Home & Garden Gardening Plan?

Meredeth11

Meredeth11

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Jan 14, 2013
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#1
Is anyone going to plant a garden this year? If you are what are you going to plant? Are you starting your own seeds or buying plants? Do you plant right in the ground or do you use raised beds or containers? Do you live in the country or city? Whats your favorite veggie to grow and is it easy? As you can see I looooove gardening and determined to cultured the hobby from this year, what's your plants? Come on, share here! :cool:
 
#2
Meredeth11 said:
Is anyone going to plant a garden this year? If you are what are you going to plant? Are you starting your own seeds or buying plants? Do you plant right in the ground or do you use raised beds or containers? Do you live in the country or city? Whats your favorite veggie to grow and is it easy? As you can see I looooove gardening and determined to cultured the hobby from this year, what's your plants? Come on, share here! :cool:
Click to expand...

Welcome Meredith! I am definitely going to plant. I already have harvested some beets! I am putting carrots in next, I have lots of plans.

I also do closed-system hydroponics, and am about to start tomatoes and cucumbers for pickling. I have fennel ready to harvest and need to plant more, I love it!

I start from seeds in trays or sow directly, as in beets and carrots. The bulk of my garden is bee friendly, so I need to get more basil started very soon!

Lets include pictures, too!

I am in zone 10-11, what zone are you?
 
#4
every year i plant tomatoes and cucumbers (for pickles). sometimes i try new stuff like lettuce or herbs.

i have a raised garden bed - normally i buy the plants but this past summer i bought seeds for cucumbers and they were doing SO well, way better than my plants normally do but then we got the drought and massive heat so my garden didn't fair too well last summer.

but this year i plan to do cucumbers from seeds again. tomatoes and other things i will still buy as plants. that way i know they aren't weeds ;)
 
#5
Going to plant potatoes. Last year our carrot and sprout crops were very poor. We planted potatoes last year and had great results. There is nothing better than growing your own. We live in the city and plant the potatoes in compost bags in our back garden. Last year we also planted from bulbs peonies and chocolate cosmos.
 
#6
Hi - Like you, I live in the UK too. I have a small..ish garden, and I agree that home grown potatoes are delicious. To save room, I bought a black plastic dustbin, filled it with compost and manure, and planted them in layers. The end result was a large crop.
 
#7
I received a garden book in the mail with really unique plant seeds. I want to order quite a few this year. I have had great luck with container gardening because I can put the pots up on my top patio closer to the house. Easier to water them and they get just the right amount of sun.
Sadly most of my raspberry plants looked dead last year. They are along one side fence and I think the neighbors migh have sprayed chemicals on their side of the fence. I think I need to remove and replant my strawberries that grow by the pool area because of the other neighbors trees blocking the sun. Then we have Mr. Golpher that lives under the neighbor's shed that had destroyed the roots of a few of our fruit trees and has eaten many all my lettuce the past two years. I bought wire cover to stop it from happening this year. Our garden is all organic which is great but you need to keep on top of things to make sure the bugs stay away. Dr. Bonners liquid Castile soap in peppermint, water and herb tea mixed in spray bottles seems to work well. Beer in clay trays keep the slugs away too.
I would love to plant watermelon and cantaloupe this year. I think he kids would get a big kick over this.

Major problem is how to keep squirrels out of my garden. They eat the peaches or take one bite out of everyone. Last year I literally got 2 peaches off two trees and the squirrels and who knows what else had the rest. I think the raccoons come out at night to eat them too. Any ideas in a organic way to stop this?
 
#8
I'm afraid to post in this thread - Gray just isn't my colour. Totally washes me out.
I am in Zone 5B (apparently) and I live in a townhouse so I just have a deck out front and a rock garden out back. Rock garden has some hostas and decorative grasses and flowery-things as well as some poppies and assorted alpine flowers. Whenever I see them again (end of May?) I'll post the actual names. Right now they're called "tall purple ones", "yellow daisy-looking flowers" and "is that some kind of weed?"
My front deck faces south so it gets lots of sun from around noon until it goes down around 9-9:30 in summer. I only had hanging cherry tomatoes and herbs last year. Basil, rosemary, oregano, and thyme. I love cilantro and use it for cooking but I cannot grow it. I have tried, but it just doesn't happen. I might do lavender again this year - I think I grew it one year, I can't remember. I have a total of seven planters and two hanging baskets. Last year totally sucked in a major way because summer technically didn't really start until around the last week of July. I usually start planting on the May long weekend but last year I didn't start anything until the middle of June. Everything was gone from the nursery and I ended up planting five planters full of pansies. Pretty much bug free luckily, but I have found the odd peanut in the shell buried in my planters. We do have these giant ants and I saw one at the bus stop with a lunchbox in one of his "arms" - no lie, they're BIG. Get lots of hummingbirds and butterflies. I have a pot with Sedum and the giant fluffy bumblebees LOVE it! I could sit there and watch them for hours.
I'm thinking about planting a raspberry or blueberry bush this year. I dunno. My friend has an organic blueberry farm about 35km north of me and it's so much easier to get them from her.
I'm hoping to plant at my usual time this year with lots of brightly coloured petunias, geraniums (Martha Washington variety), phlox, verbena, anything that loves lots of light and lots of heat because when it gets hot, it gets hot. I like plants that do well in full sun and of course the bees, hummingbirds and butterflies LOVE the bright colours. No bird feeders because of the bears and same reason for no vegetable garden. Although our complex has a community garden but I don't have a plot.
I did fuchsias in a hanging basket at the front door last year and I'll do that again. It's at a covered walkway and does not get direct sunlight. I have two planters at the front door as well and did some shade-loving plants as well as some fuchsias hanging over the edge, but the little French Bulldog next door liked to bite off the little buds and eat my flowers so they were somewhat sad looking last year.
I took this photo on June 16th, the day I planted my deck. Welcome to my awesome summer. Don't be jealous!
Oh well, at least we all have great skin here!
 

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#11
One of the best garden catalogs is www.cooks garden.com. Or you can call 1-800-457-9703 for a catalog. Very interesting and unique seeds. They have the regular stuff but the varieties I have never heard about should be fun planting.

Things like: purple strawberries, brown skin cucumbers, red, purple, yellow and white carrots..... Purple asparagus.
 
#12
gillianna said:
One of the best garden catalogs is www.cooks garden.com. Or you can call 1-800-457-9703 for a catalog. Very interesting and unique seeds. They have the regular stuff but the varieties I have never heard about should be fun planting.

Things like: purple strawberries, brown skin cucumbers, red, purple, yellow and white carrots..... Purple asparagus.
Click to expand...

This sounds like fun stuff.

I went out to the shops yesterday and saw seeds are already on display!. I try to grow them indoors before planting outside. Sometimes I do well and sometimes not so much. Can't wait to get started this year :smile:
 
#13
I am trying to make a plan for a garden this year. We got an above ground planter from Sam's last year and returned it when my husband and I realized planting just wasn't going to happen. I hope to get the same set up this year and try again. My back yard gets full sun. I tried to start some herbs from seeds a few years ago (basil, dill, ect) and the little seedlings actually had a white mold looking material growing over them (which put me off starting seeds entirely). I've been browsing the internet for tips for beginners and I have a few magazines from previous years, but any tips for a newbie would be MUCH appreciated :smile:.
 
#14
Well I picked up a few seed packets yesterday. I'm in Zone 6 and we had a really mild winter so most of my herbs survived, I'll just have to put in basil and dill, trying to decide what else to add to the herb garden. I've got chives, basil, oregano, mint, rosemary, thyme, parsley and dill. I'm sowing the Swiss Chard next week and later (first part of May) I will plant tomatoes, peppers and bush beans along with some petunias and whatever other veggies call my name.

My herbs are in a raised bed and everything else in containers on my deck because I don't have a fence around my backyard. There is a playground right behind me and I think most of my veggies would end up disappearing if they were in the raised bed. I live in a townhouse so the deck is on the second floor ~ little hands can't get to them, not to mention any critters!
 
#15
I probably will. We live in the city/suburbs, and have had a garden for the last several years. Mine is a fairly small bed, probably 10x10 or so. Typically I stick to the same plantings: basil, tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, lettuce, spinach. Sometimes I also plant more herbs like dill. I'm in north Texas so we can pretty much garden year-round, although I usually don't mess with winter gardening. I do everything from seed except my tomatoes.

I'm a cheapskate, and so I buy my seeds locally when Walgreens or Wal-Mart or whoever clearances them out at the end of spring for around .5 to .10 cents per packet. I store them in a small rubbermaid plastic tub in my deep freezer. Seeds will keep for years this way - I've had good luck using 7+ year old seeds from my freezer. :lol:

I grew up in the country with a huge veggie garden (about 3/4 acre), and I miss it!

If you're a new gardener, the best thing I can recommend is to see if your state has an Agricultural Extension Service website. They will typically break your state into zones & discuss soil types, but also suggest what things to plant & when. Also, pick up a Farmer's Almanac! Yep, the old-school paperback book you see at the checkouts in drug & grocery stores. It is invaluable & filled with great gardening info, as well as the zone breakdowns. IMHO the easiest things to grow as a "newbie" gardener are tomatoes & leaf lettuce. You can't go wrong with those.

There is a website Growveg.com that lets you set up a gardening plan according to your square footage. There's a free 30-day trial, too.
 
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