Come one come all... What tips or tricks can you give a new gardener?
What I've done so far:
Built two 8X4 boxes
Started seeds (corn, green beans, onions, peppers, dill, carrots and cucumbers) --- Growing great! All have sprouted after 10 days! Some are a few inches now!
Next, I'll be buying garden soil for my boxes.... But from reading other threads, do I need to line the boxes with a thin plastic since I bought treated wood?
Once my dirt is in place, I was going to plant some of the larger seedlings.... What I don't know about is... watering? fertilizers? pesticides? What to use and when? Do I need to mix anything into the garden soil?
Thanks!
Ashleigh
Hi Ashleigh - it sounds like you are doing great for your first garden!
I have never used raised beds before...so I can't help you with the the question regarding plastic liner. Intuitively it sounds like it wouldn't be a bad idea, but I would have some concerns for plants that require a lot of drainage. I would consult the expert advice of one of the many folks here who primarily use raised beds
As far as your other questions - I know it can be overwhelming! The best thing to do is treat each plant individually, and consider the needs of each type of plant before planting. Some plants will require an inch of water per week or more - while some herbs will prefer less water than you'd get in a typical spring where I live! Placing plants with similar sun/fertilizer needs/soil/water requirements close to each other will save you a lot of headache later on. I personally use this book: https://www.amazon.com/Gardeners-Guide-Growing-Organic-Food/dp/1580173705/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240253068&sr=8-2
which gives all of the vital info about any type of veggie, herb, fruit, or nut that you're likely to come across. It will tell you how much sun a plant needs, what plants are compatible, how much fertilizer it needs, how to combat various issues, etc. I would also just google your zip code and "last frost date" before planting anything. The last thing you'll want is your peppers keeling over before they start to deliver
Beyond the basic stuff - you are bound to run into a few unexpected issues as the season progresses. When that happens, make a post here with lots of specifics and experts far more knowledgable than I am will help you out
Good luck!!
James
I have never used raised beds before...so I can't help you with the the question regarding plastic liner. Intuitively it sounds like it wouldn't be a bad idea, but I would have some concerns for plants that require a lot of drainage. I would consult the expert advice of one of the many folks here who primarily use raised beds
As far as your other questions - I know it can be overwhelming! The best thing to do is treat each plant individually, and consider the needs of each type of plant before planting. Some plants will require an inch of water per week or more - while some herbs will prefer less water than you'd get in a typical spring where I live! Placing plants with similar sun/fertilizer needs/soil/water requirements close to each other will save you a lot of headache later on. I personally use this book: https://www.amazon.com/Gardeners-Guide-Growing-Organic-Food/dp/1580173705/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240253068&sr=8-2
which gives all of the vital info about any type of veggie, herb, fruit, or nut that you're likely to come across. It will tell you how much sun a plant needs, what plants are compatible, how much fertilizer it needs, how to combat various issues, etc. I would also just google your zip code and "last frost date" before planting anything. The last thing you'll want is your peppers keeling over before they start to deliver
Beyond the basic stuff - you are bound to run into a few unexpected issues as the season progresses. When that happens, make a post here with lots of specifics and experts far more knowledgable than I am will help you out
Good luck!!
James
Treated wood has nasty chemicals in it that will seep into the soil, that's why people line it with plastic when they use that type of wood.
For my raised beds I use soil that is the direct product of a large leaf mulching operation that the city runs. I clean out the debris as best I can before planting. It's as rich as I've ever seen, and last year's garden was awesome. I doubled the size this year, six boxes now, 4'x6' each.
We also cover the top of the soil with wood chips around the plants.
For my raised beds I use soil that is the direct product of a large leaf mulching operation that the city runs. I clean out the debris as best I can before planting. It's as rich as I've ever seen, and last year's garden was awesome. I doubled the size this year, six boxes now, 4'x6' each.
We also cover the top of the soil with wood chips around the plants.
-
rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
My thoughts: Line the sides of your boxes with plastic, to prevent the chemicals from leaching. They are presumably sitting on the ground, so you don't need to line the bottom, therefore drainage is not an issue.
Good advice above re reading up on the individual requirements of the things you plant. But all of the seeds you mentioned planting are things that take a fair amount of water, so yes you will need to figure on doing some watering, especially at the beginning when the seedlings are little. Depending on your weather and rainfall, you may need to water every other day unless there's rain in that period, at first. As they get better established with deeper roots, you can cut that back.
If you plant in rich soil with compost and other Organic Matter added, you shouldn't need chemical fertilizer. Just add more compost later in the season. I don't use any chemical pesticides -- very bad for the ecosystem you want to build, kills the good bugs you want to have around. Later in the season when bugs are more an issue I make an organic spray from salad oil, a little vinegar, lots of black and cayenne pepper, hot sauce, garlic, mint, tomato leaves, whatever else strong and aromatic is in the garden. Blend it up in water, strain and spray. It works well enough, not as potent as the chemicals, but you don't have to worry about eating your veggies either.
Good advice above re reading up on the individual requirements of the things you plant. But all of the seeds you mentioned planting are things that take a fair amount of water, so yes you will need to figure on doing some watering, especially at the beginning when the seedlings are little. Depending on your weather and rainfall, you may need to water every other day unless there's rain in that period, at first. As they get better established with deeper roots, you can cut that back.
If you plant in rich soil with compost and other Organic Matter added, you shouldn't need chemical fertilizer. Just add more compost later in the season. I don't use any chemical pesticides -- very bad for the ecosystem you want to build, kills the good bugs you want to have around. Later in the season when bugs are more an issue I make an organic spray from salad oil, a little vinegar, lots of black and cayenne pepper, hot sauce, garlic, mint, tomato leaves, whatever else strong and aromatic is in the garden. Blend it up in water, strain and spray. It works well enough, not as potent as the chemicals, but you don't have to worry about eating your veggies either.
Thanks everyone! I'm going to buy some plastic to cover the boxes with today. I moved my seedlings outside this morning so they could start adjusting to being outside.
Thanks for the book recommendation, I'm a bit of an amazon junky so I'll pick that one up with my next order!
How do you guys water when you do water? Soaker hose?, spray nozzle?, water bag?
Thanks for the book recommendation, I'm a bit of an amazon junky so I'll pick that one up with my next order!
How do you guys water when you do water? Soaker hose?, spray nozzle?, water bag?
-
rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
-
somegeek
- Senior Member
- Posts: 217
- Joined: Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:51 am
- Location: Vancouver, WA - zone 8a/b
Soaker hose here. This year I plumbed in a connection from each raised bed to one of my sprinkler zones. My beds are 8'x5' and a 50ft hose is doing well coiled up in each bed.Pypersmom wrote:How do you guys water when you do water? Soaker hose?, spray nozzle?, water bag?
[img]https://somegeek.home.comcast.net/~somegeek/somegeek_seedling_36.jpg[/img]
Not all soaker hoses are created equally. I picked up a Vigaro hose (brand at the Home Depot), and the water came out of it in a very non-uniform fashion with little water being delivered. Picked up a few 50ft GreenThumb brand hoses and they deliver a very uniform flow.
Good luck!
somegeek
-
rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
Mostly I just use my hose and/or watering can, being small scale. For my tomatoes, which like to stay evenly moist, not dry out, I take a two liter coke bottle, fill it with a few inches of sand in the bottom, poke some small holes in the bottom, then bury it near the tomato roots, with the top of the bottle sticking out for easy filling. Pour water in it. The sand helps keep the water from flowing through too fast, so that it gradually drips out into the root zone. Cheaper than soaker hose and puts the water right down amongst the roots.
-
The Helpful Gardener
- Mod
- Posts: 7491
- Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:17 pm
- Location: Colchester, CT
Before we do a lot of work , let's find out how that wood was treated...
Not to say you didn't get CCA treated, but it's not likely...
[url]https://epa.gov/oppad001/reregistration/cca/[/url]
That doesn't mean they can't sell existing piles, but those are dwindled...
Heres a product sheet for ACQ wood. Not sure I want to go here either...
[url]https://www.ufpi.com/literature/acqsafe-59.pdf[/url]
Borates are naturally occuring but have shown to be a build-up toxin in small children. I 'd use borax for ants or moss if I didn't have little kitties, and wouldn't use it around kids or foodstuffs really
Copper azole has boron (a borate) and copper... mmmmaybe...
Cyproconazole is 6% cyproconazole and 31% didecyldimethylammonium chloride (DDAC). If I can't say it, I don't use it...
Propiconazole is not meant for soil contact...
Turns out the junk above is what they are calling salt treated lumber; not exactly what I'd thought it was, and I'm none too certain this is a whole heap better than CCA (which is also a salt treatment according to lumber folk). And I don't think we need the stuff anyway...
A good friend had her raised beds cut at a sawmill from locust and that was ten years back; still looks great. Southern folks might get the same from cypress (we used to buy cypress furniture from some Seminole guys who drove all the way up the coast in overloaded pick-ups piled high with the stuff and it lasted ten years or more. Up north we have white cedar, another rot resistant type almost gone from Connecticut, but still around further up.
Plastic lining is better than nothing but I wouldn't trust it that much. I do none of the above and hill rows for the most part; I do have some timber beds but they were old landscape ties from the previous tenants and their decomposing condition tells me there is no treatment left there. I have found the slight increase in labor to be worth my safety and the safety of those around me...
If money is the issue, sell the lumber and get some logs felled and quartered and use those as sides. They rot when they rot, and improve your soil doing it. Or go free like me and just hill rows in the bed. I have a sunken area (rows) that I run my rainbarrel overflows into (using available moisture), but the mounded rows keep roots above the wet (plus I dug to subsoil (which is easy in suburbia, as the builder stole all your topsoil) which percs out in about 3 minutes of the stop of moisture). The recycled landscape timber holds the edge of the garden; and I can rearrange just as easy as shoveling some dirt around, I tamp the sides of my rows so rain does not dissolve them easily and mulch for further prevention. I use compost for row mulch and grass clippings for paths (which gets raked off at end of season and composted).
There is always a way...
HG
HG
Not to say you didn't get CCA treated, but it's not likely...
[url]https://epa.gov/oppad001/reregistration/cca/[/url]
That doesn't mean they can't sell existing piles, but those are dwindled...
Heres a product sheet for ACQ wood. Not sure I want to go here either...
[url]https://www.ufpi.com/literature/acqsafe-59.pdf[/url]
Borates are naturally occuring but have shown to be a build-up toxin in small children. I 'd use borax for ants or moss if I didn't have little kitties, and wouldn't use it around kids or foodstuffs really
Copper azole has boron (a borate) and copper... mmmmaybe...
Cyproconazole is 6% cyproconazole and 31% didecyldimethylammonium chloride (DDAC). If I can't say it, I don't use it...
Propiconazole is not meant for soil contact...
Turns out the junk above is what they are calling salt treated lumber; not exactly what I'd thought it was, and I'm none too certain this is a whole heap better than CCA (which is also a salt treatment according to lumber folk). And I don't think we need the stuff anyway...
A good friend had her raised beds cut at a sawmill from locust and that was ten years back; still looks great. Southern folks might get the same from cypress (we used to buy cypress furniture from some Seminole guys who drove all the way up the coast in overloaded pick-ups piled high with the stuff and it lasted ten years or more. Up north we have white cedar, another rot resistant type almost gone from Connecticut, but still around further up.
Plastic lining is better than nothing but I wouldn't trust it that much. I do none of the above and hill rows for the most part; I do have some timber beds but they were old landscape ties from the previous tenants and their decomposing condition tells me there is no treatment left there. I have found the slight increase in labor to be worth my safety and the safety of those around me...
If money is the issue, sell the lumber and get some logs felled and quartered and use those as sides. They rot when they rot, and improve your soil doing it. Or go free like me and just hill rows in the bed. I have a sunken area (rows) that I run my rainbarrel overflows into (using available moisture), but the mounded rows keep roots above the wet (plus I dug to subsoil (which is easy in suburbia, as the builder stole all your topsoil) which percs out in about 3 minutes of the stop of moisture). The recycled landscape timber holds the edge of the garden; and I can rearrange just as easy as shoveling some dirt around, I tamp the sides of my rows so rain does not dissolve them easily and mulch for further prevention. I use compost for row mulch and grass clippings for paths (which gets raked off at end of season and composted).
There is always a way...
HG
HG
Uh oh.. we might have already done too much work!
I picked up some ecofriendly painters plastic drop cloths and we covered the box (I've decided to just use one for the time being) last night.
I'm picking up dirt today and putting the plants/seedlings that are ready in tonight
I'll take pictures of everything tonight .....
Also, what may be a silly question.... I have an inside/outside dog... will her presence in the backyard be enough to ward off birds and rabbits from my garden? She's not out there all the time but would some of the time be enough... or would her general 'smell' be enough?
I picked up some ecofriendly painters plastic drop cloths and we covered the box (I've decided to just use one for the time being) last night.
I'm picking up dirt today and putting the plants/seedlings that are ready in tonight
I'll take pictures of everything tonight .....
Also, what may be a silly question.... I have an inside/outside dog... will her presence in the backyard be enough to ward off birds and rabbits from my garden? She's not out there all the time but would some of the time be enough... or would her general 'smell' be enough?