like them. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Bird]

Dfelger, as to whether ashes will help, that depends on the current ph of the soil. In Texas, our county agents will provide a special bag and instructions for taking soil samples, and you can send them in for analysis at a cost of $10 to $30 depending on how much analysis you want. In my case, I've never used any ashes, but have used the wood chips, leaves (both green and dry), old cow manure and rabbit manure, the vegetable trimmings, peels, etc., and some oat straw, and I don't think anyone could have a better vegetable garden (until the grasshoppers arrived). And those tomato slices I ate with supper tonight sure do beat what you can buy in the grocery store./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Of course, my current garden is a little over 9800 sq. ft., but for what two people can eat fresh, without a lot of canning, freezing, and giving produce away, a good 800 sq. ft. garden can produce a lot.

Bird

 

[dfranksmith]

I've been inspired by your success with the garden for some time now, Bird. Sorry to hear about the grasshoppers. If I were you I'd have a go at them with the shop vac, just to make myself feel better if nothing else. Black and Decker makes a $60 blower/vac that shreds and bags leaves into a collection bag...

I'll hold off on burning the tree trunks at least until I get that information from the county agent. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[dfranksmith]

Thanks for the good thought, I guess there's not much to lose with planting a bigger garden. I was going to use a 20'x40' patch left over from the last owner.

I do love cantaloupes, honeydews, in fact pretty much any fruit or vegetable that's good and fresh. The exception that proves the rule here would be the persimmon. My wife loves 'em, they make me gag. What variety of cantaloupe grows so well for you down there?

 

[Bird]

The biggest problem I see with cantaloupe in a small garden is that the vines spread so far and take up so much space. Of course, the same is true of the watermelon, pumpkins, and to a lesser extent cucumbers. I know you can have climbing cucumbers on a fence or something similar, but has anyone heard of doing that with the others?

Bird

 

[Bird]

My shop vac is only a 10 gallon size; wouldn't make a dent in the grasshopper population./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif This morning walking through some of the corn, the sounds of them jumping in there reminded me of the sound of being in a sleet storm.

Bird

 

[dfranksmith]

I'm as ignorant as they come about gardening, but I'd be suprised to see a vine supporting pumpkins or watermelons above the ground. Anway in my case it's a moot point as Wen already convinced me to put in a bigger garden.

 

[dfranksmith]

Bird,

I was only half joking about the Black and Decker leaf vac, you know. Leave the leaf colletion bag at home, but be careful not to spray grasshopper mulch into your boots. My biggest worry would be about the machine gumming up.

Good luck with them anyhow.

 

[Thomas]

Re: Garden tips...Pumpkins.

My brother inlaw grows some great looking pumpkins.

He uses a mixture of whole milk and little sugar,and feeds the pumpkins from old I V bottles and insert the needles at the stem.

Little strange to see about 20 or so I V bottles in his garden feeding pumpkins,all most like something from sci-fi movies....yikes.

Just goes to show us guys up here in the northeast are still amazing....mmmm ??

Thomas..NH

 

[Bird]

Dfelgar, I feel pretty sure that pumpkins and watermelons couldn't be supported above ground, and I really don't even think cantaloupe could be. My father-in-law in West Virginia used to grow his cucumbers on the back fence, and my wife's brother does that here, but I just let those vines spread, too.

Bird

 

[Bird]

Re: Garden tips...Pumpkins.

Thomas, I've thought several times about a book I read when I was a kid that mentioned feeding a pumpkin like that. I can't remember what the book was, but it was a fictional kids' novel of some kind, so I've wondered whether that was actually ever done or not, but I've never seen it done.

There are so many varieties of every fruit and vegetable nowadays that I don't know how to decide which seed to buy. I think every year for the past 4 years, I've planted a different variety of cantaloupe, watermelon, and pumpkin. Sometimes I have fairly large ones and sometimes very small ones. This year I planted some "Big Max" pumpkins on 3/13/00 and at least 3 of them are basketball size so far.

Bird

 

[W5FL]

The cantalope is called SUGAR QUEEN from Wilhite Seed Company. The cost of the seeds is a staggering $25 per ounce. I can remember when that would buy GOLD. The cantalopes are the best I have ever eaten and they are very prolific. Not at all unusual to go out and pick a dozen or so that will weigh OVER 100 pounds for the lot or over 8 - 9 pounds each. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[gordon]

Just remember bigger is not always better in a garden. If you start off with a large garden its easy to be over whelmed once the weeding starts and your left with a weed garden before you know it. Start small and plant a few different things and then branch out from there.
There is another way to garden different than the straight row garden. Its called a square foot garden where plants are pretty much planted on top of each other and the great thing about it is LESS weeding.
Good luck with your garden
Gordon

 

[gordon]

I use a concrete wire to cage my tomatos works great and the same for the cukes takes less space and less bugs from the ground when in the air. Also much easier to pick standing up rather than kneeling.
Gordon

 

[W5FL]

I really like the concrete wire tomato cages.

Bird and I have to plant enough for the grasshoppers, too. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[TomG]

Another way to use a small space is called inter-cropping. The idea is to plant late maturing crops right next to early crops. The early crop is harvested, the plants taken out, and the late crop takes over.

A friend perfected inter-cropping. He presented his garden at a meeting, and a government guy wouldn't believe he could get that much production from his sized plot. It does takes a bit of research to figure which crops will inter-crop. I can't remember much, but I think peas (on poles) were one of the early crops.

My friend also harvested Jalipano and Big Jim peppers in Ontario, Canada by starting the seeds indoors during January. Starting seeds indoors is a way of growing crops in areas where the growing season isn't long enough. The idea also can get more production out of a small plot. Start and early crop indoors, harvest it, and plant another early crop. However, sometimes the second crop won't taste real good if the weather gets hot.

My friend and his wife did spend a lot of time gardening, and it's surprising what can be gotten from a small plot--sometimes even surprising the gardener. He reportedly stormed out of the house one evening after dinner and ripped out all the zucchini plants. Said that he had eaten zucchini in some form two meals a day for several weeks, and there was 20 lbs. or so in the freezer. The plants just wouldn't stop, and he couldn't take it any more.