Vegetable garden
 

I'm planning a garden that I hope will provide most of the vegetables for our family of 6. How big of a garden should we make? The spot is now covered in weeds. Should we plow these under now, and then cover the garden with plastic until Spring? We live in an area where it never snows, and rarely freezes.

Our soil is very sandy. I have one trash can of finished compost, and another one that might be finished by planting time. Should I plan on buying more, or would that be enough?

We also have many deer and rabbit. Would a welded wire fence with electric on the top and bottom be the best for discouraging them?

Thanks for your help.

I Would Sit Down And Make A List Of What You Would Like To Grow.
Will You Be Eating Only From This Garden Or Would You Be Also
Canning And Freezing? How Much Help Will You Have In Taking Care
Of Your Garden? If You Have Lots Of Help And Plan On Preserving
As Much As You Can I Would Plant The Largest Possible Garden I
Could. If You Are New To Gardening And Have Little Or No Help, I'd Go Small For The First Year. I Have Known People Who Plant The Huge Garden And The Weeds Get Out Of Hand And The Weather Makes
It Uncomfortable To Work The Garden And Soon The Garden Is Ignored, The Time And Money Spent Into Planting It Was Wasted.
We Plant Our Garden Each Year And Try To Add One New Vegetable,
If We Like It Its Added To Our Yearly List. I Also Find That We Can't Grow Decent Cucumbers Here So That Is Something That We Don't Bother With, I Can Buy Them From Local Farms Fairly Inexpensively.
I'm Not Sure What To Tell You About The Weeds In The Garden Space, Hopefully Someone Else Will Be Able To Contribute That Info. Good Luck On The Garden.

feeding a family of 6 will be alot of work.
You don't say how big the area is, but you can't have to much compost. If you can, instead of the plastic it would be better to put a layer of leaves and or straw on the garden. Put down a thick layer of cardboard or news paper first, then the leaves.
If it is a small area you might consiter wide bed gardening. You can do a search on the web for more ideas on that.
There is also square foot gardening, but I have found if you plant a new garden to thickly you get stunted unproductive plants.
If you look hard enough on the web you can also get an idea how much you need to plant. And get an Idea if your garden will produce enough to eat during the summer or if you'll have extras to put up for winter use.
My garden is about 20 beds or 1200 square foot of growing room and I could feed 6. But probably not can much for the winter.
Good luck and have fun with your garden.

I, too, would put down a thick layer of leaves over the garden area. If you mulch them with your lawn mower, they will break down alot quicker.

Judging by your comments about your weather, you should have no problems growing a Fall garden. You can spread some lettuce seeds, peas, broccoli plants, cauliflower plants, brussel sprouts plants, etc. These plants grow much better in the cooler temps.

Hey Genevieve M.;First of all,you are going to need a lot more compost.Since yo have sandy soil and No freeze I am assuming W.Coast.Buy 1 of Elliot Colemans books and follow the info provided.Double digging is a lot of work up front,but pretty much eliminates most if not all the work through the growing season.
Try it before you knock it!I got the same information from Organic Gardening in the early eighties and have been using these principles since then,and know that they work.if you are on the W.Coast www.ebstone.org has the best compost.The electric fence is the best defense against Rabbits and Deer,besides a 12 guage of course.
It will be better if you start off supplementing your families food as opposed to growing all of it from the start.When you have more experience you'll also have more abilities as well.-

Nothing
 

That's right, NOTHING -- NO till, then:

• Cut the grass,
• Put down 3" or 4" of compost or well-rotted manure,
• Put down four layers of newspaper,
• Wet them down,
• Put on 8" of straw, moldy hay, leaves, etc for mulch,
• Dig hole just for the seeds and plants you will plant this year,
• Add more mulch as needed,
• If up north like we are, start garden a little later, or remove the mulch at the planting area one or two weeks before planting, to let soil warm up,
• The soil gets worked up well and there is no disruption to the rich upper layer, worms do a lot of the work, I think, and the newspaper adds to the soil, and helps keep out the weeds -- still a few -- but the newspaper blocks them -- mostly.

That's it, it works, we use drip irrigation with that system, less weeds, and if put drip, or the pump, on a timer, then you don't have to be there to water.

http://www.abceltd.com/pics/Web/Cucumbers.jpg
This Was a Hay Field in 2001, Now a Garden, Cucumbers, Lettuce, and Garlic, this picture was in July, 2004

Good Luck with NO Till,

Alex

I'm going to do the garden thing in the spring, too, so all these ideas are much appreciated!

A lot depends on where you are & what your soil is like.

I sowed hairy vetch in a 20X10 area in Sept. It's up & lookin' good. We have the dreaded black clay-hard as a rock-w/white rock under it. I've been told I can either plow under the vetch in the spring-its a green manure-or just mow it really short & go ahead & plant in it. I think I'll have to turn it under.

Other things to do are: spread about 50 lbs of dry molasses (feed grade) per 5,000 sq ft of garden. Also whole corn meal, other amendments to loosen the soil-like lava sand. You wouldn't need that if you have sandy soil, tho.
Compostcompostcompost. The straw is good too-or any mulch.

Patty

I agree with the layering. Get the book, Lasagne Gardening. If you garden this way, instead of tilling, you will be need to think in terms of rows. Carla Emery did not till and had one large plot, no aisles.

Start small. While you are tending your smaller garden, you can start on another one and get it ready for the late summer or fall, or following year.

you don't need to keep your vegetables in one spot, either. You can put a few things in your flower beds, and a few flowers in your vegetable beds. Sunflowers are nice to be used as shade for other plants, or a hedge for privacy. Squash and pumpkins will spread themselves out, so I like them on the edge of the garden where they will help shade the soil with the other plants growing above, and they will move out into the lawn.

Be a little more specific about your location. This will make a difference in the advice you recieve.
Ed

We live outside of Houston

I would like to be able to can a little, but I have no idea how big of a garden I would need to do that.

I have lots of help with 4 children.

Genevieve,

I live 300 miles due east of you and I too have 6 people in my family. We are lucky that we have so few freezes. I only buy potatoes, carrots, and lettuce in the summer. We eat everything we grow and give none away, except to family. My goal is to grow almost all of the only other vegetables we eat, but I'm not there yet. My garden is now about 40 X 100 now and will grow to 150 x 100 in the next 2-3 years. And I don't know if that is quite enough. And I have pots growing herbs and other things and mounds of dirt/compost around that hold my sweet potatoes.

I am getting better at this but I have to outsmart the weather and seasons often to increase my yield. I get 3-4 30 degree or lower nights per year so you can go from beating the weather to beaten by the weather in one night. In order to increase yield and spread out the harvest, you have to have plantings that are spread over 3-4 week intervals and start many of your plants indoors when frosts are still possible. For instance, I start my tomatoes from suckers in the fall, put them under grow lights all winter, and plant my first 3 foot plants around Valentine's day. But, I pick my first tomatoes around March 15th. But also on February 15th, I have rooted some suckers from the original plants and they go in the ground as 6" plants, with first fruit coming April 15th-20th. Then, 4 weeks later, I plant some more suckers. I pick tomatoes until about July 4th and can what we don't eat. I usually have 40-50 tomato plants in a season, depending on how many live. I do the same with cucumbers, beans, and squash, starting some seeds inside under grow lights around January 15th, and plant them out mid-Feb, and 3 other plantings outside every 4 weeks, and usually pick cucumbers until mid July. I don't grow peppers or things I use only rarely. In addition to tomatoes, cukes, squash, 6 different beans, I grow strawberries that produce from end of January til early June. I also grow a fall garden, which is tricky because instead of beating the frost, you have to beat the heat. I start keeping tomato suckers in mid June, plant some cucumbers and squash in early August with lots of watering, start broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, chard, lettuce in early August for planting in late September. I also plant sweet peas in mid September, carrots and strawberry transplants in late September, plant all of the started broccoli, cauliflower, etc in early October when the heat breaks.

On top of all of that, I compost EVERYTHING. Paper is shredded, cardboard put in the garden with grass clippings on top, grass clippings spread thinly in the bottom of the garden for weed control, manure from a friend is composted then spread.

The key to all of this is getting into the books available from Ag Extension (maybe Texas A&M or UT websites, or feel free to use Lsuagcenter.com as our weather is close) and getting into perfect tune with timing of ALL vegetables, their soil needs and likes, seasons, varieties, and harvesting tips. I'm like everyone else, I started small thinking I just wanted to supplement. Now, it is getting bigger and I have a goal of growing EVERY vegetable I eat because it is addictive. Also, while I have a tiller, I have found that I use it mostly to mix up the compost and START new rows, but it is not used to till every season. I'd till 3-4 times a year! Use it to break the ground if you so desire, but my sweet potatoes grow on top of the ground in my leaf piles with very little else in there.

Start small, add on, check locally for best varieties, and don't expect to fully feed your family on less than about 100x100 without lots of work and much attention to detail and planning.

Good luck. Feel free to ask questions also on the gardening and propogation forum. By the way, I would assume that you live west of Houston right? NW or SW? I would assume SW, because I lived in Sugarland for awhile about 15 years ago.

Ray

ETA: I forgot to mention that you can also grow fruit, believe it or not. Citrus (satsumas, orange, lemon, lime, loquat) will do well, some apples, grapes (muscadines and concord), blackberries, blueberries, figs, peaches are iffy, persimmons, pawpaws, bananas, as well as nut trees like pecan. Just be prepared to water alot because your summers are about 3-7 degrees warmer than us and we are hot!!!

i agree on the 100x100 size. i am currently using 60x60 of a larger garden and it seems like i need more. be sure to plant the fall crop as well. don't forget the greenbeans, they are a great producer.

Well I might be crazy, but I plan to Go over-board with my garden this coming year. My Plan is to plant about 5 times as much as I feel I need. I got so tired of my garden this year--I would cut a few pods of okra, never getting enough to "can" any---trying to keep it in the fridge till I got enough to put up---then some would be looking bad. The same with squash, cucumbers etc. This Coming year I hope to get a 5 gallon bucket of okra and squash per cutting--------Maybe 2, 5 gal buckets of cucumbers per picking-----that way I can work my Butt off for a couple weeks----Pick and can/freeze all I need for winter------then disk up all but a few plants of each so I can have fresh vegetables daily through the growing season. What you think?? Randy

The biggest drawback I can see is when the weeds get ahead of you. It happens when you plant a lot and simply cannot keep up with them! If you plant 24 peppers and they get lost in weeds you will not get any peppers. If you plant 6 in a raised bed and keep them well mulched, you might actually get some peppers (ask me how I know :rolleyes: ). If you have time to apply and reapply grass clippings, pull weeds, etc., you might get a good crop.

Thanks, guys.

Ray, we are NW of Houston by Hockley and Waller.

I'm interested in the cardboard method. I'll have to research that. We certainly have a ton of cardboard since we moved in June.

I'm going to go ahead and shoot for 100x100. My husband said that we could fence the garden, but run the dogs around the perimeter of that fence. The deer and rabbits would have a hard time getting past the dogs.

I Know what you are saying, but I have a tractor with cultivators, then when it gets to tall for the tractor I have what is called a Mule plow---Not sure if the name is right but it is similiar to a garden tiller with a motor, but with one wheel and instead of a tiller it uses a sweep like the tractor cultivator uses---it will go up and down the garden rows at a fast walk (if I don't let the weeds get to tall). After using this I only have a few inches to hoe around the plant stem. I usually have to spend around 2 maybe 3 hours per week weeding a 1/2 acre garden. I just want to "Can" a couple hundred jars of something for next winter. I didn't can anything this year. But I had plenty to eat out the garden-----hmmmmm maybe I eat to much, might be the reason I didn't can anything--LOL. I Love them Home Grown Vegetables!!! Randy

I've got to say WHOA! We're talking Louisiana - year round gardening.
That 100x100 plot is 10,000 square feet. Now, multiply that by 4-5 plantings per year if you do seedling transplants like is commercially done in California (and which I copied when I lived in zone 10) and that 100x100 sf garden is now effectively between 40,000 and 50,000 square feet!
You'll feed more like 60 people a year! Remember in Zones 9 & 10 there is ALWAYS a harvest from the garden - it never stops! There's no such thing as surviving from the pantry waiting for planting season! Every week is planting season! You may want to seriously consider raised beds so your planting areas dry more quickly since rain is something Louisiana seems to have in abundance.

If this helps, I grew everything except corn (didn't have the space) when we lived 6 blocks from the beach with sandy loam soil in southern California and my garden was 24x30. I fed a family of 4 plus canned plus froze plus gave away probably a truckload over the year. Frankly, I don't think you'll need much more than that - jump to 30x60 if you want. Make your corn garden a separate small garden, rotating between two small plots, planting legume cover crops for a year (peas, then snap beans then more peas) following the corn. Flipping back and forth between the two plots. Corn is a heavy feeder.

Use the airspace whenever you can - grow pole beans instead of bush, trellis your cucumbers etc so that you get more per square foot. Plant quick crops between longer maturing ones that will be out of the ground before the others even begin to bloom/yield.

Plant everything in its season. Example, in a zone 9-10, broccoli has no business in the summer garden. Nor do peas, cauliflower, spinach, any of the cool/cold season crops. We didn't finish harvesting tomatoes until Christmas and they were replanted by the first of March. (If you want to plant some of the Siberian heirlooms for your cool season, you can harvest tomatoes 12 months a year in zones 9 &10).

Your county agricultural extension office should have a month by month planting schedule. It is based on AVERAGE growing days/crop. I'll give a hearty recommendation to Johnnie's Seeds and to www.seedstrust.com (High Altitude Gardening). You might think - what do I need cool season/short season seeds for? Well, in Zones 9 & 10 where frost is unknown, you can use those cool/short season crops to push your harvests earlier and to use in the late fall even winter. Truthfully, you'll have a challenge deciding what to NOT plant - the world is yours in zones 9 & 10 in row crops (there are limitations in orcharding). And if you have sandy loam, you've got it all!

Conversations like this make me long for 80 degree winter days again - winter is when zones 9 & 10 shine! (Slopes are already open here in Colorado!)
Happy Gardening!

BW

I'm southwest of Houston, and it's going to hit the low 70's today. I do raised bed lasagne gardens. I dislike rows because that's where the weeds start and with the amount of rain we get in the Houston area, the bottoms of the rows are always soggy.

When you buy hay or straw for mulch, try to get rice straw or some type that doesn't have seeds. If you use regular pasture hay, you are bringing in next year's weed crop.

You might want to look at the book Square Food Gardening, too.

We can often harvest tomatoes year round here, nary a freeze!

I went out and measured today. The place where I have the most sun is a 40x60 spot, so that is where I'll start.

We did raised beds years ago with treated lumber before we found out that the chemicals could leach into our food. We have been enriching the soil, and planting in the ground since then, and we haven't had nearly as much success.

What do you use as edging? We have tons of fallen leaves right now. I guess I'd better save them.

We got the square foot gardening book with my daughter's home Economics set. I guess I'd better read it.

I want to put cardboard over the weeds, then add compost, and maybe peat moss, and of course mulch. Do I need to add a layer of newspaper? I'm not sure what the purpose of that is.

Genevieve, there is no need for you to wait. You can still plant right now. Cabbage, lettuces, onions(from sets), mustard greens, radishes. Many of these will grow right through the "cold" we will get. It is a little late but you can still expect some growth and production.
If I had the ability and was in your situation, I would plow up and try to hill up the rows now. It will make a big difference if we have a wet spring.

I have one of those
 

If the same as mine its called the Coleman Iron Mule. Origionally touted for cultivating around strawberries, but mine, like appairantly yours goes at a dead run, so im going to take it somwhere and have someone look at it to see what it takes to slow it down to a slow walk. My garden next year will be only 18 X 30, and thats fenced, so I want slow and control lol.

Mine has a handle bar close to a tiller---I took the 3hp off and put a 5hp motor on it. The motor has a gear reduction on it. It has one tire that looks like a small tractor tread type tire. A small wheel out front that controls the depth. I can use sweeps like on my cultivators for my tractor. I mainly use a 24" wide sweep so it covers alot of the area between the plants. I put a throttle control on one handle so I can speed it up to a fast walk or slow it down to a Slow Walk---the other handle has the control to stop and start the pulling wheel. I Love Mine!! Randy

You don't need any siding for raised beds - make them 3 feet wide. Now, I'm saying that never having lived in Houston-Louisiana rains. Maybe you do have to put supports in down there - ask around. You don't in the arid west.

It's an old book but I still use it as one of my gardening bibles - Joy of Gardening by Dick Raymond. I'm sure your library can get a copy - not sure if it is still in print, check on www.amazon.com - I'm sure you'll be able to find a used copy at least, or some of the other re-sellers on the web.

It is one of the earliest books on wide-row raised beds, printed in the 1970's. Again, I recommend checking some of the short season cool-germination seeds - they let you do things that lists say can't be done! He also gives great ideas for intensive planting.

And yes, gather all those leaves. In your humid warm climate you can make compost in a blink of an eye, I would think! Again, when I lived in zone 10, I used compost but never on top of the soil because everything rotted so quickly. We used all of our compost under the soil. The tomatoes and melons had a pits of rotted steer manure and compost 18-24 inches deep covered by 3 inches of soil then we set the transplants on top of that then covered the roots with soil. So the plant had to grow 3 inches before it hit the nutrients. That worked better for us. So play with it. I am a big believer in legume cover crops.

If I may suggest, plan your garden with a 3 year plan - keep careful records of what was planted where each season. If you will carefully rotate and enrich, disease will be unknown in your garden.

BW

I have never used mine
 

As no doubt yours is/was the same, mine has an engine around 3.5hp that has an speed adjsuting screw on it. Ive got it all the way down, but it still leaps away. Perhaps if I put it in the ground that would slow it down, but still I dont want to have to be lopeing around corners. Also, it would seem, if I slow it down to much it would die easly when working. Mayby thats why you put the bigger engine on it. It came with many extra tools, like planter, plow, lister, cultivator, baler LOL. I think Id enjoy mine if I ever got it to where I could walk at a normal pace

I have had in the past total of 3/4 to 1 acre gardens. two people, but also sold to the farmer's market, supplied several relatives, so it would easily have been enought for a family of 6. We stored gobs also. That was with using a troy built tiller for 'weeding' between rows, using the hiller cultivator attachment for potatoes, corn and those row plant root crops that would benefit from that method and easier to hand weed between plants.
interplanting with benefeficial companion plants like marigolds, nasturtiums and such (read the book 'Roses love Garlic' and others on companion planting).
succession planting also. that is, beans, brassicas, corn, cucurbits and some plants that you want to not be picking all at the same time. Plant successively a week or two between new plantings. same with some root crops that you might want to pick early and let others grow to late fall harvest.
Overplant. yes. if like me, living in the country sometimes you will be 'feeding' the deer, and a few uninvited 'guests' like woodchucks or groundhogs. If they take a few unexpectedly, you'll hopefully still have enough to harvest for yourself. I like Dan's idea of planting 5 times more than you might expect. Thinnings can go to feed your domestic stock such as poultry love it if you have an overabundance of zucchinis, for example.

I go for the no till method of choice nowdays. worms will be your 'rototillers' if you do this right with mulch. I use grass clippings as much as possible that is collected in a sweeper attachment behind the lawn tractor. I have used straw also. the money you'd pay for the straw might be less than you'd spend on tiller fuel, but maybe not.

green manure crops such as buckwheat or oats can be sewn, let grow to foot high, and whipper snip them down to rot atop for further soil enhancement. cover over with more mulch, and just keep on planting.

transplants rather than seeding in cool climate. I do this for almost everything, including corn in small peat pots transpanted, melons, squash, all the brassicas, etc. just don't disturb the root systems in the peat pots. the only things I see are things like beans, peas, carrots, rutabagas, beets, greens like lettuce or chard.

solarizing. put down clear plastic for a new area to prepare a garden. heat kill everything underneath it for a period depending on your climate. 3 weeks or more. Than spread out your paper, and cover with mulch. This will assure a lot less weed regrowth problems....and it's organic without the use or roundup.

one last thought. If planting squash, melons, or big leaf spreading pumpkins and such, simply space them about 5 feet in all directions in a field planned for this. dig a hole for each plant and pour a bucket of compost in it. hill that up a bit and put your transplant squash, melon, or pumpin. you only need to water that spot throught the season if it's dry. the rest of the field you can have either covered with mulch or till it with manure or greenmanure crop until the squash plants spread out to cover that. When they do, you won't hardly need to worry about weeding as they are shaded out and competed with dandily by the fast growing squash by mid season.

Does yours have a gear reduction on the pulling side of the motor? Sounds like it doesn't----------don't feel it will work without one. I put the bigger motor on because the smaller was old and worn out------Call my local small engine place, looking for a 3-3 1/2hp with gear reduction--------they didn't have one but they had a good used 5hp with gear reduction at a good price. So I went to the 5hp. Randy

My advice would be not to start too big until you have some experience under you belt. (We killed everything our first year). You'll be surprised how little garden space can sustain your family.

If you have sandy soil you'll never use too much mulch. We have a lot of clay in our soil and the more mulch we add the better it gets.

Sprinkle human hair after haircuts around the garden to keep deer out.

GR

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
 

Genevieve go to http://www.squarefootgardening.com/ and read the basics- contains most of what's in the book. I've been reviewing it (have the old book) and am quite happy with the raised beds I've made and how much more productive they are (in much less space) than in the ground would be, and if I add in actually using a grid for planting instead of winging it and mixing perlite and peat moss (which I'm gonna have excess of anyway) I expect even better.

I have one of these one wheel cultilvators. I used this year for making ditches for water between rows. I bought years ago with out an engine and he said put on a 3HP which I did. Came with a snow plow blade to go front and some bars with little tools on the back. How do you keep them standing up???? He told put the smallest pulley I could get on the engine and still it goes pretty fast. I did get it slowed down. I set it on the gas pull lever (I would guess the throtle) to get less gas. That slowed it down. Does not stall out out. This engine I bought new for it years back and was a Wards. It is a light outfit and could be smaller than you have. About like a push plow with engine. 30's I suppose. Have any of you tried to hill potatoes with them?????. I thought maybe I could take the old hiller I had for tiller and put it on.????? It is light. I am not sure this could pull a blade sweep very big. It pulls a blade to put in the ditches. Rubber tire with tractor like treads and about 1 foot tall I guess. Way too small to pull my seeder. Seeder would be up to the handles.