Possibly the best post ever in my eye Veronica, I am 2nd year newbee and I have had all the same, that said not all in year one :)
and even though I did toms last year I still haven't learned to be patient with the ripening, but tomorrow I am officially starting my Annie's Salsa, can't wait :)
have a happy adventure

Newbie here as well. Some I'd add.

You'll wish you had a lot more "yard" to work with.

Those trees that provide shade that was a positive point when you bought the house...you start think about cutting down.

You'll start off freaking out about every hole, every bug that you see. Eventually you just learn to live with a little bit of damage.

Tomatoes are fun because they grow so fast. It's fun poking around the branches and seeing what blossoms actually set.

Tomatoes are the 20 dollar crack whores of the vegetable kingdom. They have a lot of potential diseases and pests, and it's only a matter of time before they come down with one.

Tomatoes are the 98 year old geriatric patients of the vegetable kingdom. Once they get sick, they go downhill quick.

(Yeah, I'm bitter about my tomato growing experience this year).

Two prolific bell pepper plants supply more than enough bell peppers for a household of "1".

It doesn't matter how many jalapeno plants you plant...you can't plant enough if they don't produce a single pepper.

A difference of just 1-2 hours of shade makes a huge difference in the ultimate size of a plant.

Strawberries don't like 100 degree heat.

Good thread... one of my lessons early on..

Yes, actually, you really do have to harden off tomato seedlings.

It was interesting to read all these posts. Thanks for giving an old lady a few grins and a lot of memory flash backs.

You should have seen our first garden. Oh boy what a dismal failure. Being a city girl, I knew nothing but seeds grow into plants. Well sometimes they don't grow at all if you are planting them in pure clay. What we didn't know is that our semi-country home was stripped of topsoil.

There was no internet to help us either. We learned by reading, talking to other gardeners around here and trial and error. We lucked out because our neighbor was an excellent gardener.

One thing I have to say is gardening is a life long learning process. Even after 30+ years I am still learning, but it is also very rewarding and delicious. I feel sorry for people that have never tasted corn picked cooked and eaten within an hour. or the taste of a tomato fresh from the vine. The sweetness of carrots and peas freshly picked.

A word for greenie--
Buy tomato seed that is disease resistant or heirloom varieties. Over the many years of growing heirloom varieties have built up resistance to many tomato diseases.
Mulching your tomatoes and keep away some diseases and the moisture in the soil so they won't get blossom end rot.

Happy gardening--it's so nice to see young people get into gardening.

I have about 1,000 sq. feet of planted space in Pueblo, CO.

The posts made me laugh. Especially the part about the pumpkins. Mine look like something out of an old bad Japanese horror movie.

1. The biggest thing I learned this year was to divide my garden into 9 square foot sections. I found this gives a pretty steady supply of whatever I'm growing once it starts to produce.

For instance, I plant 9 square feet of beans or peas. Once I see the first true leaves, I plant another section. Once a section starts to produce, I pull out the plants in the older section and plant something else. I credit not allowing plants to die in the garden for a freedom from disease which seems to mostly attack older plants.

2. The other biggest thing I learned was to use a scuffle hoe almost every morning. This keeps the weed population to virtually zero.

3. A table with a couple of chairs is a great place to spend the early morning and the evening.

4. Some shade makes the plants smaller, but so what? The vegetables are still good.

5. Everything is good in a Calzone. If not in a Calzone, then in the Crock Pot.

6. Most leaves are edible and are better tasting than lettuce.

7. Sleeping outside by the garden is fun. I seldom sleep inside anymore except when it's raining.

8. If food is the point, you are missing the point. Food is just a byproduct.

9. Gardeners really don't post much on forums. I suspect they are too busy gardening.

10. Ten minutes in someone else's garden is worth days of internet searches.

11. People who garden are considered subversive by many. Best to not mention it to the neighbors.

Than you, Heather, Wulfe, and Oilpainter. I'm enjoying reading everyone's responses.

Greenie, you cracked me up :P I was laughing out loud reading your post. (My tomatoes are doing fine ... except for that whole not ripening thing ... this is in parenthesis so that the tomato gods don't see me saying good things about mine and choose to smite me.)

I have 1 producing pepper plant ... Apparently the things I thought were peppers (something about a storm, markers getting knocked out of pots, things not germinating, me thinking that these things that looked lilke peppers to me turned out to be tomatillos ... which are now more monsterous than my tomatoes!) ... weren't :: So, I have green pepper envy, and jalipeno pepper empathy.

gershon, I liked your "everything is good in a calzone ... or a crock pot." ... I find it interesting you sleep outside in the garden. Do you have a photo of this? ;) It's an interesting thought. I used to live in LA and there were homes built in the 40s and 50s with "sleeping porches" (a way to stay cool(er) on hot nights before AC) and it's always been kind of a fantasy for me. When I get cash to build the deck I want, I'll cover myself with Deet and sleep outside. (There will be no sleeping in the backyard ... it's a big hill.)

Fun replies. I look forward to hearing more :)

-Veronica

Ha, love this thread!

One thing many of us seem to have in common is under-estimating the size of squash (and their relatives). My "dwarf", "bush", pumpkin variety turned into a sprawling beast that has vined up and over the mailbox. I'm continually dragging the tendrils away from my lot line to keep it from invading the neighbor's yard and the road. (36", compact? yeah right!)

The cucumber vines laughed at my 48" stakes. They're currently growing up and over my garage roof.

The timing on my plants is "off" from typical, seasonal harvest. I have ripe pumpkins that would make perfect Jack-O-Lanterns (today), and a huge mess of green tomatoes that probably won't be ready until mid-September. I've had a fair number of bell peppers since July, but my pattypan squash are just now starting to reach edible sizes (3-4" diameter). I'll be making some changes to my planting calendar next year.

Researching and trialing varieties will be an ongoing quest.... I'm completely underwhelmed by my Yellow Pear tomatoes (even though they're 6'+ tall), but the first Cherokee Purple tomato made up for it, and then some.

Possibly the most valuable lesson learned -

Neighbors are very forgiving when they receive nice big bags of fresh produce. My neighbor to one side was initially alarmed - she asked what the "big yellow flowers" creeping up the garage were, and when I explained that they were cucumbers and squash, she looked disturbed. I think her exact response was ".... really? Like the kind you EAT?" Several bags of veggies later, she gets excited when she sees fruit setting, and asks me what's going to happen next.

Good to know that we'll all be able to look back on this and laugh!

Other things to know and love (or at least accept) about gardening.

When certain plants are happy (lettuce, broccoli, Swiss Chard), other plants won't be (Tomatoes Peppers, eggplants) and vice versa.

Every year something will do better than expected and something else will be a disappointment. It will never be the same thing from year to year. Try and figure out what went wrong with your disappointments but don't dwell on it. Focus on you successes not your failures.

Each year brings different growing conditions (some years will be hot & dry others cool and wet, some years some bugs might have banner years others those bugs will barely be noticed).

Don't get upset with yourself for physical or emotional setbacks during gardening season. These things happen. Think about next year if you can't resurrect things this year.

If you no longer get enjoyment out of it, you may want to pass on gardening for a year.

Each year you will find yourself at the beginning of the season saying, "Lawn? Who needs a lawn?" and by the end of the season, you'll be saying "I think I'll make the garden a little smaller next year." or "Hmmm....Maybe more perennials."

Let yourself enjoy the mystery of a couple of volunteers that come up next year. I always seem to have cosmos, amaranth and mystery pumpkins / squashes that come up. It's lots of fun to see what they're going to be.

Alright, here's mine:

1. Do not underestimate the mature size of a plant! In the case of zucchini squash, plant in a plot double the anticipated size of the mature plant.

2. Be anal about pruning those tomatoes. Even God can't help you if you skip a pruning session (I had overripe tomatoes I couldn't get to, so they were eaten by flies and maggots--what a waste!).

3. Tomatoes are humongous monsters! Don't believe you can support them with a cage. If your tomato is meant to become three foot tall, stake it with a six-foot solid wood broomstick (forget about bamboo). And all cherry tomatoes should be trellised up to at least six feet.

4. Keep watering in a very orderly fashion. No, seriously. Plants (especially tomatoes) like to have a steady supply. Skipping watering sessions and overwatering are your plants' worst enemies. A pound of half-mature split cherry tomatoes is a sad sight.

5. If you are going to trellis something, make sure you build a seven-foot trellis (unless you are only planting peas) and keep training vines EACH AND EVERY DAY. Once your cucumbers are tangled in the neighbour's lilac, good luck to you. (You can delicately unwind those runners and wind them onto something else, but when you see how complicated and time-consuming that can be, you will prefer prevention).

6. Your worst enemies are the striped cucumber beetle and the spotted cucumber beetle. You WILL have to battle them if you grow any kind of cucurbit. Act before you even see them. A multi-pronged approach is best as none of the solutions are 100% efficient. Mine next year will be: spraying with kaolin, yellow bowls of soapy water to attract and drown them (I will hang some on my trellis), pyrethrine and interplanting broccoli. If you don't want to have to deal with the cuke beetles, don't plant any cucurbits.

7. If you are going to grow zucchini, straight neck or crookneck squashes, don't take chances. Plant them in a container (whiskey barrel, one each) and cover with row cover. Hand pollinate. Never remove the row cover, ever. Needless to say, you will have to water these a LOT.

8. Know when to pull a plant. If it looks sick (especially if it is a cucurbit), pull it and don't try to nurse it. Seriously. Usually, by the time you can see symptoms with the naked eye, it is too late. The sickly plant will only make your healthy plants sick. I had two tiny yellow zucchinis with barely noticeable powdery mildew, and they managed mess up my beautiful, healthy pumpkins. They may survive, but they will not produce. Do not be afraid of pulling sick plants!

9. If you see signs of mildew, don't delay. Pull the plant. If you only see a bit of it on a few leaves, chop those leaves off and spray the rest of the plant, as well as surrounding plants, with: 1 tablespoon baking soda, 1 tablespoon cooking oil (any kind--canola, olive, peanut, etc.), three drops of dishwashing liquid and a litre of water. Don't overdo it, though, as the baking soda can hurt the leaves. This recipe really works, provided there is no infestation yet. Repeat each week for three weeks as well as after rainfall (wait for the plant to dry off first).

10. This is my favorite lesson: never, ever, EVER leave any task for tomorrow. Gardening tasks can accumulate real fast as gardening is highly unpredictible. If you have something to do tomorrow and you have some time now, do it NOW. Gardening is like work: it was due yesterday.

And a bonus: cleanliness is next to godliness. Be religious about cleaning. Make sure no dead leaves or rotted fruit are on the soil. Don't compost sick plant parts. Don't leave anything on the ground nearby, even kid's toys.

This is my second year gardening, and I am attempting to do everything organically. Here are my lessons:

1: Once you successfully identify the bug/fungus/disease/etc that is giving your plants problems, the internet will tell you the solution is to do something like release beneficial nematodes, release parasitic wasps, inject BT into the stem of a plant, or something like that. The only problem is that i have no idea where to purchase beneficial nematodes, or any nematodes for that matter; people look at you like you're a drug addict if you ask them if their store carries needles and syringes for injecting things into plants; and try explaining to your significant other why releasing thousands of wasps in the backyard is a good idea with kids running around (if you can figure out where to buy them in the first place). I guess what I really learned is to simply expect everyone to think your crazy.

2: the internet provides enough gardening information to get you into trouble, but not enough to get you out of trouble. In the end, its just plants on the line, so the stakes are not so high i guess.

3: squash vine borers haunt my nightmares.

Overall, my experience has been good. Like everyone else, some plants do well, others die a fast and painful death from vine borers, and some don't do much of anything. I am having fun and learning a lot! and I get enough veggies to make it economically worthwhile.

Wow I have a way to go before I reach the one year mark, but so far I have learned patience. Oh! and that paper towels/newspaper that are wet, placed over carrot seeds in shallow soil help them germinate faster!

My first year too at gardening.

1. If at first you dont succeed? Try, Try again. I had 20 zukes and squashes decimated by insect life attacking and boring them stems. I tore em all out and planted anouther batch.

2. You can never have enuff 6 foot tomato stakes, and a good handsaw and a walk into the woods to saw off dead limbs and deadfall for material works great.

3. Them old teeshirts work beautifully when shredded into strips to tie off them tomatoe plants to your stake and grid system.

4. Corn does not grow well in area under large oak trees and only recieves a few hours of direct sun, and the rest spotty sunshine.

5. Pepper plants take a while to get established but then kick into overdrive like a teenage growth spurt.

6. Dont underestimate using a good balanced granular fertilizer or even some of that stuff that sprays dissolved fertilizer from the garden hose attached cannisters.

7. Too much nitrogen is great for plant growth but wont help setting fruits.

8. A solution of milk and water does help with keeping powdery mildew at bay.

9. Dont overcrowd, use good planning.

10. Last but not least. Home gardening is quite enjoyable and damn them fresh veggies are better then any supermarket stuff!

OK.........I'm laughing my way through this thread. I've been growing veggies for about forty years now but still would love to add a few comments.

1. You will be planning next year's garden before your last tomato is picked this year.

2. a)Do not believe pictures on plant labels. b) some catalogues are just about as accurate. If the illustration looks hand painted, there is a reason.

3) The vegetables off that packet of ten cent cabbage and tomato seed you find on the lost leader racks in variety stores will probably taste as good as the six dollar packs you ordered last January.

4) There is no such thing as just the right number of cucumber plants. You either end up begging or buying cukes or open your fridge to soggy fluffy messes of green goo because you can't give them away fast enough. Second part of the law is that the years you want to can pickles you will get beetles and have to buy them. If you have dozens of jars of pickles in your pantry, they'll come on prolifically.

5) there is no such thing as too many tomato plants.

6) deer, raccoons and groundhogs check your garden each night. They know exactly when a vegetable is just the right ripeness and will eat it the night before.

7) There is always an Indian summer after the first killing frost. If it never happened, you'd have extended your growing season a good three weeks. But, it usually happens.

8) Planning to plough your garden the next day is more effective than a rain dance.

9) They don't make tomato stakes like they used to.

10) rabid gardeners vacation in winter. If they don't they obsess about their gardens long distance for weeks.

Good thread. I remember my first garden in Marin, I learned:
* My first kid and my first garden together = a win for every other creature eating my crops.
* Deer don't nibble, they clearcut.
* How a thick fog can turn a few dark spots into a full-on fungal blight (which i could never i.d., pre-internet).
* How to develop a high tolerance for squishing things and become a bug predator instead of an indiscriminatory sprayer.
* That I was addicted for life.

I like this. It's a neat sharing experience. I'm sure different posts have struck a note (or caused a chuckle) for each of us individually. Some that have either rung true for me or made me think are:

gershon's: Ten minutes in someone else's garden is worth days of internet searches. (I don't know anyone with a garden, really. Now I want to meet some to do this.)

landarch's: Neighbor alarmed at the huge squash blossoms growing up the garage wall. (I can picture this!)

booberry's: Wisdom that When certain plants are happy, other plants won't be.

viktoria's: Parental admonitions to keep your garden clean ;) (You sound like my mom ... which is kind of an endearing thing ... you've guilted me into going out to clean up more with scissors today, so I stop stabbing my fingers with tiny squash thorns.)

mmm's: squash borer nightmares. I empathize. I never thought I'd get such joy slicing open a pumpkin stem 5 inches to dig out a gross grubby lookin thing to chop it up with an exacto knife. I squirted BT inside the wound and wrapped it up with rolled gauze. This satisfies my medical aspirations :P (And my pumpkin vines look distinguished with their little bandages.)

shoontok's: "don't overcrowd" ... lesson learned ... particularly with my cucurbits.

calliope's: don't believe the pictures on labels. I hadn't thought of this, but it makes perfect sense. (And I'm already starting to plan next year, and my tomatoes are still green ;) )

dicot:s squishing things tolerance. I can knock off squash bugs and squish them with a squirt bottle, but I haven't gotten to the grabbing a cucumber beatle with my fingers and squishing it yet. I have good aim with insecticidal soap, though. And I'm planning their mass demise with a trap of cucumber, clove oil, and red dye. This plan may be even more diabolical than squishing. I'll let you know if I have permanent emotional damage after my evil plan is executed.

Thanks again, everyone. It's been nice sharing. I hope it continues :)

-Veronica

Another technique for the "squish squeamish"...

Tip them all into a small bucket/large glass filled with soapy water,
wait until the little buggers drown,
then dump them out on the ground as a warning to others

Great thread, BTW!!

My first year of a real gardening (was based on some much required therapy) and I've got some to share too, if you don't mind reading:

1. you must really follow the planting spacings for zuchs!!!

2. don't overprune your grape vine othewise you end up with just leaves

3. diluted pee on herb plants "seemed" to work, but gets too choresome to do all the time

4. stake tomatoes at least 3 feet high, even higher would be better.

5. you really have to stake beans.

6. what looks like a lot of room in the beginning of the season ends up really really crowded.

7. stick to vegetables that you have experience with. Try only new vegetables on a small section. If successful, expand to larger growing plots next year.

8. If you have invasive bamboo, use it to your advantage - cut it down for a never ending supply of stakes.

9. water, water and more water.

10. you really should look into a compost bin if you don't already have one.

First year for me, too. This is what I've learned:

1) Not everything take/makes. Be happy with what's producing.

2) The heirloom varieties really do taste better (but don't produce as much).

3) Compost - just get started. (Hopefully nothing I've put in the bin comes back later to haunt me!)

4) Be sure to have 4' wide aisles. You will not be able to walk through them, but the veggies will need that much to spread out.

5) Plant at the right time. And - sweet potatoes go in the ground in the spring. Completely missed them because I thought they were a fall garden crop.

6) The 'gardening soil' sold in the bags are not completely composted and should not be used as 'gardening soil'. I probably would have had much better luck if I had known this in the beginning.

7) Get a canner. Putting up hot sauce that needs to be eaten within two weeks means you will be giving most of it away (but you will be a local hero).

8) Cats really can learn to stay out of a fenced area.

9) Remember that those who are self-sufficient probably didn't become that way in their first year.

10) From this point on, you will eye the vegetables in your supermarket suspiciously, knowing they will not taste as good as your own, and wondering what herbicides were used on them.

Thanks for this post. It has some great lessons and some good advice.

Very fun thread!

This is also MY first serious year of trying to grow veggies...Still don't know for sure why my yellow crookneck squashies are only just poking along. Have not yet harvested any squash, although there are a few darling baby ones on the plant.

So here's my list:

1. Trees grow over the veggie section of the back yard. ;)

2. Spots that were nice and sunny 2 years ago are now shady, shady, shady.

3. Next year's veggies will need a new garden spot.

4. Growing veggies from seeds is way more fun and exciting than I ever would have imagined.

{{gwi:107556}}

4/13/10--babies!

{{gwi:107557}}

4/27/10 - toddlers!

{{gwi:107558}}

8/12/10 - Grow, little squashes, grow!

5. Skimping on soil quality is a bad idea.

6. I'm surprised at how much I anticipate checking them every day.

Very fun to read about other people's first year!

Betty

The one and only thing that I could possibly add to this thread is... no matter how many years you've been growing, no matter how much you think you know, there is always something to learn or some problem you have not run up against. the only reason we keep doing this, is because we love it! and despite the challenges, we persevere.

This is a great thread for newbies likes us, and I'm sure for some experienced gardeners as well. Here is my contribution:

1. Wild bunnies in the backyard are only cute until they start eating your vegetables.

2. Basil really will grow better and bushier if you pinch the tops off, especially if your plant is trying to bolt - no more harvesting leaf by leaf!

3. You can regrow green onions from root stubs after buying and eating your initial bunch from the grocery store. This is much faster than growing them from seeds.

4. Zucchinis and cucumbers grow really fast once the female flowers are pollinated.

5. Don't crowd too many plants in too little space.

6. Growing plants from seeds takes longer, but it's a whole lot more fun than buying seedlings.

7. Rosemary takes forever and a half to germinate from seed, and grows even slower.

8. Oregano will spread and take over your whole garden if it's planted in the ground.

9. Bugs are yucky, but the damage they cause, if left alone, are even yuckier.

10. Garden bloggers are really nice and helpful people!

Here is a link that might be useful: Thyme To Garden Now

I'm not new to gardening but there are still so many new things I learn every year. I wanted to second what calliope wrote [2. a)Do not believe pictures on plant labels. b) some catalogues are just about as accurate. If the illustration looks hand painted, there is a reason.]. Also I've found that if the vegetable description includes how big it gets and how pretty its going to be but doesn't include a description of the taste... it probably won't have any.

I also agree this is an awesome thread.

~Cindy

I love this thread! One comment that has been resonating with me since I read it a few days ago was about continually planting new plants and continually pulling old ones. I'm back to gardening this year after a 15-year haiatus and I've noticed that same thing: The older a plant gets, the more bugs it tends to attract.

I really like the idea of doing more succession planting, keeping things moving and continually starting/thinning as the year goes on instead of thinking of the garden in terms of distinct "summer/winter" boxes. That insight will for sure change the way I do things, so thank you Gershon!

Until I read this thread, I didn't realize the corellation between those pretty white butterflies and my ruined cabbage plants. I'll be ready for them next year!

camp, I didn't realize it either until researching online and on gardenweb. "What are these cabbage lopers of which you speak?" (what the heck is a loper?) ... OHHHHHH, those gross lil green caterpillars I keep seeing. Gotcha!

This has been fun to read everyone's input. There are too many gems to point them out individually, but I've learned that not only are garden bloggers really nice and helpful (per thyme2garden) but they are pretty funny, too! It's too bad I try to share the humor with my non-gardening friends and family ... (um, ok, everyone not on here!) and they give me the blank "I don't get it," stare. Such is life.

I highly recommend the archived "so you want to grow a gardenia" thread... I read that a few months ago and was CRYING it was so funny. (I didn't even know what a gardenia WAS until that thread.) And it has given me the courage to venture into growing flowers this coming year ... once I make the lasagna beds this fall for spring ... and build a few more trellises ... and flip my compost ... and ask the restaurant down the street for coffee grounds ... and.. and.. and.. :P

Oh, btw. The tomatoes are starting (in case anyone was troubled by my plethora of non-ripening tomatoes.) ... The gardening gods like me (at the moment ;) ).

Thanks again everyone for sharing {{gwi:107560}}

- Veronica

Wow, great stuff everyone! As a newbie indoor gardener, my issues are a little different: no beetles or caterpillars, yes aphids and mites; no pollinators helping out, yes pollinating by hand; no drowning rain, yes watering EVERY DAY; no ladybugs (thought about it though), yes aphid hunting; no pain, yes gain. =) I like to think I've been making DISCOVERIES rather than being taught lessons.

Who knew that grape and cherry tomato plants grow every bit as big as the beefsteaks?
Since when do cucumbers have spikes?!?
Ditto to eggplants!
Why can't I stop thinking about what I want to plant next?
Plants will really do whatever they want, never mind what I thought they were going to do or what I wanted them to do. All I can do is readjust my own point of view and hope for the best.

My girlfriend thinks I'm crazy (maybe "knows" is a better word ;P), but its great to have people around who think its normal to check on their green babies twice daily. =) Thanks!

shane.