23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
I live in the NoVA area so not too far from where you are. They are definitely going to eat your peas.
How about putting some pots or even small beds of peas very close to your house and using some form of deterent spray on the edges of the property.
I love snow peas but I don't have dear-I have some form of small pest (can't tell if its the lizards or the birds) that eat my softer vegetables.
This is the way I do all my beds:
-mow the grass as low to the soil as possible
-smother the grass with leaves,newspaper,cardboard whatever is adequate to smother and kill the underlying grass
- cover the newspaper/leaves/cardboard with compost/topsoil.. Basically making a raised bed
- mulch heavily with a couple inches of leaves,etc
-plant!
That simple.. You could be planting in a couple of days.. The only expense is the compost/topsoil you would fill the beds with.. But if you have a compost pile, everything is free.. Also lookout for your city giving away free compost.. That were I got mine from.. I would of preferred my own compost, but inhad such a large area, the compos pile had to be is big as my yard! I did this with over 1,260 square feet of beds.. Vegetables,strawberries,blueberries, flowers... It works like a charm!
Best of luck,
Joe
Joe, as you have made it clear in other threads that you never disturb the ground in any way with any kind of tool, could you give a hint as to how to plant! into sod? Because it sounds like your advice here is to cover sod with cardboard and etc and then before anything has decomposed begin planting.
Also, perhaps you missed that this OP mentions that his is a second-year garden so presumably it is not presently established grass sod. Also it is unclear how cardboard will on a short time-scale amend the soil beneath. Within days or weeks we expect nutrients from compost etc to leach through the cardboard and have an effect on the ground beneath it?
Ohio is not northern VA. There is a climate difference at least. In the latter place it's past time to plant spring crops, so the OP needs to amend the ground ASAP if he wants to have a chance to grow peas and lettuce and other cool-weather crops. Covering with cardboard won't do that, nor will it warm the soil. If he has not added lime in the past then the ground is surely acidic, and is the likely cause of last year's poor performance. The most effective tack to plant now is to make the rows or planting holes directly into the clay, incorporate goodly amounts of wood ash and compost, and plant!
THatstat, you might want to go read about Square Foot Gardening. Given what you're trying to accomplish in the given space you'll need some of those techniques.
Here is a link that might be useful: Square Foot Gardening
That's going to a full/crowded bed.
You don't have to worry about interplanting because once those plants get a couple months old you're going to have a "green mess" (not necessarily a bad thing) between the cherry tomato and the squash/zukes.
If it wasn't so late in the season for FL, I would say you could squeeze a few radishes in the "dead space" that you could harvest in 30 days, but it's a bit too late in the season for radishes that would taste good. You can probably do that next year, though...weather permitting.
That will depend on the variety. Reba Acorn - I'd put 3 plants. Butterbush, 4 plants but you may have to pull 1. It all depends on how they grow and that's where are the other variables come into it. They don't grow the same in every garden.
Using container mix to fill a raised bed would get very expensive and is not recommended for that reason. There are hundreds of discussions here on what to fill raised beds with that the search will pull up.
Dave
I grew bush zucchini last year, two hills per 4 foot width. I could have easily fit six plants into a 4x8 space. That was Black Beauty. They'll hang off the edge by the edge of the season, but most of the time they stay in the edges.
I've seen a Youtube video that showed spaghetti squash weaved up a trellis. The squash themselves were hanging on just fine - the stems are pretty tough, unlike melons, which have to be carefully supported.
LOL you should never ever leave a beer unattended around him. I had to plant an extra row this year, my stepdaughter found out I grow them. She has a black thumb. dug a couple up and there was about 1 in 5 that looked like it was thinking about geminating. so I'll do it again. I think maybe it was too wet. Anyway, round two. Happy gardening today Va peeps!
Grubs are Id by their raster (butt) patterns. See link below.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: UMass Ext - How to Id grubs
Easter dinner featured wonderful fresh asparagus at my friends home. After dinner, we took a nice walk to check out the asparagus bed. It was lined with rock salt to keep the bermuda grass at bay. ANYTHING that can stop bermuda is fantastic, and salt is so simple a solution.
for now a good layer of mulch is doing the job as well as keep moisture in and cut down on watering, mulch for us controls all our weeds so i'd have to say mulch, not so sure about adding in salt?
len
Here is a link that might be useful: lens bale garden
Thanks, folks!
Yeah, i worried about that usage of the word 'hill' as soon as I hit 'post' :). Around here, it means a grouping, and not a raised area. But it dawned on me just two seconds too late that the thread title would be confusing to... pretty much anyone else.
I use hills/raised mounds with 3 plants to each hill. Warmer soil = faster germinating, easier to contain, better drainage, better cross pollination so timing of M/F blooms isn't an issue, easier to hand pollinate if needed, easier to feed, easier to bury stems if any borers do get in, and most importantly easier to cover with row cover/insect barriers to prevent SVB and squash bugs.
Dave
Thank you everyone for all the great advice and links to different forums. I thought I had done a fair amount of research before I got started but I'm definitely learning from some mistakes. I tossed most of the seedlings but did transplant a few to bigger pots just to see if they could make it. I have another question:
I would like to give it another whirl and plant some more seeds and I was thinking that this time I would give them more space to grow but given that where I live I should be able to direct sow in the next couple of weeks, should I just wait and put them in the ground? Also, if I started them in the seedling tray could I transplant them after just a couple of weeks? Thanks so much for all the help!
Whens your last frost date? If yours is around may 15 like me, I would start up a batch, that 6-7 weeks of growing indoors, is 6-7 weeks longer than it would be direct sowing.. If your last frost is in 2 weeks, I wouldn't bother.. It's just preference..
You asked "If a Start them in a seedlings tray could I transplant after just a couple of weeks"
Yes, I can't see why not.. Transplant them to what the garden, or to a bigger container indoors? By seedling tray, do you mean the 72 small flats you
germinate in, if so ibadvise you to use something bigger.. Use a container big enough where you wont have to pot them up to a bigger container,leave them sit in the pot that you sowed them in, until planting in the garden.. Once you see them germinating, you can take the cover off, but keep them
moist, but NOT saturated wet.. When they sprout, put a light as close to the seedling as possible without harm.. Also put on a fan directly blowing on the seedlings.. Keep the light and fan on 12-14 hours.. Keep the soil moistto
the touch but not wet, or your seedling are going to die.. Seedling are not that hard to grow as long as you keep the soil moist, sufficient light very close to seedlings, provide a fan blowing on them.. Most people kill plants by over care.. Remember your growing a plant, provide water and light and
it grows itself.. You don't need to baby your plants and overwater them.. They know how to survive just fine, given the rough growing parameters..
Best Of luck,
Joe
You can never have too much garden space so make it as big as you can afford to and have the room for or if spacing is tight, split it into more smaller beds. 3-4 feet wide means you never have to walk in it or waste any space on paths so I prefer long narrow beds over shorter wider beds.
Dave
Those plants would probably fit in a 4 x 6 raised bed. The squash can hang over the edges. You'll have room for basil, too. The space for tomatoes depends on whether you get determinate or indeterminate plants. An indeterminate small tomato like Sungold or Sweet 100's won't take up much ground space, but can have vines six feet long or more. Trellising will keep your tomatoes off the ground. The square foot gardening book will give you lots of information.
Here is a link that might be useful: My raised bed garden
The mix the OP is talking about is Mel's mix - the square foot gardening guy.
Good point that I missed as the OP didn't mention Mel's Mix or Sq. Foot Gardening. But if that is the case then the Sq. Foot Gardening forum could be of the most help.
It is my understanding that Mel's Mix calls for only finished compost so that one doesn't run into the nutrient binding problems. But since it is such a specialized approach to garden then that forum would know best.
Dave
"Should I just mix in topsoil and then leaf mulch on top? Should I do the mulch after my seedlings come up? "
You hit the nail on the head, right on! I would mix in some topsoil and mulch with leaves.. As far as fertilizer.. Compost/woodash is all I use.. Your going to have people tell you that you need a soil test, you're goon toruin your soil with woodash,etc.. I'm laughing because I been using it for a while.. Mans been using it ever since we made fire... If you are looking to purchase fertilizer - espoma biotone is my favorite, all espoma products are really good.. Fish emulsion,blood/bone meal, feather meal,alfalfa meal, and kelp meal is good... But becarful with the animal products(fish,blood,bone), the damn animals dug up my garden the first year i made that mistake! You could buy all those fertilizers and have great benefits, but they are expensive! A good compost should have everything a plant needs.. A prime example of this is Charles Wilber, man who grow world record tomatoes, the only thing he uses is his homade compost...
Joe