Can someone talk me through my first garden?

[peg2001]

I'd love to start a vegetable garden with my kids this year. I've recently read a LITTLE about square-foot gardens and it sounds perfect for us as we don't have much room to devote to gardening and I don't want to get overwelmed on our first try.

The location I have in mind is where the previous-owners had an above ground pool so there is an existing sand-bed. The regular soil is all clay. I'd like to make a raised bed on top of the sand-bed. Will this work? Also, we have wood from a couple large trees that were taken down; can I use essentially "firewood logs" to border the raised bed?

I'd love any advise and/or suggested resources.

Thanks!
Peggy

 

[Snowwark]

Welcome to the F&GB, Peggy!

Planting a garden with your kids sounds like a great family project! What kind of vegetables are planning to grow?

I have one small raised bed garden. We used it for planting pole beans this past summer, and it worked out well.

Yes, you can use your logs for bordering your garden. You'll be able to get quite a few years out of them before they start to decay. They'll last even longer if you remove the bark first, using an axe or an adze.

The little bit I've read about square foot gardens, is that they are basically a box, with bottom and sides. I would skip the bottom piece and dig out a good portion of the sand. A depth of 8-12" would be good (that's how we did ours). Of course, you'll have to add a lot of triple mix (topsoil/peatmoss/manure) to get a good growing medium. The choice of whether to have a bottom part to the bed is up to you.

Here's a site link with info on square foot gardening, including some pics with trellises.

Square Foot Gardening

Don't forget, you can also grow all sorts of veggies in containers too.

 

[peg2001]

Thank you! We are just starting to plan what vegetables to grow so please speak up if you see a problem. We need this garden to be as fool-proof as possible. We've had disappointing results the last 2 years trying to start flower seeds in an existing bed.

Anyway, I'd like to stick with things that are most likely to grow and produce and that my children would eat. So far, we've discussed sweet peas, carrots, corn?, sunflowers?, lettuce, and cat nip. The last is for our cats, not the kids. A co-worker warned me NOT to grow corn but if I can get even one or two stalks to grow and produce an ear, my kids would be thrilled.

We'd love to have pumpkins and/or melons but I'm not sure they will work in such a small garden.

Thank you for your advise and encouragement as well as the link. It sure is fun to start planning while it is still so cold outside.

Peggy

 

[bobbiwoz]

Hi Peggy and welcome!

Will your garden be in the sun? It should be. I am an empty nester, so, it's been 20 years since I've gardened with my little boys, but these are some of my memories.

The peas from my little garden were the sweetest ever. Even if you don't plant sugar snap, you can eat the pods if you pick them fresh. The only thing is, really, peas are a cool weather crop, meaning, where we lived, NJ and eastern PA, they were planted St. Patty's day or a bit later, and when it got hot, the plants died, so we had great peas for about 1 week. This was a pick and eat garden, to serve them at the table, we needed lots more than I could grow. But really we would have enough to serve, but they got eaten on the way to the kitchen.

Cucumbers and tomatoes were my biggest successes as far as production. They and asparagus are the only kinds of vegetables that I continue to have every year.

My kids loved to pick broccoli "trees" and we did grow enough to serve. They are also a cool weather crop, later than peas, but basically you get one good sized head crop from each bush.

You need lots of corn stalks for pollination. I would plant 4 10 ft. rows at a time, and we got some great corn., but some teeny ones that were hardly pollinated. DH thought it was better to go to the farmer's market. He didn't "get" it.

Pumpkins take lots of room. But you can carve your kids initials in one when the pumpkin is small, and it grows with a scar.

There are "baby" sized plants, but I've never used them.

Sunflowers, huge ones are great. One of the books I used said to plant 4 rows like a huge square or rectangle and your kids would have a playroom. The birds would pick at the seeds. Grackles would pull out the tender plants, so I never could get a 4 sided room.

You also have to decide what you're going to do about insects. Plant disease resisitant varieties of whatever type of vegetables. You probably will get cucumber beetles, corn borers and others, decide how you will handle them.

My kids loved to help me with some of the chores associated with gardening. We had some fun, and my oldest, now 29 has had me help plan his garden at his own home. THAT was a huge reward to me, sharing a life-long love with my son.

And it all started with a SEED!

Bobbi