My no work, money saving vegetable garden.

[Mouse13]

My chives have already started coming back! I'm looking forward to gardening again this year.

 

[swilshire]

My husband went down to the mushroom factory last week and got a pickup load of mushroom compost. We've never tried this, but our friends swear by it. Hope it's great for the garden. I hear the tractor outside turning it in.

My four strawberry plants from last year have really spread and the apple and pear trees have millions of buds just waiting to pop out. It's 70 today and going to turn cold tomorrow for a couple of days.

I'm SO ready for Spring!

Sheila

 

[Happy Mom2]

We planted our first garden last year, and it was a raised bed. We are doing it again. DH is outside cleaning the yard now. We will probably do our garden tomorrow. I am ready for home grown tomatoes, bell peppers, and herbs.

 

[CTdiznymom]

So excited to see this thread come to life again.

I'm so looking forward to getting my garden planted. Last year was our first raised bed garden, and we did OK. Tried some things I won't do again, and learned a lot along the way.

I found a site that lets you plot out your garden and then you can print it and depending on what you add to your plot, they give you info. on the plants. So head over to www.gardeners.com and design your raised beds. They also have pre designed gardens if you want to go that route. Great site. We'll be planting: Basil, parsley, tomatoes, peppers, beans, swiss chard, and tons of leaf lettuce. Going to also try summer squash, and eggplant.

 

[swilshire]

We planted our first garden last year, and it was a raised bed. We are doing it again. DH is outside cleaning the yard now. We will probably do our garden tomorrow. I am ready for home grown tomatoes, bell peppers, and herbs.

I know it's old fashioned, but it worked for centuries so I'm not going against it. We always plant with the "signs". According to the Farmer's Almanac website, any seeds planted 3/21 - 23 will rot in the ground. The 24th and 25th are best planting days. Today is OK for things that grow above the ground.

Most places you should already have your tomato, pepper and herb plants started in seed pots indoors. The Farmers Almanac will also give you a timeline for indoor and outdoor planting tailored to your ZIPcode.

Sheila

 

[sasywtch]

I was reading this thread and at the end realized, most was from last year. Oh well, it's gardening time again and my favorite thing to do! My guy friend and I started this a few years ago and went out and bought all the spanking new gardening stuff. 2 years ago we toured a community garden where people rent spaces and they had beautiful plants and their veggies were huge. We noticed, they didn't go out and buy all the fancy garden stuff, they used what they had or could find. We started doing that also the last few years.
I have 3 4'x6' raised beds that are a foot high and a 12 foot and 14 foot inground plus 2 handing tomato plants We just tilled on Friday and set up my green bean trellis. Nothing fancy and it's worked the best. We found some old (previously tossed and now reused by me) wire that has the squares about a foot in diameter. It's about 6 foot long and only 3 feet high. We put in some dowels and tied the square wire to the heavy dowels with wire. It still wasn't high enough so I took twine and tied some strings of it from the top of my wire trellis up to the fence, up to the tree,up to an old wire clothesline. My greenbeans are going everywhere. I have 2 five gallon buckets that I grow cherry tomato plants in hanging off that old wire clothesline. My son drilled a hole about the size of a 50 cent piece in the bottom where I put the roots of the plant up in and then filled the bucket halfway with dirt/compost. Do not use the plastic handles to hang the bucket. They break as mine did last year. My son took off the handle and drilled a hole on each side, strung heavy rope through the holes and wrapped the rope in plastic tape and had that for a hanger. I only do cherry tomatoes as I was a little afraid of the weight of a beefsteak tomato hanging. I got lots of cherry tomatoes off those two last year.

I have some strawberries in one of my raised beds (about half of the bed). The birds always ate them so last year I came up with a bright idea and we are making it better this year. Might help some of you also that are having problems with critters. I took 6 2 foot boards (thin, about 1/2 inch) and nailed them to the side of my raised bed. I stapled chicken wire to them making a cage around my strawberry plants. Last year I wired chicken wire to the top so I could undo it and get into the plants. This year, my friend is taking some old pvc pipe and making it into a square which we will wire some chicken wire to and make a top to sit on top of those wood stakes I nailed to the side of the raised bed. No more untieing wire, just lift off. (I wanted it wood and just staple the chicken wire to the wood for the top, but he had extra pvc pipe and doing the labor for free, so who am I to say no to that!

I have those tomato cages but not enough. Those expert gardeners didn't use the cages, they used what they had so I followed their lead. I found some heavy dowels and some 4 foot stakes (none are treated), put three around the tomato plants and use that green tape (used for stabelizing trees and bushes) and as the plants grew, I tied to the stakes. If you have any of those community gardens, check them out and see what they use. It's so interesting to see what they come up with. None had fancy trellis's. They find things in other's trash and use it. One person used an old wood ladder as a trellis We have found that it's a lot of fun to come up with ideas that are unusual.

I love coming home from work and going out to the garden to see what I can pick and then make something up for dinner from what I picked. When I get a lot of tomatoes, I boil for a minute, let them cool, peel and place in a freezer bag, smash a little and then when I make spagetti or chili, I have tomatoes. Bellpeppers, I cut up in chunks and freeze. Zucchini, I shred and freeze for muffins/breads. The lemon cucumbers are great in a flavored vinegar with a little salt/pepper.

Buy blue........lilac, rosemary, blue/purple flowers seem to bring the bees to help pollinate. I plant a few little blue/purple flowers in the garden and have a lilac bush on one side and a rosemary bush on the other side. When walking, we noticed the bees always on the blue/purple flowers so we went in that direction. My sister grew strawberries in her flower bed in the front of the house. I look at empty spaces in the lawn a lot differently now. I've taken large coffee cans, put holes in the bottom with a nail/hammer, put in some dirt and few cilantro, basil. (put a small piece of wood on each side of the can so water could drain out the holes at the bottom). To me, it's gotten to be too much fun to see a space of dirt somewhere in my yard and think.........hmmmm what would grow there. Sorry this is so long but it excites me to get out in the yard when spring comes.

 

[shortbun]

we've done raised bed gardening for several years and the last two years we raised our tomatoes in upside down pots hanging from the back porch. We just left our communal neighborhood where everyone takes a part of the summer garden and then we share. I will miss it but we now have a huge yard and will be growing much of our own this year.

I think we're turning the soil next weekend. We still have to talk about what we're growing. Varied veggies will be harder than one or two. My sage, rosemary and tyme wintered over this year. We moved them from the old house last weekend.

 

[pampam]

we've done raised bed gardening for several years and the last two years we raised our tomatoes in upside down pots hanging from the back porch. We just left our communal neighborhood where everyone takes a part of the summer garden and then we share. I will miss it but we now have a huge yard and will be growing much of our own this year.

I think we're turning the soil next weekend. We still have to talk about what we're growing. Varied veggies will be harder than one or two. My sage, rosemary and tyme wintered over this year. We moved them from the old house last weekend.

So, how did the upsidedown tomatoes do? Were you happy with the results?

 

[lovesmurfs]

oooh... missed this thread last year! I had my biggest garden yet last year. Not raised bed -- just me and the claw to hand-rototill. I had a good yield, except only had 3 pumpkins. Yellow squash had a bit of trouble, too. I've got shredded zucchini and pumpkin frozen, as well as cherry and grape tomatoes I use in soup.

I still have 2 butternut squash -- Don't know what I'm saving it for!

I'd planned to do yard work this weekend -- Snow stopped that! Can't wait for the real spring!

 

[Purseval]

We have some friends who do the tomato plants in the 5 gal pails UPSIDE DOWN. It works great so we will give it a try this summer. She cut a hole in the bottom of a pail and worked the tomato plan through so the root was inside the pail and the stem poking out the bottom. them fill with dirt and hang it up. (they used an old swingset to hang the pails from) The tomatoes grow down. It looks weird but worked really well!
OP- Have you ever done this??

From the website of Georgia master gardener Walter Reeves:

http://www.walterreeves.com/qa_display.phtml?qaID=745

Tomato - Planting Upside-Down

Q: A lot of my gardening friends think I'm crazy but I have planted a tomato so that it hangs from the bottom of a five gallon bucket of dirt. My plant is doing fine and already turning up toward the sky. What can I expect?

A: I won’t comment on your mental state but you shouldn’t expect lots of tomatoes. The hormones that control bloom and fruit formation rely on gravity to move them from branch tips downward. By hanging the plant upside down, you interfere with hormone transportation. That's partially why the tips are already turning upwards. They’re looking for sunlight and trying to position themselves so gravity can do its work.

If you want tomatoes from your contraption, support the vines as they turn up, allowing them to climb toward the sky.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to plant them in the ground or right-side-up in a hanging bucket?

Most serious gardening forums also consider the topsy turvy method to be nothing more than a gimmick, here is an example:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/contain/msg0723563010486.html

We bought 2 topsy turvy planters ourselves for cheap money at yard sales and tried them last year. We got tomatoes on both plants but not as many as the conventional plants we also grew. They are also very heavy and one that we hung off of a deck beam needed a long wand to water it. We won't be using them again this year. The only time this method makes any sense is if you have no other space for them.

 

[Colleen27]

We bought 2 topsy turvy planters ourselves for cheap money at yard sales and tried them last year. We got tomatoes on both plants but not as many as the conventional plants we also grew. They are also very heavy and one that we hung off of a deck beam needed a long wand to water it. We won't be using them again this year. The only time this method makes any sense is if you have no other space for them.

Our experience was similar. My daughter really wanted to try the upside down method, so we planted 3 that way, suspended from the arbor out back. They require much more watering, fertilizing, and attention than tomatoes grown in the ground, and we didn't get much fruit production at all. It would be better than nothing if you don't have room for tomatoes in the ground, but since that isn't the case for us, I'll stick to growing the "old fashioned" way.

In hindsight, there are a couple things I should have done differently - I used the same types of tomatoes I put in the ground, which were HUGE plants (7'+ properly supported), much too big for containers. Determinant (bush) or even dwarf varieties are more suitable for container growing and I suspect might have done better. Second, I think heavily mulching the exposed soil at the top of the planter would have helped cut down on the moisture loss. Third, I should have used living soil from the garden rather than sterile potting mix, because a few worms and the nutrients of my heavily-amended soil would probably have been better for sustaining the plants.

All of that said, we won't be trying upside down growing again - it was too much work for not enough results. My daughter's experiment this year is miniature bell peppers and dwarf cherry tomatoes in pots on the porch steps, with an eye towards overwintering them to see how they do indoors and in a second year.

 

[Colleen27]

oooh... missed this thread last year! I had my biggest garden yet last year. Not raised bed -- just me and the claw to hand-rototill.

My garden is looking like it'll be that way too, because my husband and I are at an impasse as far as raised bed materials. He doesn't like my concrete block planters and I don't want to use treated lumber for growing food. Untreated won't survive our weather, and cedar or composite are out of the budget for this season. So I've been cutting out sod and tilling the ground, and the "raise" to the beds will just be from the compost and mulch I work in before planting. The only real raised bed will be for the potatoes; I'm trying something I read about online for growing them in stackable beds to make mounding the soil and harvesting in the fall easier.

 

[pampam]

My garden is looking like it'll be that way too, because my husband and I are at an impasse as far as raised bed materials. He doesn't like my concrete block planters and I don't want to use treated lumber for growing food. Untreated won't survive our weather, and cedar or composite are out of the budget for this season. So I've been cutting out sod and tilling the ground, and the "raise" to the beds will just be from the compost and mulch I work in before planting. The only real raised bed will be for the potatoes; I'm trying something I read about online for growing them in stackable beds to make mounding the soil and harvesting in the fall easier.

I'm not sure where in Michigan you are, but we are in Northern Ontario, Hardiness Zone 4A. That seems to be the same zone for Northern Michigan, but you would know better. My planter boxes are made from regular spruce 2x4's and are many years old. The first one I made will need about 10 minutes work this year, since one of the end 2x4's has been warping out and needs to be renailed. I would never use pressure treated wood, and concrete blocks are just too expensive. Also, they can shift over time, like a foundation would. Of course you know best what your needs are. Also, I never plant potatoes in the same spot year after year, because this encourages potato bugs. Here in Ontario we cannot use potato powder any more. Of course I wouldn't use it anyway, since it's a type of poison. It's much easier just to rotate crops, and as I have said, this is my no work, money saving vegetable garden.

 

[Colleen27]

I'm not sure where in Michigan you are, but we are in Northern Ontario, Hardiness Zone 4A. That seems to be the same zone for Northern Michigan, but you would know better. My planter boxes are made from regular spruce 2x4's and are many years old. The first one I made will need about 10 minutes work this year, since one of the end 2x4's has been warping out and needs to be renailed. I would never use pressure treated wood, and concrete blocks are just too expensive. Also, they can shift over time, like a foundation would. Of course you know best what your needs are. Also, I never plant potatoes in the same spot year after year, because this encourages potato bugs. Here in Ontario we cannot use potato powder any more. Of course I wouldn't use it anyway, since it's a type of poison. It's much easier just to rotate crops, and as I have said, this is my no work, money saving vegetable garden.

Oddly enough, I think I might have found a solution since my last post... A Craigslist posting from a demolition/construction company offering free, unpainted red brick. I've got a heavy-duty truck so going to get them won't be a problem, and I love the idea of brick garden planters. We'd only ruled it out because of cost.

I'm on the line of 5b/6a in southeastern Michigan. I didn't figure that regular pine or spruce would hold up that well. Concrete foundation block is pretty cheap here, about $1ea, so that was really the cheapest option we looked at but DH hates the look. I think it is kind of cool myself, because you can use the openings in the block for herbs and companion plants like marigolds.

Unfortunately, my garden space isn't large enough for meaningful crop rotation; the furthest I could move my potatoes from where they will be this year is about 15 feet - not nearly far enough that the buggies won't find their way over. So far we haven't had a problem (knock wood) and I don't do anything special other than a row cover over the plants when they're young.

 

[Alice1386]

Love this thread! I am going to start my second attempt at a container garden this year and these are all wonderful tips!

 

[annakris1973]

Has anyone tried using 18 gallon (or similar size) plastic storage tubs for their container gardens? Although this wouldn't be as nice as a more permanent raised bed, I thought maybe I could get a season or two out of them. I miss my huge garden...but since we don't have a tractor anymore, I am looking for something easy I can maintain myself.

 

[sasywtch]

I planted by cucumbers, squash, eggplant, strawberries and 2 tomato plants today (off type tomatoes, a black cherry tomato and an heirloom). Trying different things this year. A mango or papaya squash which I thought was different.

On the radio today, a gardening show....this woman had no sun in her back yard but wanted a tomato plant. They came up with an idea to buy an old used wheelbarrow (construction yard one that is very deep), fill with dirt and plant the tomato in there. That way she can move it around to the sun during the day Sounded good to me. If I ever find one of those wheelbarrows used, I will probably get it just for the idea. I think I would grow lettuce or something else inside of it though.

 

[Colleen27]

I planted by cucumbers, squash, eggplant, strawberries and 2 tomato plants today (off type tomatoes, a black cherry tomato and an heirloom). Trying different things this year. A mango or papaya squash which I thought was different.

I'm trying a lot of new varieties this year, all heirlooms except my sweet corn, and it is so much fun seed shopping! I may have gotten just a little carried away, but there are so many interesting types that you just don't find on the big box store seed racks or in the grocery store produce dept.

I've got my onions, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes started indoors so far, with the broccoli and (purple) cauliflower going in at the end of the month. I've still got a while before I can start putting much of anything out, but getting everything started is such a nice way to kick off spring!

 

[hoffmann2828]

These are all good ideas. I use 2x4 because they are cheaper, and this is of course the budget board. However, the larger lumber pieces would be less labour intensive. We have moles here, and shrews too, but they have never been in my gardens. Perhaps it's because they are so far up from the ground. I've never used wire to line the bottom. Really, I suppose we could make these as elaborate as we choose, but for economy sake, I just make a 2'x4'x8' box in the back yard up against the brick wall of the garage.

I haven't done this yet, but I was just thinking we have some extra window screening (plastic, not wire) that would work too, and already have on hand.

For the bottom, just to keep the critters out.

 

[Kirby]

We're starting our first raised bed this year. We've done the regular garden and containers. We didn't care for container gardening. The sun is brutal in the summer and we have a SW facing backyard.

We've had some really good vegetable gardens and very nice neighbors that would bring their tractors over to till for us when they tilled their own. The only hard part was keeping the Bermuda grass out.

I've been after my husband to help me put in raised beds for five years. He's finally given in. We're going to start with one, maybe two and go from there. I'm hoping to have some raised bed flower gardens also.