Organic Gardening II

[rachel]

Anyone new on board, learning to grow their own food this year?



It is fairly nice out, and I am late on planting lettuce. So why not today...

[Godzgirl]

This is something i've always wanted to do! I tried last year but failed. lol Just not very good at it.

[melinda]

We have a garden every yr my hubby does it, I help a little but that's his thing lol we do corn, bell peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, jalepeno peppers green and red, cilantro, egg plants, strawberries, potatoes and I am sure I am forgetting something lol we are trying lettuce this yr too it's our first try for lettuce so hopefully it goes well, I love our garden but hate working in it lol so glad hubby likes doing that lol

[Jeff's Turtle]

This is my first year attempting to plant a small garden. I haven't started yet because I need dh help in carrying those big bags of dirt. I was going to plant a garden in the far back corner of my backyard but I decided to get planter box to put them in. I also wanted to do organic. When I saw how much it would be to fill the planter box with organic soil I thought ok maybe I need to rethink thisIt would have been way too expensive for us to do. So instead I went to Home Depot and got a wiskey barrle and only 2 big bags of organic soil. I bought seeds to plant: cucumbers, peppers, and grape tomatoes. I also wanted to plant strawberries so instead I bought a plant hanger from walmart that already had it planted with soil. Um...yeah...that plant died. I'm wondering if I was suppose to plant it. Instead I hung it out on a hook on my front porch. I don't know what I did wrong. If anyone knows....let me know.
I'm praying that the rest of my plants don't end up like my strawberries did. I haven't planted the cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes yet. The bags of dirt and the barrle are heavy and need my husband to do it. So any advice or tips would be great since this is my first year doing this.

[rachel]

Youtube has a lot of tutorials from people who know what they are doing (meant to say, unlike myself, lol.. I don't know quite what I am doing) -- which I am avowed to take more advantage of this year. I have lettuce (4 types) and chard planted. Greens are pretty easy to grow! Our kale from last year, we didn't pull out, and it's growing like crazy (should reach 4 ft) and is already starting to flower. We'll get a million seeds from the pods someday soon. I have 12 tomato plants started inside and will harden them right this time (we skipped directions a bit much last year! Most of our plants we had started indoors died.) I prefer direct sowing into the ground instead of starting/hardening though. Out of laziness and after our massive loss of plants last year. If we have the umph to dig up a 4th bed, I may try melon, squash.. IDK. Whichever I find out grow best when directly sown. But back to Youtube vids, I find them nicer than just random pages that don't get straight to the point. It is nice to see people gardening, in action. And nice to know we are bound to get greener thumbs over time.

I did have strawberries in the ground when we lived in the city, and they spread very well. If you're low on space they can be used as ground cover.

A lot of things can be grown in containers, yard or not:
http://organicgardensnetwork.blogspo...ontainers.html

[rachel]

Free movie, I think 1 hr 43 min or so: http://backtoedenfilm.com/
Organic/sustainable farming, plenty of tips. He gives a glory to God on top of it all. I am watching this morning, am 20 minutes in. Taking notes! Dh watched it last night.

[rachel]

I may take some pics later. Lettuce is growing like crazy and we can't eat it fast enough. We have diatamacious earth, but haven't had to use it for pest issues yet.

[rachel]

Lettuce here first; but apparently I will need to learn to cycle/rotate these on a schedule. Not only can I not keep up, but a few of the varieties already have prickles (which is supposed to mean getting old, getting bitter.. edible though).



This is kale from last year going to seed:



I am way behind on tomatoes (again), but they are growing an inch a week:



Our fruit trees... the weird late frosts this year, I think nipped the buds.. no fruit on them:



But that's okay.. all energy into growing and rooting. I need to read up on pruning, they are due for some detailed attention.

Planning on at least tripling the garden space next year.

[Premommy]

Hubby and I JUST put in some raised beds after a friend gave us some squash plants! I'm going to plant them tomorrow morning, and hope they continue growing! They've survived in grocery bags in our garage for a week now (we were totally unprepared to plant them when he surprised us with them! lol), so I think they're pretty hardy. Hehe.

Do any of you plant the seeds from veggies that you've eaten rather than buying seeds? We spent a bunch of money on seeds tonight to fill out the raised beds, and I don't get why I'm paying for seeds that I get for free from the food I eat. lol Is there any difference?

[melloyellochelle]

We have our first garden this year. We have virtually no land for gardening and no sunny spots in the backyard. We put a raised garden on our back deck (above our add on). It's sunny all day just not convenient.

Our garden is growing fabulously! Picked our first zucchini today even. There will probably be more to eat in the next day or two. Yay!!! Our lettuce is delicious. We've been slowly picking outside leaves of the 6 heads we have and it keeps rejuvenating. That's pretty cool! Endless lettuce. Woo hoo!! Should have green beans this weekend or early next week ready to eat. And we saw the beginnings of some tomatoes. Our cucumber are starting to form as well.

The broccoli isn't fairing so well. We had caterpillars early on and didn't know it was a problem. Well we didn't know it was caterpillars. Did a few night hunts and seem to have caught them. Not sure it was early enough as the broccoli seems pretty sad. they pretty much destroyed our green onion. Sad. A few have started growing again. But no where near the 16 I think we planted to begin with.

When do we know carrots are ready? They have nice full green leaves? Sprouts? Not sure what to call that part. But they seem happy and to be growing well.