D asks: grow own vegetables, furit & nuts getting started for dummies?
I want to stop majorly contributing to the pollution of this planet that we call home but don’t treat like a home.
I want to start buy growing my own organic food & never going to a supermarket again but the only thing i know about gardening is weeding & Literally that is all i know,
so im asking all you lovely gardening experts for tips, books, websites etc ETC
on the very basics like making garden beds, what tools to, what i use as an organic fertilizer if at all.
I have a totally blank clean slate on gardening so even the basics that you think every body knows i don’t know
if u are about to answer & your answer isn’t something i dint want to hear
then thank you very very much so appreciated as this is very important to me
The answer voted best is:
Answer by sciencegravy
There are whole books on the subjects you ask about.
My best advice is start small. Beginners often put in a too-large garden, get overwhelmed, then give up on the whole thing. This spring, maybe plant a couple fruit trees, and maybe a hazelnut shrub. If you want a veggie garden, put in a few tomatoes or peppers (popular first veggies).
Right now, go to the library, and grab a huge stack of books on gardening, vegetable gardening, growing fruit, and the like. Flip through and make sure there are lots of pictures – gardening is visual, and an all-text book on gardens is not for beginners. Take ’em home, peruse them, let them inspire you, give you ideas.
The tools you’ll want are a spade, a hand pruner, and a trowel. I like a heavy garden fork. Every gardener will have favorite tools, but you don’t need very many at all.
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To start with, it will take some time and experience before you are growing all of your food, but it is a noble goal. I have about a half acre garden and 18 chickens and still have to buy a little food. Anywyas…
First thing to do to start a garden is to break the ground. A gas powered tiller is the typical choice, or a tractor and a plow and disc or tiller for the tractor. You CAN do it by hand with tools you can get at lowes or elsewhere, but that can be nearly impossible. Even though it does pollute, I would recommend getting a tiller – not a gas cultivator, but a real tiller.
Once you’ve broke the ground adequately you may want to test the soil for nutrients. You can get a soil testing kit at some hardware stores, or most coops or farm supply stores. This will tell you how much fertilizer you need to add to your soil. You can skip this step, but then it’s guess work as to how much you need to add and what balance of nutrients are needed. That said, a lot of people never test and have great results.
Next, fertilizer and soil amendments. I am a fan of composted manure. A good, reasonably powerful organic fertilizer is composted chicken manure/litter. You can buy this at Lowes, coops, farm supply stores, etc. Apply according to instructions on bag, if your soil is already somewhat fertile then you don’t need to add a whole lot, and till into ground well. Composted cow manure is another good choice – it is much less potent than chicken manure and lacks the smell, though composted chicken manure does not usually carry a terribly odor.
Now, your soil is tilled, fertilized, and ready to be prepared for planting. Read the seed packet to determine when and how that type of seed should be planted. In general, you will want to make rows that span the full distance of your garden, leaving enough room to easily get in between rows to harvest vegetable, remove weeds, and other general maintenance. You can make the rows by pulling a hoe in the ground while walking from one end of the garden to the other, going as straight as possible. Plant your seeds X inches apart, where X is the inches indicated by the seed packet for row-type crops. Cover the seeds with dirt and LIGHTLY firm the ground over and near them. Water well to encourage germination. Alternatively, you can soak your seeds in water overnight before planting, then a little less water can be used after planting.
Wait for plants to begin appearing. Depending on your vegetable choices, this could be from about 5 days to a couple of weeks. Do not let weeds overtake the crops in their infancy. Water every day or two depending on how hot, dry, etc the weather is. As the plants grow, continue to remove weeds and to water as needed. Weeding with a hoe or cultivator is helpful to not just remove weeds, but to let more air down into the soil near the roots.
Some plants may need staking, such as bean vines and some types of tomatoes, etc.
Finally, mulching. When your plants are nearing maturity, you can add an inch or so of mulch all over the garden, except on top of your plants. This will help maintain the proper moisture level as well as keep weeds under control with less work. As the mulch decays it will also have a mild fertilizing effect.
Of course, pick your vegetables when they are ripe, or to your personal liking.
Vegetables that I would recommend considering are: squash, sweet corn, purple hull peas, lima beans, garden beans, tomatoes, okra, peppers.
I threw this “Everything to know about gardening” together very quickly, and it is very far from everything that you could know. Hopefully it is enough to get you started with a small garden though, and as you gain experience your garden can become bigger as you feel more comfortable.
Good luck and happy gardening!
Gardening requires a lot of dedication and waiting. what to know
1.use a hoe to make rows for the seeds
2. on the back on the seed packet there is a space required for how far to place the seeds from each other
3.if you have a sprinkler, put it in the center of the garden or patch and have it mist the plants for maybe 20 min.
here is a book to look at: The complete gardener by Allen Armitage, Maureen Heffernan, Chela Kleiber Holly H.Shimizu
Have fun!
Also do not I repeat do not use cocoa shells as a mulch because if you have a dog and the dog ate it the dog may die because the shell is pure chacolate (dark). Deadly stuff to dogs
Growing your own food is always a great idea, and kudos to you for wanting to start your own garden.
First step is to make sure that your soil can grow vegetables. The easiest way is to take a small bottle of your soil to your local garden center and ask them what type of soil you have. Also ask them what kinds of vegetable you could grow as they will know what is easy to grow in your area.
Assuming that you do not have soil problems, the next step is decide where to plant. You will need to look for 2 things. First a spot in your garden that ideally gets sun all day long. Two must also be able to get water to that area.
Then decide how big you want to make the area. I have an article here I wrote on what can be planted in a 12 foot by 12 foot garden.
http://egardeningblog.com/2010/01/building-and-planting-a-vegetable-garden/
Next mark out the area, and with a spade & a rake remove all grass, weeds and rocks. Then dig up the soil to make sure your plants have nice loose soil to grow in. Make sure that you have a hose, with a sprinkler or sprayer that can access that area, and now you are ready to plant.
Grow easy stuff. Make sure that all danger of frost is over – then seed some easy plants like lettuce, radishes. As the days get warmer, keep adding plants like tomotoes and peppers.
And you’ll become an expert in weeding…
Thanks for the question as I think I’ll write an article on just this subject.
look at Claires Allotment on youtube, she is really brilliant and shows you how to grow almost everything, and from digging the soil to eating the veg
You can visit this website for more info about how to grow vegetables, planning a vegetable garden,how to grow organic vegetables and so on..