Gardening for Dummies

[Morr]

Inspired by the other thread about gardening, I started this thread for all of us Gardening beginners... Gardening for Dummies thread, if you will...

For the newbies, please feel free to ask questions about gardening!

For the experienced gardeners, please feel free to share your wisdom!


I have a few questions:

We finally have a big back yard where I can plan a garden. Obviously, I should start planning it all now, as March is right around the corner. Since the weather has been CRAZY (65 degrees one day, 35 degrees the next...), I will wait until late March (after we get back from Israel, March 21st), to start REALLY kicking into gear with gardening.


Anything I should do in the back yard itself right now in preparation for planting later in March?

How do I protect my plants from a big dog who WILL eat and chew on them?

Which plants would you recommend for a beginner, who WANTS to become a master gardener, but has been known to kill plants in the past? :weirdsmil

Should I separate the herbs from veggies, from fruit, and from flowers?

Can I start growing herbs indoors, and later transfer them into the outside garden? If so, which ones would adapt best?

What are a gardener's MUSTS?


Thanks :D

[Brigid Rowan]

A must: always dig a ten dollar hole for a five dollar plant. In other words, spend time doing good prep work (amending soil, working the earth, planning the garden). This might involve talking to local gardeners for ideas on what type soil you have, and what it lacks. (Some areas tend to have sandy or clay heavy soils, and others have great soil.)

Find out your zone, this can really help when choosing plants.

Consider if you want only non-poisonous plants, as you have a baby and animals.

Look at the light. Do you have a southern exposure? Or northern?

What about a container garden? Do you have a patio or porch thats near the kitchen? Some people find use in keeping things near each other, and plant a kitchen container garden for herbs close to the kitchen door.

Budget. Do you have one? Gardening can be cheap as dirt (haha) and pricey too, it all depends on your level of patience and ability to spot a deal. If I were on a sorta small budget, and needed to enrich the soil, I would spend a bulk of my money on getting the soil enriched, and the garden plot worked so I had lovely, rich dark dirt. I'd save money by starting my own seeds. ( So maybe, the budget would be 70% on soil ammending, and 30% on plants/seeds)Then next year, you have your lovely soil still (hopefully you can compost some to add to the richness) and you can spend more of the % of money on the plants.

[Morr]

Hmm, okay... Well, I will go to a gardening shop place, and ask the store owner about the soil.. and I shall invest in enriching the soil (since I can see that it's not that great anyways in the back yard.. It was never cared for to begin with, so might as well take care of that first).

Definitely no poisinous plants... The dog WILL eat the one poisinous plant, and Scarlet will be toddling around most likely by around next Fall/Winter...

I do have a patio that is right outside the kitchen, I might look into starting a little herb garden there.. But again.. The dog... Hubby might have to build something around the plants/herbs so the dog doesn't get into them... Oy..

So far I definitely want herbs and flowers.. I LOVE LOVE LOVE roses, and hope to have a few rose bushes blooming one day soon. I might wait on veggies and fruit since I don't know how long we will remain in this house, and I don't want to plant any big trees that I won't get to enjoy for many years to come.

I'll have to figure out the northern/southern light exposure stuff.


Thanks!!

[Brigid Rowan]

Roses are fun, and smell soooo good. I got a bunch of gardening books from the library when I first started planting stuff, and a few books on roses. I read them all, and discovered roses, especially the older varieties, are pretty hardy and easy. I once had a Lady Banks Rose that "ate the fence".

info on it:
http://fireflyforest.net/firefly/2006/04/03/lady-banks-roses/

they get...big...lol
http://www.goldcoastrose.org/shared/tombstone.htm

[Thunder]

Good advice from Brigid Rowan... especially about the sun. If you are planning on growing veggies like tomatoes the require a significant amount of DIRECT sun to ripen especially late in the season. Even walking around your yard now will be deceiving.. when the sun is up and out it is much lower in the sky than it will be in summer and the trees are without leaves. Come summer there will be sun in palaces where there is none now and none in places where it shines today. If you are fortunate enough to have a large space for a garden that is far from the house and any trees, that is the place I put it. Since you say you are a novice who wants to expand I would start with raised beds... boxed in with landscaping ties. It allows you to create the proper drainage and soil composition and makes it easier to fence in... I too have a dog who loves to mess with my garden.

Her name is Katyshire's Southern Belle (Belle or Belly Button around the house). She is the sweetest English Springer Spaniel on earth but she eats tomatoes right off the vine. Who knew?

As to prep work now... as I look out my window it is snowing. If I remember correctly you and Semi live in upstate NY. I don't really know where that is latitude wise because virtually every one north of NYC thinks they live "Upstate". I live in the Hudson Valley near West Point and my yard is still frozen solid. Global Warming not withstanding there is little you will be able to do outside till mid April since we often have blizzards for Easter and the occasional killing frost into the early part of May. But you can start plants indoors.

Good luck and don't forget the perenials... berries, herbs, asparagus, pot.... shit, did I say that out loud? :spinnysmi

[Morr]

Hehe thanks!

We actually live in South Eastern PA, outside of Philly. So we don't really get the horrible major snow storms! It's actually quite sunny right now outside, though tonight the temps wil go down to the 20s... Brr..


Thanks for all your advice!!

[Thunder]

Hehe thanks!

We actually live in South Eastern PA, outside of Philly. So we don't really get the horrible major snow storms! It's actually quite sunny right now outside, though tonight the temps wil go down to the 20s... Brr..


Thanks for all your advice!!Did you move or was I mistaken? I seem to remember many earlier posts from Semi when he said he was upstate.

[Morr]

He used to live in upstate. After we got married we decided to move to the Philly area because I have some close friends here.

[Thunder]

He used to live in upstate. After we got married we decided to move to the Philly area because I have some close friends here.I have friends in Media, P.A. Chris Pavlou and Cara Wilkinson own the Turning Point Gallery. They were the exclusive exhibitors of Susan Seddon Boulet's original art during the last decade of her life and today they hold exclusive rights, through her estate and Trust and in concert with her family, to produce museum quality prints of her work.

http://www.turningpointgallery.com/index.htm

If you ever get over that way it is worth the time to see their gallery, the best time to see Susan's work is during the month of May when they are running their on-line auction.

[skilly-nilly]

I view planting trees as an offering to Earth; I've planted trees everywhere I've lived.

A few years ago my son (who is about your age, Morr) was driven past the house where he lived as a small boy and reported to me that the trees he remembered as his size or shorter were taller than the house. It only takes one experience like that to convert to the Million-Trees Church.

As well, I've often loved the plantings that were already there when I moved into a place--I view them as messages through history and thank the person (otherwise unknown to me) who planted Lilies of the Valley in the front garden.

Crocuses in the grass (although that's a Fall planting thing) are the same. You can be delighted the next Spring when they flower and so will alllllllllll the people who live there after you for many many years.

That said, I think roses are the good. I grew up just outside of Philadelphia, and my mother grew big tea roses in a pretty effortless way. I would recommend looking at your yard and seeing where the most sun (esp afternoon) falls. Then I would advise covering up a good-sized strip NOW where you've decided you want to plant to kill off any weeds, old grass, etc before it gets started. You can use landscaping fabric but I just scavenge thrown-out carpet on trash day and use that for free.

Cover up the whole bed and leave it. Then when it's time for planting you can move off the carpet and have blank dirt underneath rather than trying to dig out all the weeds at the time of planting. Then, as Brigid Rowan says, dig BIG holes and mix in fertilizer.

After you've planted, you can re-arrange the carpet around the rose bushes and cover the whole space with mulch like bark chips or cocoa shells for a prettier look than ratty carpet. And to keep the weeds from competing with the plants. You can gradually move off the carpet/mulch and plant ground cover, but then you have to weed.

Good Wishes towards making your new home alive!

[Zoritsa_Nepenthe]

For those that plant from seeds...are there any tips on starting them and getting them large and strudy enough to then transplant outdoors? I've never been able to start from seed(except pumpkin and my son's bean)and actually get them to grow,but I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[Brigid Rowan]

Hmm, what are you doing now when you start seeds? If you tell us that, maybe someone can help by seeing the steps you are doing?

[Zoritsa_Nepenthe]

Hmm, what are you doing now when you start seeds? If you tell us that, maybe someone can help by seeing the steps you are doing?

I have bought those little greenhouse kits,the ones with the peatmoss pellets and the clear lids.I don't remember when I've planted them,as the last time I tried from seeds was a few years ago now.I've done my best to keep them with enough sunlight,though what they got may not have been enough.Otherwise,I've pretty much followed the instructions that come in the kit.

The problem seems to be that they don't get hardy enough like you'd see in the greenhouses.Mine are kind of straggly and thin looking.

[Treegoddess]

There is a plethora of information on this thread for a wannabe green thumb like me! Thank you!

I think straggly seedlings mean they are not getting enough sun.

[Crysiira]

I just wanted to note that this is a really helpful thread. I'm starting my first outdoor garden this spring, and I don't think I ever would have thought to check the soil and fertilize it. Lol, I just figured you dig up a patch of ground, stick seeds in it, start a compost pile nearby, and that was it! Perhaps not!

I'm thinking of planting an apple tree to honor our new home. My backyard is long but narrow, and I was told to watch out for branches overhanging onto neighbors' yards. We're thinking of putting up a small, maybe waist-high fence mainly to establish where our yard ends and the neighbors' begins. Unfortunately, with almost 20 inches of snow on the ground and counting, taking measurements and such at this time of the year is proving impossible!! I'm really hoping it melts a bit before the end of this month so I can start my planning.

May I ask, how do you go about testing the soil? Is it simply a matter of looking at it, or do you get scientific and test pH balances and such?

[skilly-nilly]

May I ask, how do you go about testing the soil? Is it simply a matter of looking at it, or do you get scientific and test pH balances and such?

You can get as complex as you want to, here's a fairly simple test process:
http://www1.umn.edu/webdd/prepcare/soiltypenv.html

here's more in-depth testing:
http://www1.umn.edu/webdd/prepcare/soiltypenv.html


These sites don't mention depth of topsoil which I think is very important. In new developments, they scrape off the (nutrient-rich) top soil when they start building and then scrape back on the minimum-required level (less than a foot) when they're done and sell the rest.
So it's important to dig a hole and see how far down the black crumbly rich soil goes and when it becomes paler and hard to dig. One house I lived in had about 8 inches and the house one I live in now (built about 50 years ago before the scraping-and-selling practice) has about 2 1/2 feet.

If you're just planting a tree you can dig a big hole and stir in a bag of aged manure but if you're putting in a whole garden you'd do better to roto-till in several bags of good augmentation.

You can buy small Apple trees (ones that never grow large, they're all small to start with of course) and you can also prune them to be whatever size you need. They like being pruned and bear better if you do. If you live where there's rabbits (and who doesn't??) be sure to put a protective collar on the trunk in the Winter or they will eat it.

[Crysiira]

Thank you for the good advice and helpful link! :hahugh: (just a note, both links took me to the same place, but that's ok, I don't think I'll get very in-depth quite yet, just the basics to start with.)

[Nitefalle]

Roto-tills are okay, but I found that they don't go very deeply down into the soil, especially with the thick clay-like soil in my backyard. My best investment so far has been a pitchfork and some good old fashioned elbow grease. A sore back for a day is worth all the plants I can grow, to me. Whenever I have dug new beds, I first removed all the grass from the area, clearly marked my boundaries and then I started to turn the soil with my pitchfork. I would cover the entire area in a layer of compost / manure and dig that under, folding it much like making a meringue. Then, I would repeat. I do this every spring (and just work around existing plants) to help better the quality of my soil. Also, mulch is your friend and can help cut down on water costs in the summer by helping to preserve the moisture underneath it rather than allowing it to get baked off and evaporate in the heat.

For roses, I would also recommend a separate bed as they can be right persnickety sometimes (they like acidic soil).

For absolute first timers - I know you are chomping at the bit to fill your yard instantly, but it really helps to start slow until you get to know your yard better. Try a few plants this year and really use that time to mark sun exposure and how it changes from spring until fall. See how many birds and bugs visit your yard, if you'll have to guard against anything (especially learning the habits of your dog!) and what kind of watering you'll need to be doing based on sun exposure. Use this time to better your soil and dig beds that will be more than ready to hold all the plants you want *next* spring. Use potted plants to plot your garden - move them around to different places throughout the months and see how the plants fare in different areas. Use them to visualize your future layout. Research the plants you are thinking of - I planted some butterfly bushes a couple of years ago and am still astounded as how BIG they get and almost grow over the hostas I planted near their bases. I should have paid more attention to the tag that stated its prospective size.

[skilly-nilly]

Roto-tills are okay, but I found that they don't go very deeply down into the soil, especially with the thick clay-like soil in my backyard. My best investment so far has been a pitchfork and some good old fashioned elbow grease. A sore back for a day is worth all the plants I can grow, to me.

It's a lot more work, but I agree that digging is better.....we don't want to scare off the newbys, though.

Actually, you can double-dig and get even more depth:

First you shovel out a strip of your garden, putting the dirt on the next strip over.
Then you pitchfork up the second layer of soil, and dig in some compost.
Then you shovel the first layer back in and fork some compost into that.

Then you move up a strip and dig out that top layer.......and repeat.

If you're vegetable gardening you should mulch or cover the rows between the planted rows--you should always leave working spaces between planted rows so that you can get to the middle easily but you don't want to have to weed them. You can use scavenged carpet strips (they're free) or you can use straw (you can roto-till it into the dirt at the end of the season and use alternate strips to plant in the next year--that is, you can plant a strip, cover the strip next to it, plant the covered strip next year and cover and rest last year's strip) or you can only till the planted strips if you're starting from grass and leave the spaces as grass; just be sure that the spaces are wide enough to push a lawn-mower down and then you can just mow them.

[Brigid Rowan]

A quick note....before double digging, deep digging, etc..it is a GOOD idea to have the utility lines marked. :)

[Zephyrstorm]

And if you don't feel comfortable doing you own soil testing, you can often send it to local universities and some cities to get it tested.

You guys have me dying for a yard to work in. Sadly, the husband is sick, or I'd be heading for the greenhouse suppliers now for my container garden. *sigh*
This new apartment is great except for the sunlight needs. The patio is in almost full shade until about this time of day, and then its back in full shade during the late afternoon. During the summer its full shade all the time.

Good thing my best friend has already welcomed my assistance with her new yard.