I am! Well for the first time since I was a little girl, when my dad did most of the work. Round one during the summer wasn't too fulfilling, but I am trying not to get discouraged and am hoping for better luck this fall/winter, and have a better growing medium this time around too. Not to mention the good advice of this forum now too!

Lisa B

Central FLorida near the coast, we are trying gardening for the first time.

Not counting green onions which I always have in a pot for when I need a bit for cooking, I started my first true vegetable garden this summer.

The corn is as tall as me now! I was worried when they sprouted because some bug was decimating their leaves. But perhaps its growing too fast now for it as they are all healthy and quite popular among the red-eyes tree frogs that appeard in my yard a few weeks ago.

Got a sweet potato, some snap beans, and just sowed the carrots this morning. Not much, but I started late and want to get a feel for things for next year.

Green peppers , tomatoes , green onions , Okinawa spinach , herbs and I just seeded some lettuce and parsley . My first efforts thanks to the encouragement of Castorp and Ill_mannered_ache and this Forum . I have not had good luck with direct sowing in the past so the verdict is still out on this experiment .

I get the feeling that we are not alone in our first attempts at home grown vegetables . A sign of the times ?

This is only my third year, and last year was an almost complete bust for most things, but one thing that has worked for this newbie every year has been to sprinkle a packet of mesclun (mixed leaf lettuce greens) and another of arugula on top of shredded mulch in an area that gets some direct sun, but is protected from afternoon scorch.

I picked baby lettuce and arugula for salads all winter.

I've grown tomatoes in pots - but this is my first year of trying an actual veggie garden with other veggies.

I too tried in the beginning of summer - with abismal failure. Thanks to the tips out here, I've tried again for fall planting.

I have green peppers, bush beans (if the slugs will only leave them alone...), summer squash, zucinni, cukes, peas, and green onions. And, of course, tomatoes in pots.

I have a tiny city yard, so I have to do a combo of in the ground planting and containers. I want to plant lettuce but either have to build something (like a trough shaped container) or buy something to plant lettuce.

I'm battling the slugs in my yard at the moment and hoping I win. I have probably killed a hundred+ and still find more! UGH!

South Florida

It is the first time for me as far as digging up the yard and creating designated spots. In the ground garden. Last year I container gardened and did well. I am spreading my wings this season to the soil and maintaining my containers as well.

THink I made some mistakes. Should of managed the soil better before planting, checked PH and amended. I just dropped everything in the ground! :) Somethings are doing great others are not. My pH is 7.5-8, ouch!

Green Peppers, Tomatoes (both of which are not doing well, too much rain I think), broccoli, collards, radishes, onion, okra (doing outstanding (in pots))

Yup. We are. Pretty much everything is failing... well some things are clinging to life. It's so hard to guess your way though a new garden. It's discouraging, but we're plugging along.

I'm vegetable gardening for the first time - a lot of trial, a LOT of error :) My passion far exceeds my ability, but I keep plugging along.
Cheers!
Heather W

Hi neighbor. I'm am growing my first vegetable garden this year in Waldo. Having fun, and most things are doing surprisingly well.

Trying to learn the ways of Florida growers ...

Planted two tomatoes in June, grew to six feet high, great plants huh? No tomatoes. Blossoms dried up!

Now trying round two with tomatoes just recently planted. Think they like fall planting better. Heavens sake, I've got a tomato the size of a marble already. Also am trying two broccoli plants. They're looking healthy, but believe they like it a bit cooler. We shall see ...

I'm gardening alltogether for the first time.
As for veggies... I've got three kinds of hot peppers, several kinds of tomatoes and a ginger root I bought at an asian grocery going. Everything seems to be going well so far. I'm shocked that ginger finally took root.
My garden just hit 60 days old, I'm hoping to post pics I took over the weekend when I get a chance.

My coworker and friend Tammi, has planted her first veggie garden recently. She is doing a terrific job of it, with her talented husband building raised beds for her.

She was a bit shocked that every seed she planted sprouted, and suddenly she has 32 Squashes(G). Her Bean and Cuke Beds look perfect, with plenty of room for maturity and ease of harvesting. Her Squashes are going into drilled baby pools, so they have room to spread out.

Even though she hates Tomatoes, she is growing them for her husband, and for preserving.

She takes photos of how fast the plants are growing, which I hope she will share here.

A funny story: She noticed her Yellow Cuke seedlings were looking pale, and was very worried about them. She up-potted them to try to save them. After looking them up on-line to figure out what else to do, she read- "yellow Foliage and yellow fruits." Heeheeh!! What a relief!

It is soo cool that more people are growimg their own food!

Kudos to you all!

Lisa

Hello everyone!! I am the luck individual that is Lisa's coworker. I have access to excellent advice all the time! I am super excited about my veggie garden and have overplanted to the level of being ridiculous!! This is my first veggie garden and I rush home from work to check all my plants every day. I have become an addict. I am lucky to have a handy husband that is super supportive and almost as excited as I am. So far I have started crookneck squash, zucchini, tomatos, cucumbers, purple podded pole beans and blue lake pole beans. EVERYTHING is growing!!! I can't seem to keep up. We are putting everything in a raised bed or pot/baby pool. So far I am liking the baby pool idea. I have put the squashes in them. The first ones are doing great with dinner plate sized leaves. junkyardgirl I took note of your post and my neighbors may see me out there with baking soda!!! I will post pix as soon as I can figure it out. Poor Lisa is subjected to my pix at least once a week!! At least she is getting some benefit. She is receiving my overage!!

Here is a picture of one of my bean beds.

Here is a link that might be useful:

tammi,
Welcome. We've all gotten great advice from Lisa, and we're glad to have you here!

And sounds like you're well on your way to veggies this year. I haven't done raised beds, just amended the soil in my veggie bed with compost, and cover-cropping it with beans. Beans didn't do so well, but I'm still hopeful I improved my soil a little with them.

And, now, I have 16 tomatoes in the ground. What was I thinking?

It'll be fun to hear how you do.

susannah

I just bought my first house a couple monthes ago and don't have much yard space, so I bought a book on container veggie gardening. I live in the Tampa area and am excited to start. I'd like to start small, any ideas on first veggie to try? or am I too late in the season? Any suggestions would be helpfull.

chapel,

hey! I'm in Tampa as well. You're not too late. There's still a good two months before we will likely have any threat of frost, and that's plenty of time to get a harvest. You may want to start with some of the basics: tomatoes, peppers, and various greens are all pretty easy.

I am also going the mostly-containerized route this year.

As far as vegetables go, I've grown tomatoes and peppers in the past year and a half, with decent success. This year I am expanding to: bush beans, honeydew, cucumber, lettuce, new zealand spinach, sweet potatoes, and additional varieties of tomatoes and peppers. Almost all of these guys are going in containers. My in-ground space is mostly taken up by maturing fruit trees and bushes.

best of luck to you!

Thanks for the info musicman, im gonna get started right away!

This is the first year for my two raised vegetable gardens which I put together back in March. Started off back then with tomato plants that I sprouted from store bought Roma tomatoes, some bell pepper plants from the box stores and a WHOLE seed packet of Arugula that I thought was a butterfly attracting plant (packet only said "herb-rocket"). Imagine my suprise when every seed must have sprouted and I found out exactly what I had. I ended up separating them into about 12 separate bunches. Those were great while they lasted, but as they got older...whew...did they pack a peppery punch.

The bell peppers really didn't produce for me and collected a couple of hot peppers that I'd planted as well. Everything just withered away during the summer heat and I've replanted with more tomatoes (grape, roma, celebrity, and sweet 100), jalapeno and banana peppers, cilantro, cucumbers, carrots, dill, parsley,rosemary, thyme,basil, sage and green unions. Just seeded some Romaine lettuce as well. I hope I have good luck with those as my family loves salads.

Can anyone recommend some good lettuces that I might still be able to harvest with planting at this time?

Mike (Apopka)

I am ! Husband and son built small raised bed for me last spring!! soooooooooooo trying by trial and error. I have trouble with planting things in right spot but, I just keep on trying LOL

It's great to see so man first time gardeners! Do we have any more?

I should have gotten them in last weeekend, but come Saturday I'll be putting in my turnips, carrots, and green peas which will complete my cool season garden until frost carries off the squash. I'll put some more carrots in then and maybe some more onions too.

.....Alan.

We are in Hillsborough County! Not able to do things in large quantities but we put in 4 varieties of tomatos, squash, broccoli, brussel sprouts, silver queen corn, bell pepper, collards, cauliflower and onions.