Just getting started gardening, just need some tips & tricks, or wanting to move to organic gardening?
I have to admit…I really don’t do anything special when it comes to gardening. Just a lot of hard work and patience!
I love collecting what we grew and being able to eat what came from the backyard, but getting there takes time and is a little difficult.
We till the ground in late winter when the ground is soft, and again a couple times in the early spring. I always make sure the dirt is easy to work up with my hands and that’s when I know I’m done tilling for the spring. I’ve planted too many times when I haven’t tilled up the ground enough and my seeds never germinated, so we till up the dirt as much as we think is needed for a good growing season!.
Starting In The Greenhouse
Before we converted it into a goat house/chicken coop, we had a nice sized greenhouse. It was fantastic because we could start everything in pots in the early spring and then transfer it into the ground whenever it was ready. Everything took off when we did this!
We started green beans, different types of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, strawberries, and lettuce. We did corn also, but we planted that straight in the ground.
I have since learned that when you plant that many things in the ground in a not so huge garden with corn as well, everything takes over everything, and really I mean the cucumber and zucchinis. Their vines could stretch for miles if you let them!
When I started my plants in the greenhouse, I would pick all medium sized pots (usually left over from the plants I bought for landscaping around the house). I would start this in March and sometimes we would have to put a heater or two in there to keep them warm on the colder spring days.
Once late May hit it was usually warm enough for me to plant most things in the ground.
Chief likes to help plant…and by plant I mean dig.
I do not have a green thumb whatsoever, in fact I was relying on the sun, rain, and prayers. Once I got those babies in the ground I would water religiously, especially when it got super hot out.
I guess the only trick I can think of that I believe helped our sprouts was using 12-12-12 fertilizer. I did not use a bunch I just sprinkled a little at the roots when I planted them in the ground and watered it in.
We also sprayed sevin dust on our plants because of all the bugs that attacked our garden the first year – it was ridiculous the amount of plants we lots to bugs. I just washed the veggies really well whenever we harvested. I’m working on figuring out an organic & natural way to do this and not use chemicals!
Needless to say I have no fancy tricks up my sleeve, starting them in the greenhouse was probably the best thing I did, because I could kind of control the weather in there and make sure it stayed nice and warm while they grew.
I have since changed my ways a little bit, I have learned that green beans grow best either in a raised bed or in a pot. We love green beans, so we grow a lot of them to hopefully get us through winter.
Since we got goats we have changed our garden into the goat pen and moved the garden to a smaller area in the yard. I also built garden boxes for the green beans & tomatoes, this way I can keep bugs off of them better, its less weedy, and it is easier to harvest from them as well.
I also have pots for herbs- basil and mint usually do fantastic as long as they have a good amount of water.
Now you’re probably looking at these pictures thinking…umm she said “green thumb, not so much”, but it looks very green to me! Lots of prayers people!!!
It is such a great feeling when you go out to harvest with a bucket or basket and end up having to take multiple trips with overfilling produce!
Chief harvesting the produce he helped plant!
