GARDENING QUESTION

[HLorfing]

LAST YEAR I TRIED TO PLANT MY FIRST GARDEN I READ SOME AND THOUGHT I WAS READY. I DIDNT WANT ANYTHING BIG SO I PLANTED IN CONTAINERS. BIG MISTAKE! I PLANTED TO MANY IN THERE AND WHEN THEY STARTED GROWING THEY LOOKED AWFUL. I STARTED A FEW PLANT IN A SMALL PLACE IN MY BACK YARD THAT I BROKE UP BY HAND. THEY GREW WONDERFUL! SO.... I WOULD LIKE TO TRY AGAIN THIS YEAR BUT PLACE EVERYTHING IN THE GROUND WITH HEIRLOOM SEEDS. THE QUESTION IS THIS. IF I USE A TILLER TO BREAK THE GROUND (DOING BY HAND WITH ONLY A SHOVEL WAS DAMN HARD) WOULD IT BE OKAY TO JUST TILL THEGRAS INTO THE SOIL OR DO I HAVE TO REMOVE ALL THE GRASS FIRST. SORRY IF THIS IS A SILLY QUESTION, JUST NEED TO KEEP LEARNING AND DOING TO PRACTICE BEFORE TSHTF:D

[Matt In Oklahoma]

I have broken many a new ground. The grass is best if raked out of there. Once you break up the soil just get a rake and pull it out. Each year you work this garden the easier it will get. I took a piece of chain link tied it to my lawnmower and set a an ole spare tire on it and drug it around my garden area at my last place. The grass would catch in the chain link and then when I drove off the tilled area and onto the grass it would just roll up and off the chainlink. Much easier than raking.
Keep up the good work and don't get discouraged. Containers take much more fertilizer and water to maintain the same amount of plants.

[HLorfing]

THANKS I WILL TRY IT THAT WAY.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

shovels suck. power tools rock. gonna hate to see it when it changes. remember growing is not 100%. the best farmers will fail from time to time. glad to see you didnt wait till d day to try your hand. sounds like you have already had a learning experience. good work

[trkarl]

shovels suck. power tools rock. gonna hate to see it when it changes. remember growing is not 100%. the best farmers will fail from time to time. glad to see you didnt wait till d day to try your hand. sounds like you have already had a learning experience. good work

This is the hard truth a lot of unprepared people are gonna learn the hard way. It takes experience, experience, experience and even then you will have failures. You can't just buy a "survival seed bank" and till up a section of the yard and bamm you can produce all you need to survive. Each microclimate has it's own unique needs and from year to year you will have different pests to deal with from beetles one year to fungus the next.

I've been raising veggies in our backyard for 15+ years and every year I learn something new and have a new challenge to overcome. It sure is a lot of fun and the rewarding food produced is well worth it especially when you know you raised it with your own hands.

[HLorfing]

i feel like i have so much to learn and so fast to do it. i have only been looking real close at the economy the last six months or so and i feel like time is running short! i feel like things are going to get real bad inside the next year.....that probably isnt true, but i found myself in the back yard today digging a Dakota fire pit. i got it going but i want to do another at night to see if it really hides the light of the fire as its suppose to.

[Lowdown3]

https://www.homesteadingandsurvival.com

Has 15 or so free videos in a series on survival gardening.

I'd start off with a soil test. You can throw darts in the dark about what you THINK your soil needs, or you can spend $8. and KNOW for sure.

Don't plant too thick unless you have irrigation already there in place. A hose that you "can" drag to the area isn't the same thing and this takes time and people with a busy life will rarely be able to sit out there and water everything by hand.

Steve Soloman's book "Gardening when it counts" is probably the best single book you can read on the subject.

The ever touted "Square foot gardening" book methods are o.k. for now, but the intensive methods won't work so good when massive amounts of water is a problem.

I'd double dig the soil the first year at least. If your concerned about the grass cover the area with a tarp for a couple months. It will kill off the grass and weeds. When your ready to plant pull off the tarp and plant within a couple days. You'll then be just a little bit ahead of weed seeds, etc.

A lot of folks will spend $300. on a beautiful raised bed setup that will at best produce maybe $10. worth of veggies a season if they are very dilligent. Don't get stuck in this rut. You can amend most soils, you don't have to be stuck buying "Mel's Mix" for a gajillion dollars.

It does take time however. Our results our first couple of years here sucked. By 04 we were starting to "get it" and by 06 we weren't buying buy one or two veggies or fruits from the store any more. But that was 7 years of experience on one site (with a few more in Florida).

Good luck. It's a vital skill for everyone to know.

[HLorfing]

thank you for the ideas. the tarp idea sounds great as well as the soil ph tester. i plan to keep going and learning until i get it. thanks again

[Lowdown3]

Take a soil sample to the local extension agent. The soil PH test kits/testers from sLowes and Home Despot won't show you 1/10th of what a real soil test will show you. I think it's in Part 14 or 15 of the gardening series where I show a soil test we had done and what all it shows.

[Monel]

"A lot of folks will spend $300. on a beautiful raised bed setup that will at best produce maybe $10. worth of veggies a season if they are very dilligent. Don't get stuck in this rut. You can amend most soils, you don't have to be stuck buying "Mel's Mix" for a gajillion dollars. "

Personally, I WOULD go with a raised bed. My whole back yard is done in raised beds with no lawn at all. Depending on what your soil is like this is much easier than trying to fix bad soil. Here in Houston we have heavy clay soil "gumbo" it's called. by the time you add enough organic material to make it good, you may as well start with "garden mix" from a landscape supply yard. Do not buy your soil by the bag. This is way to expensive and a waste of time. Get it delivered by the truck load to your driveway and move it into place with a wheelbarrow. You don't even have to break up the ground if you make the bed 10" deep or so. One way is to use cinder blocks to border a bed. Make it no wider than 4' and how ever long you want. This will allow it to be worked from ether side. I would kill the grass but you don't have to. Place cardboard or newspaper (thick) in the bottom and fill with garden mix or flowerbed mix. water this in to settle it then you are ready to go. Don't forget to mulch to conserve water and hold down weeds. When I want to add a lot of organic material to amend a bed I use "mushroom compost" sold at the same landscape supply yard. Great stuff! You can research any of these things with Google. Good Luck!
Oh, yes you will spend some $ getting set up, but keep it up and it will pay off in the long run. You will make mistakes, but you can learn from them!

[1Admin]

If your sold on raised beds, know that you can just mound up earth and/or use tree trunks, cinder blocks, etc. to hold the soil in place. You do NOT have to spend $300. on 2x12's and make cutesy beds. It's gonna take a long time to recoup the $300. in veggies. People look at these beautiful marketing pictures in Square foot gardening books and think they "have" to have that exact setup.

BTDT, gave up on raised beds about 7 years ago.

Yes you may (will most likely) have to bring in soil amendments, maybe even soil itself. Do what you can with your soil but understand that you don't have to have "mel's mix" to grow food.

On a couple raised beds this isn't that big of a $$ outlay, but when you get into a larger growing area, it's a lot larger amount to plunk down.

[610Alpha]

exactly 1Admin, the gardeningrevolution site uses raised beds exclusively made from cinder blocks!!

Composting can defray future upkeep costs of the raised bed.

I am currently trying to find a local source for what gardeningrevolution recommends to use as a soil for raised beds, Cotton Burr compost, rice hulls, and peat moss.

He recommends 4-3-3 fertilizer for this soil.

[billm75]

elittle, I don't know about the medium that the Gardeningrevolution recommends, but here where I live in South Carolina, we have a nursery that offers a soil blend they call Dixie Mix. It's part mushroom compost, part top soil and some other things I can't recall off the top of my head. Just about ANYTHING will grow in this soil blend. Check with your local nurseries and see what they have to offer that's comparable. You may find something just as fertile and weed resistant and realize that you didn't know to ask about it.

I'm doing all raised beds this year myself..and I'm filling them with Dixie Mix.

[trkarl]

Personally, I WOULD go with a raised bed. My whole back yard is done in raised beds with no lawn at all.

That's how I have done it. IMHO the positives outway the negatives especially if you are limited for space.
Here are some youtube vids I really enjoyed.

http://www.youtube.com/user/growingyourgreens#p/a

[bakerbob79]

If you don't have a lot of room for gardening, I suggest you build some raised beds. This allows you to garden in places where you don't always have access to soil. I have 3 raised beds on my patio deck and I grow tomatoes and peppers most of the year. There is always a way to grow at least a few varieties of fruits & vegetables no matter where you live.