Newbie Veggie Gardner - Advice Needed Please

[Maitri]

Hi all I am new to gardening (and the forum!) and would like some advice before I try again this year.

I live in Iowa where it has been unseasonably warm this spring (80s some days) but still gets into the 30's at night sometimes. The general rule of thumb for planting here is to do it on Mother's Day or later.

My DH has given me a patch in the backyard to try a vegetable garden. It's about 20 feet long by 10 feet wide. Here's a picture (it's a mishmash of 2 pics but you get the idea):

[img]https://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/Spainey/garden.jpg[/img]

This patch is against the eastern wall of our house.

I checked it several times yesterday. starting at about 12:45 pm (the pic above) when it had full sun. At 2:30 it was starting to become shadowed close to the house; by 4 it was almost in shadow. So it gets at least 3 hours of full sun a day, perhaps more.

A friend is going to bring me a tiller so I can get the patch ready. What else should I do? Should I put fertilizer down before I plant? This is all completely new to me

Also what vegetables would be good to plant here? I have a baby and would like to grow my own veggies to make food for him.

Any advice is most appreciated! TIA!

[rainbowgardener]

It doesn't get sun until almost 1PM? 3 hours of sun is very challenging to grow veggies in. Most veggies like full sun, defined as 6 or more hours a day. But keep watching, through the season the sun exposure changes as the sun comes from a different direction in summer than winter. If it gets more sun later in the season it might be workable.

If it really is part shade much of the season, your best bet for edibles would be all the winter crops: lettuce, spinach, chard, onions, broccoli, beets, etc. They don't like hot sun any way and will benefit from the shade as the weather warms up. You could plant any of these NOW (don't wait til Mother's day, they don't like it hot!).

[StorageSmart2]

You had mentioned info on fertilizer? I always recommend composting if you can. check out that forum here for TONS of info on setting up a bin and types of compost. It's excellent fertilizer and is all natural so you don't have to worry about store bought fertilizers leeching chemicals into your baby's veggies.

P.S. Welcome to the forum and congrats on your first garden.

[Maitri]

Thank you for the advice! I will definitely look into composting, my dad used to do that when I was a kid.