23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Wow, you sure are going to have a lot of fine veggies in all that great space.

Thanks Rita, I sure hope so! I especially can't wait to get the fall crops in there. In the fall I might do some cover crops in different spots. Maybe Fava beans if they're not too expensive.

Thanks, Dave. By small, I did mean shorter plant. My assumption (know what that means) was that shorter plants could be planted closer and therefore better fitted to a raised bed.

What spacing is recommended for raised bed gardening? I have heard differing info that varies from 4" to 9" spacing. I think one web site even suggested taller corn be planted at 12" spacing.

What determines spacing is access and amount of nutrients provided, especially nitrogen. I use 12" spacing because of the way I feed it. But you can go closer (I wouldn't go below 6" spacing) IF you can still access all the plants for side dressing/fertilization/picking/pest control and IF you really amp up the nutrient levels at each stage of feeding.

JMO

Dave

http://www.nha.org/images/sites/OH-June2007-5-copy.jpg

copy and paste (can't do better, sorry! i tried!!) on the above to see a picture of the Nantucket 'oldest house' garden i am trying to copy. i realize the wood will rot, i just like the rough hewn look of it.

I make a rough estimate , just to get and idea:

in 200 sqr-ft raised beds you can plant 40 to 50 tomatoes.
( I assume 4 to 5 sqr-ft per plant).
Pepperss, eggplants need roughly same amount of space.
per plant. Squash things(depending on type and whether it is trelise or not) can replace 2 tomato plants. In place of one tomato you plant maybe 10 beans....

FAMILY NEEDS:
I think a reasonable estimat of one plant of tomato per person is enough, if you do not intend canning.Make it 1.5 per person.

ALL IN ALL, for a newbie and a family of 4 an alotment of 200 sqr-ft should be more than enough. You will learn your ropes as you go along. Nobody can teach you every thing here. Gardening is somehow like swimming.; You cannot learn it outside. Got to jump in , strggle, drink some dirty water ..LOL

Could be nothing more that wind damage. Or a bite from a bird. Either way it sure isn't anything to worry about.

Dave

Thanks! I can rest easier now. :)

And protect them from the wind.

Thanks so much!

I think they will recover if they still have some healthy leaves and it looks like they do.

If you have the space, you can start another batch direct-sown into the garden. Just in case.

If this batch recovers, you'll have a lot of beans.

To simplify things if you're expecting frost overnight, you could also just cover the entire thing with a really, really, REALLY big tarp (see pic link). This one finally bit the dust last spring. We'd had it for 14 years. Used it for all sorts of things, not just on the garden. Getting it up and over everything - especially the pole beans - was something of an art. Pic was taken in the fall (you'll see other odd blankets, old sheets and even cardboard boxes there), but the principle is the same in the spring.

Here is a link that might be useful:

treehugger,
I use plain old shop lights. You need to keep them about 2" away from the leaves. I use a timer to keep the lights on between 16-18 hours. Don't start seeds too early to keep them short. I also give the plants a little diluted seaweed/fish emulsion to feed them. Last year, my peppers turned yellow and purple, due to phosphorus lack. They did very well after I added some fertilizer to my seed starting mix, which had none in it. Actually, it was my best pepper year yet.
Keski

Agree with the others - that is not parsley. And I agree with those who said 2nd year parsley is worth keeping. I make a lot of taboulli, so have a big parsley patch.

In my experience, the 2nd year parsley comes up early in the spring - I'm a little north of you, and my plants are generally about a week or two behind those of friends in the Chicago area. Right now, my second year parsley is about 2 inches tall. It will set flower pretty quickly after it reaches full size. I will let it flower and set seed and will pull it only after the seed has scattered. That will seed my garden for next year.

I expect to start seeing first year plants any day now, growing from the seed of last year's second-year plants. The seedlings always come quite a bit later than the second year plants. I'll then transplant them where I want them to grow this year.

This system has worked very well for me. I haven't bought parsley seed or seeded my garden for at least 7 years and always have a nice, healthy patch.

About planting parsley from seeds & spacing:

I never try to plant pasley seeds by spacing or rows. Here is how I do it:

Get a container of about one quart, or larger.
Almost fill it with finely sifted garden soil.
Empty the pack of seeds in there. Keep mixing as thoroughly as you can. You can also do MIXING in a bigger container. Statistically and by the law of probabilities the seeds should be pretty much evenly mixed with the soil in the container. Even if it did not, the next step will do the trick.
Take a fistfull of the mixture and broadcast it over all of the patch. Take the second fistful and do the same...repeat untill all of the mixture is spread.
Now cover the patch with about a 1/8 to 1/4" fine soil or a with a mixture of soil, peat moss and compost.
Sprinkle the surface with fine and gentle watering can or hose shower. You don't want to disturb. so wait a few minutes and sprinkle a littl more ...third time... until the seeds/cover is fully moistened.
Once the seeds germinate and emerge, you may find a few that are too close and a few too far apart(less than 10 percent).
I would not thin any until the thinned ones can be used.
You will get to a point that no thinning is needed.

So, I did it!

I set up a table with its feet in tubs of water, and the starts have been on it for 10 days with no snail damage! They would not have survived one night without the moats.

I'm excited about this success, and will use the method again next year :).

Got you nila,
Today I made an arrangement for my seedlings outside.

I put a piice of pressed wood(4ft by fft by 1/2'' thick) on two upside down buckets. Then I sprinkled slug bait around the buckets. If the slugs get close to the bucket(to go up) they will die(melt down). So tonight I will sleep worryless. And since the slug killer is under the table, it will last quite a while even in case of pouring rain.

For table legs( 1.5" by 1.5") I suggested taping a rough sand paper., like 80 grit. Although I have not experimented this myselft but I thing slugs won't dare to crowl on that rough surface.

The big plant on the right looks like a ground cherry (a weed to me). There is a Name that Plant forum on here, you will get better responses there. If you didn't plant it then it is likely a weed you are cultivating.

It looks quite like a wild nightshade that grows as a common weed in socal. I hear the berries are edible when ripe, but otherwise poisonous, but they are too tiny to be worth it to me.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanum_nigrum

Yep it's their first year.. I didn't expect to see much this year (or on my raspberries) but the strawberries are still pretty much the same size as when I transplanted them. I did give them nitrogen shock, with a few other plants, but the other plants have recovered and started to take off while the berries still sit there. They put out a flower here and there, which I pick off as I read to do, But other than that, they haven't done much.

My strawberries are in full bloom, too, with stragglers on the side. As my friend says, grow em one year, eat them the next.

I use 5 ft wide re-mesh placed horizontally against, and wired, to 6 ft long T posts for the lower trellis height (so base height is 5 ft). T Posts are about 1 ft deep and placed at 4 1/2 ft intervals. I add an extension to the top of the re-mesh using a lighter gauge 2" by 4" wire. The lighter wire has a 3 ft width and runs the length of the re-mesh base. The extension is wired to 4 or 5 ft long poles which are placed against, and also wired, to the re-mesh. The extension has a 1 ft overlapping of the re-mesh so the total trellis is 7 ft - or about the height to which I can reach. Poles supporting the extension are spaced about 3 to 4 ft apart. The spade cleat on T Post keeps the trellis from blowing over in high wind. Bricks placed under the re-mesh at ground level to keep the re-mesh above ground to protect it from soil corrosion.

I've never really understood why anyone goes to all the trouble of trellising pole beans or peas. Sweet peas I understand, since you want the flowers to be as visible as possible, but not edible beans. I plant bean seeds 2-3" apart in a 5' wide row, and they support themselves, forming a mat that is surprisingly tidy (maybe a few wayward vine tips drifting into the path). The mat is not too dense to prevent easy harvesting, but you do have more sneaky hideaways, I imagine, than you would with trellised beans.

Mulder, please explain to me the scientific nature of the "Whammy"

Mostly planted out here in NYC

I wait until almost memorial day to put in the tomatoes. I have Kale, Carrots and onions in right now.

I must admit I bought indeterminate patio starter tomatoes (rather then raising from seed) for the
Bato buckets. I believe at least one was a money maker. It has been so cold, grey and damp that
I couldnt really use the Greenhouse until mid April. I have subsequently grown a batch of
Amish paste, grape and cherries for my regular outside garden. They are growing like
weeds. I used NC tomato mans method - start 30 seeds in a yogurt cup let em pop and grow for a
week or 2 then transplant to individual cells. You can see that here... Man it works great even when
they are that young they survive transplanting very well.

I had 4th of July tomatoes in June last year, but last year was an exception.