Help with vegetable garden design
13 years ago
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- 13 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
- 13 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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My Vegetable Garden Design
Comments (2)Ok here's little to get you started. First click on the sq. ft. forum, and catch a link to plant spacing. If your soil is good, and has lots of organic material, you can grow a lot more veges than you have on your plot diagram. For example onions can be grown as close as 2" in all directions, thats 16/sq foot. I grow them 3" apart in all directions and they do just fine. Lettuce can be grown 4/sq ft. Personally I would go out tomorrow morning and plant some spinach plants where the tomatoes are to be grown later, in 45 days you can harvest a lovely crop and then set out your tomatoes (succession planting), also investigate growing verticlly, pole beans are at least as tasty as bush beans and give you a lot more yield for the space allocated. I am sure others will chime in, but the key is to grow the things that you like to eat and use your limited space as efficiently as you can....See MoreIneed your help with vegetable garden design
Comments (7)I have decided what to do I am going back to garden beds not one huge garden with no paths. I only did that to accommodate my next year's attempt of a 3 sisters garden, but I am not going to try that next year after all. this year was a flop. and...Texas is a bit hot for corn and I read about all the problems with a 3 sisters garden. First the beans produce less. You need a really big place since if things are too close together, the beans will not get enough light. Sweet corn is not strong enough to support pole beans. I think from what I read, dent corn was used by the Indians. I could try that, but not sure family would like it since it is not as sweet as modern sweet corn. It gets very tall too, which would shade the beans even more. I have lots of food allergies and about all I can eat is legumes in the green stage (not dried), beets, winter squash and broccoli . So I believe I should focus my efforts there. I am not trying broccoli in Texas though. Fresh broccoli is easy to purchase organic. Limas, and cow peas can't be purchased green in any store around here. Green beans and peas can be purchased frozen at the health food store, but never fresh. Beets and winter squash are hit and miss. So there is a big benefit for me growing these. I am planting celeriac and rutabaga too. I purchased those at a whole foods once and they did not make me sick. Those two are not available at my local health food store. I do not think I will have any luck with celeriac, but I will give it a go. I am also planting herbs and greens for my family this fall. Not such a big deal if they don't work out though, since they do not eat organic. Anyway, I will build beds (again) about 12 X 3. 2 beds by the house and 2 further out. I am making them longer this time since everything does better closer to the house where it is cooler and gets more afternoon shade. If I made them shorter with paths between it would waste the valuable, close to the house space. The reason I am breaking up the beds with 1 path between, is 1 long bed is annoying to have to carry the hose around and I need to leave a space for the down spout. That area now is nothing but mud with all the rain we have been getting. I am not going out as far, as I have the huge garden now. Everything dies past 8 feet out, too hot! I guess I would have never known all that stuff unless I tried it first. If I don't have enough room for the beans, I will try something I saw in web land. They attached strings to the house gutter and attached to the ground. The beans climbed those. I also saw some neat beans climbing up privacy fences with strings. Sounds like a plan. As far as the drought problem. I will dig 1 foot round holes every 2 feet in the center of the beds. I will fill with rocks and put mulch over that. I will only water the holes when the soil shows to be dry. I surely hope that works. I did not think the ditch idea would work as well because: 1. the sides would eventually fall down 2. if I filled the ditch with water, even plants that did not need water would get it 3. seemed to me, the ditches wasted too much space 4. no place to walk 5. boring rows resulted 6. the mud problem near the down spout 7.water would evaporate from ditches unless I covered with mulch or something and would have to be re-dug when everything decomposed. If I filled with rocks, that would be a lot of rocks. 8. ditches wasted valuable close to the house space 9. too much water in the spring and fall, creating mud Just did not seem to be feasible to me. I filled in the ditches. I can't make beds until the current plants are done producing. I guess I will put things pretty much back the way they were in stages. Your post on ollas gave me courage to try out my rock/hole idea. Thanks for posting it. It is way cool! I hate to fail. I need a success every once in a while to keep up this gardening thing. I got so little produce so far. Here are the only things I have gotten so far: last fall -2005 about 5 winter squash - very sweet and yummy no sugar pumpkins 1 jackolantern in December - too late to use this spring - 2006 about 3-4 weeks of English peas every other day. Not sweet 5 small beets - not sweet 2 tiny rutabagas - not great taste no parsley - no sprout no scallions - no sprout no onions - no sprout no radish - died in heat as seedlings no spinach - no sprout lots of over ripe cover crop radishes not doing these thing in spring ever again. This summer - 2006 5 ears of poorly formed corn with ear worms about 6 tomatoes (from 2 plants) no green beans - plants died in heat, except one plant, it is blooming now (Sept 2006) no limas - very few sprouted, rest died in heat 1 unripe charentais melon - picked cause it split, rest of plants died tasted OK, but rather crunchy , pour sprouting no cucumbers - very few sprouted, rest died a couple of handfuls of cow peas, that I found out I was picking unripe. The last handful I picked, tasted great since I waited till the pods were yellow. I boiled in homemade beef broth with a bit of rendered beef fat. I would love to get at least 1 cup to make a decent meal for one. I will say things are going a bit better this fall. Hear is what has sprouted so far wax beans limas peas 7 beets squash - some have borers others may but not looking sick yet cowpeas - making pods! 2 rutabagas 2 radishes 0 cabbage - need to give a few more days I am disappointed with the beets, rutabaga and radish. I planted more beets and rutabaga. Sorry the post is so long. I am home bound so gardening fills my days, ether doing it or thinking about it. I wish it was working out better. Texas is very inhospitable. I will give the things that I have had little to no success with, a few more tries then giving up on them. My grandma had a nice large garden in Vermont. She did not have everything keel over like this. Just had frost to worry about. Not willing to move to the arctic for a bit of gardening success though. Thanks for listening. Mary...See MoreIntelligent design for a critter-resistant vegetable garden
Comments (3)Hi I had a problem much like yours a few years ago, including two legged critters, What I did was to was to start by building several raised beds of various sizes then surrounding it with cattle panels supported by steel stakes. I Wired the first two feet of the panels with chicken wire and heavy plastic tarp. I wired the pannels to the stakes so that they were over 8ft. tall and even put a pannel top over half of it. I put in two gates that I kept locked and ran several electric wires to it so that most of it so it would keep almost everything out. That worked real well. I paid about $20 for each pannel and bought 10 of them and the stakes were about $8 for each stake. Lots of times you can get them at yard sales for half the price, the pannels will last for ever. I think that the chicken wire was $10 for a role of it. you can even add lights and noise makers or alarms. I found that it will keep just about everything out except Bears and sometimes even them. George W. Z5-6 MO....See MoreHelp me design the vegetable garden of my dreams!
Comments (13)I think that the first year, a few experiments are fine, but really spend that year getting to know your site. Light patterns are important but it is also good to know things such as prevailing wind, which can change during the year. Start paying attention to micro-climates. Begin checking out books from the library to give ideas a chance to gestate. You do not state your experience level. If your gardening experience is limited in your climate, do not bite off too much at once and have all the joy zapped out of a project you just spent big bucks on. When it comes to design, I do love potager designs. Mine keeps getting larger. I agree with the above about having a perimeter bed. The fence is good for trellising and it can be deeper for berry vines, etc. It is also an efficient use of space. On my latest extension, I am building long beds to be used for crops that take quite a bit of space (pumpkins, potatoes and corn). These beds will be 20 feet long. The length was chosen because many supplies come in lengths divisible by 25 feet (like soaker hoses), so the 20 feet allows me to use those easily (the extra 5 feet allows for curves in the house). Many other supplies such as row cover, red mulch, etc use these lengths, so the aim is to have things be interchangeable in the beds. Many of my regular beds are 10 feet long so I have shorter versions available for them. While I wanted more round beds in my design, they complicate the process of covering things in inclement weather, etc. so I have limited their use in my design....See MoreRelated Professionals
Carlisle Landscape Architects & Landscape Designers · Fillmore Landscape Architects & Landscape Designers · Lynwood Landscape Contractors · North Chicago Landscape Contractors · Oak Forest Landscape Contractors · West Chicago Landscape Contractors · Whitehall Landscape Contractors · Crystal Lake Decks, Patios & Outdoor Enclosures · Hampton Bays Decks, Patios & Outdoor Enclosures · New Albany Decks, Patios & Outdoor Enclosures · West Bloomfield Township Decks, Patios & Outdoor Enclosures · Missouri City Swimming Pool Builders · Orangevale Swimming Pool Builders · Sunny Isles Beach Swimming Pool Builders · West Covina Swimming Pool Builders- 13 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
- 13 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
- 13 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
- 13 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
- 13 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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