Looking to start a vegtable garden.

[digitS']

Brian, I will say that tilling bark into the ground is not likely to be a good idea. It depends how much there is and what kind of bark it is, I suppose, but bark will decay very slowly. I would be very inclined to rake it off into paths and till the ground between for your vegetables.

I have a small backyard flock of laying hens. Until last year, I used pine needles for bedding in the coop. I like how pine needles compost and, altho' they are somewhat acidic, the soil here is on the alkaline side of the pH scale.

Anyway, I decided to use pine shavings last year. I used composting-in-place by digging out 8 to 10 inches of soil in one garden bed and burying the litter after a winter in the coop. Knowing that a bale of the wood chips weighs about 35 pounds and a hen will generate over 40 pounds of manure in 6 months (85 pounds/yearly, according to my Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening ), I figure that the henhouse litter I put in that bed was 2 pounds of manure to every 1 pound of shavings.

You think that would decay in 7 months in the garden? Nope, when I dug that bed out the other day some of those shavings look like they were pulled out of the coop yesterday ! They are now mixed rather thoroughly with the soil. I only hope that about 2" of shavings won't interfere with the fertilizer needs of the veggies in that bed next year.

Steve

[farmerlon]

... I like corn, but when you can purchase an ear for .25 on sale, it just didn't make sense to grow it. ...

Only problem is, that $.25 piece of corn from the supermarket or farm stand will have about as much flavor as one of those quarters in your pocket!

When it comes to corn, you'll never taste better than being able to go to the garden and grab an ear from the stalk, then bring it straight in to the pot of boiling water... priceless!

[farmerlon]

... but lately I have been thinking for reasons of economy it might be worth it to try my hand at gardening next year ...

"Economy" can be a funny thing when it comes to gardening. When you factor in the "price" of your time, you may find that you're not really seeing any immediate monetary savings.

But, there are many, many benefits to gardening that can certainly "pay off" for you and your family... for now, and for years to come.
It always makes me feel good to see anyone beginning their journey into gardening... enjoy!

[rainbowgardener]

... but lately I have been thinking for reasons of economy it might be worth it to try my hand at gardening next year ...

"Economy" can be a funny thing when it comes to gardening. When you factor in the "price" of your time, you may find that you're not really seeing any immediate monetary savings.

But, there are many, many benefits to gardening that can certainly "pay off" for you and your family... for now, and for years to come.
It always makes me feel good to see anyone beginning their journey into gardening... enjoy!

It's why I hedged above about whatever money you do or don't save... if you "paid" for your time even at minimum wage, it's pretty sure to be a dead [monetary] loss, but even leaving that out [since you don't actually have to pay yourself ] starting out, you may find yourself investing more money in equipment and supplies than the veggies would bring at market.

But your veggies will be way more nutritious and flavorful, you will be happier and healthier for doing the gardening, and the planet will thank you for not buying veggies trucked 1500 miles (the average distance a vegetable travels to land on our plates). Can't really lose!

[hit or miss]

It sounds like you have a good attitude and a willing heart for gardening! With some sound advice from this site and some personal experience you'll go far.

On the tomatoes, I planted 7 plants (celebrity and early girls) and harvested 220 pounds this year. I just cleaned the garden this morning for winter and there is probably another 50 pounds of green ones on the pile now. I've already made green salsa with some and have even more in brine for dilled green tomatoes, that would push my yield even higher if I included the green ones in the tally.

Good luck!

[Brian Miville]

Ok, so the bark mulch will go. It will be a lot of raking, but thankfully I don't think the layer is too deep.

As for factoring in the time invested, my mother is on social security disability, so thankfully she has a bit more time to spend around the home weeding and tending the garden.

hit or miss, thanks for the info on the tomato plants. I think with 220 pounds of them we can do just about anything we could possibly think of.

Brian

[rainbowgardener]

Well, I wouldn't bet the house mortgage on being able to get 200 pounds of tomatoes from 7 plants. Hit or miss is too be congratulated on such a bountiful harvest (in Kansas yet, which I hear is not an easy climate to garden in). But that is way above average. Productivity depends on lots of factors, climate, soil, how you take care of them, what kind of pests and diseases are around, how much sun and rain, what the temps turn out to be any given year, etc.

At a total guess, since I don't count or weigh (may next year I will try tracking just for one season) I'm thinking over the course of the season from end of June until sometime in Sept, I got around 100 pounds of tomatoes from my 5 plants. And then I pulled them early due to septoria. But being spread out like that, I never really had enough to can, just to eat and cook with all the time. I did a little bit of canning, but that's because we were also getting tomatoes from out CSA.

[jal_ut]

For best results pick the sunniest area you have for your garden. I may also warn you that tree roots out under your veggie garden will drastically reduce the vigor of your plants. If you can keep your garden a good ways from the trees it is helpful.

Strawberries. A pleasure to grow and harvest. Yes, they will grow in partly shaded areas, but if The shade gets too dense, they won't have any fruit.

The four most productive plants for the home garden are corn, beans, squash, and potatoes.

In some areas it is hard to grow squash because of the vine borers and also powdery mildue. If your area does not have bad problems with these things some summer squash will give you some good eating. They are very productive.

Corn: In spite of what has been said I think corn is a great crop for a home garden. I think the main reason people say it ain't worth it is because they won't follow proper cultural practices for the cultivar. Here is how to grow corn in a few words: Get SE type seed. I like Amrosia. Corn can be planted on the date of your average last frost. Plant 4 rows 15 feet long. Put a seed every 8 inches in the rows. Space the rows 30 inches apart. Fertilize with something high in nitrogen. Water if needed. Here that means water weekly, but if you have high humidity that may not be necessary. For all you dissenters, try it and see!

[rainbowgardener]

I would love to grow corn if I had the room. Since I don't, I'll just do the math:

4 rows 30" apart (with 18" on the outsides so you can walk along it) makes a plot 10' wide by 15' long. Lots of city gardeners that would be most of their whole garden spot.

Plant seeds every 8" that's about 22 per row or 88 plants (if they all sprout). That's somewhere between 88 and 176 ears of corn depending on whether your plants produce 1 or 2 ears per plant. But the trouble with corn is that, unlike say (indeterminate) tomatoes & peppers, it tends to all ripen up pretty much at once. So all of a sudden you have ~100 ears of corn to deal with (can, freeze ?) and then most of the season nothing.

To deal with that, you do succession planting, plant different sets of seeds a couple weeks apart. But your four rows you can't easily do that... if you plant 1 long row of corn, it won't pollinate it self very well. You could make your rows 16 feet long instead of 15 and divide it into four 4x4' blocks and plant them in succession. Which is what I tend to suggest to people anyway, plant a 4x4 block of corn.

So city gardeners: plant your corn in 4x4 blocks. If it were me planting in those blocks, and I had good enriched soil, I would still plant a bit closer, but I haven't grown corn in ten years since I moved to my current location and jal has way more experience than me. Plant how ever many blocks you have room for and want to dedicate to corn, but plant them at least two weeks apart, just being careful that your last planting has time to mature before last frost date (2 -3 months depending on variety).

And FENCE your garden in... my other difficulty with growing corn is that every critter in the world loves it. Racoons, woodchucks, deer, birds, squirrels, every other rodent.... I had all of those in my garden when I was trying to grow corn and they all love it.

[JaymeJ]

After browsing the comments I didn't catch any mentioning soil amendments. You had mentioned loam, but you'd be better off tilling in compost next spring before you plant. I made the mistake when I first started by not amending our sticky clay soil.

Did anyone mention raised beds? If not, I highly recommend them, beginner or not.

I would recommend you start SMALL! Learn to garden first before you take up canning from the garden. Buy your edibles from the farmer's markets to can. You will need super high yields from your tomatoes and cukes in order to can the amount you want.

Plant your lettuces in the shady areas of your yard during the summer. Anything that fruits needs direct sunlight. Oh, and slugs love, love strawberries. I recommend planting them in hanging baskets or containers.

[jal_ut]

rainbowgardener brings up some good points on corn. What we do is eat some corn fresh, then pick most of it and put it in the freezer. (Cut off the cob) Then we have great corn all winter. This is far better than anything you can buy. The ambrosia variety keeps better on the stalk than the standard varieties so you get a longer harvest window. It will keep quite well in the refirgerator for a few days.

If you have never had corn fresh from the field into the hot water, you are in for a treat. As soon as corn is picked the sugar starts to turn to starch. Corn in grocery stores has been off the stalk for some time before you see it. It will never have the fresh sweet taste of corn that was just picked. You might get some good fresh picked corn at a farmers market, or road side stand, but never from a grocery store.

Three of those ears will produce about one pound of corn kernels when cut off the cob, so if we take the number 176 (if planted as I suggested, most will produce two cobs per plant) and divide by 3, you could get up to 58 pounds of corn from that planting. Or if you want to figure it sells for .25 an ear that is $44.00 from that little plot. 150 sq ft.

If you got that much yield from an acre of space, (run the math) and sold it for .25 you would come up with $12,783.00! That would make any farmer smile big! Yes, corn is one of the best value crops for the gardener.

I have suggested 4x4 blocks with 16 plants in the 4x4. It is a good option for those with limited space. The main problem is that sometimes it doesn't pollinate good in such a small planting and you end up with ears with spotty kernels. The larger planting I suggested will do much better for you if you have the space.

[ACW]

Jal,
does wind direction have an effect on corn pollination
I can imagine that ideally you want the prevailing wind blowing from one end of the row to the far end ?
My corn this year was rather small ,but delicious .
What feed do you recomend !

[Troppofoodgardener]

Here's a sample of corn I tried growing earlier this year. I didn't actually get to taste any. This was probably one of the best ears I produced.

[url=https://img834.imageshack.us/I/p9140001a.jpg/][img]https://img834.imageshack.us/img834/1686/p9140001a.jpg[/img][/url]

I grew them in 2 rows of 6, which is one of the problems I think. However, I did hand pollinate the corn, following instructions from a video I watched on the web. The corn stalks grew to just over 1 metre high (100cms). I was growing sweetcorn, I'm not sure how high they get.

Ants were another problem. They seemed to get in amongst the ears, from the pic here:

[url=https://img204.imageshack.us/I/cornants.jpg/][img]https://img204.imageshack.us/img204/3740/cornants.jpg[/img][/url]

The ants were farming some sort of bugs, maybe aphids? Anyway, the ants used the soil around the corn to build nests for these bugs which then took over the corn...

Very disheartening to say the least. I don't think I will attempt corn again. But from all the good words said about corn yield, any suggestions on how I could improve next season - - IF I tried again?

[jal_ut]

"does wind direction have an effect on corn pollination"

Not that I have been able to tell. The best thing to assure corn pollination is a larger patch. A minimum of 3 rows wide and 10 feet long would be my guess for minimum size to get good pollination.

Just for a test this year I planted two 33 foot rows of corn spaced 30 inches. The pollination was not bad, but some ears did not get fully pollinated.

Some have suggested running rows a certain direction for optimum use of sunshine. I say bah, humbug to that theory too. In summer the sun is high overhead. It hits everything just fine. Plants have a unique ability to move their leaves into the sunshine. Look at a squash patch. There are hundreds of leaves and all are arranged to be in the sun.

The wind does have a role in corn growth. It brings the carbon dioxide the corn uses in photosynthesis. This is really important in a large patch.

[Brian Miville]

Ok, so I was discussing things more with my mother and I am thinking we may go the rasied bed route. Our land is actually built on ledge, so the soil is very rocky (some the size of a baseball) which is why the grass in the back does not really grow too well. The topsoil itself is fairly thin, so with the rocks we fear it will be a problem. So that would mean laying down loam. And if we are going to do that we may as well make raised beds to put loam in . From what I am seeing it is a sound idea anyways, and we can also use a product the company my father and I work for to help things if need be. We work for Solar Components corp here in NH and we carry translucent fiberglass sheets (Sun-lite hp) which would act as a sort of mini greenhouse. That should do wonders for the peppers and tomatoes. My father actually has plans for a raised bed incorperating the Sun-lite material.

Brian