Pretty new to gardening... help? Tons of questions

[Mattemma]

My mom got free 5 gallon pickle buckets from restaurants,and was able to grow some great tomato plants in them.Zukes grow easy and plentiful.

 

[odd_duck99]

This will be my third gardening season at our new place and one lesson I've learned with raised beds is to turn/till/dig up the soil under the area that you plan to put your raised beds. Got in a hurry the first year and didn't do so and paid for it with poor plant growth...the roots never penetrated the hard-packed, rocky soil below the raised beds.

Hubby made my two raised beds 5' wide by 20' long. Another problem...5' wide is too wide for me to comfortably reach the middle of wqithout stepping in the beds...which compacts the soil. Will eventually get them trimmed back to 2' or 3' wide to make it easier for me.

One thing you didn't mention is what type of sun exposure does your future garden area recieve? That can play a huge part in what type of veggie plants you want to grow, too.

These are all huge, important points!

I learned the "sun" thing the hard way. I moved into a rental house once, and got so excited that I planted a garden in the sunniest corner. It was still practically shade. Even the cool crops had a hard time there! Lesson learned... when we bought a house we looked for lots with as much sun as possible!

 

[User4960]

My garden is in a small forest clearing. From mid november to February sometime it gets actually ZERO light directly from the sun. Once the sun light beams begin hitting the garden, the hours of direct sun begins to increase more rapidly than the day lengthens. Suddenly the sun in its southerly track rises over the trees to the south more and more each day.

It is right now that my garden is beginning to receive enough light, which is good timing, as I just put in some mostly Brassica greens.

I do everything I can to use the sunlight efficiently. On the north wall of my garden I placed white plastic to reflect light, and it should warm things a bit. This is a new development this year. Looking out my window at it right now, and yes, that wall is kind of bright.

Still, I have had a few things through winter, but not this winter because of so much enlarging I'm doing. I already plan on keeping a couple of those Peacock Broccoli plants going to flower for seed, and I probably will have things likle winter radish and maybe, just maybe some Rutabaga if I can get hold of a strange and rare heirloom named after some sunken ship off the coast of Maine.

Light. It really is all important!. It is half the reason I am making my beds deeper this year. Higher, closer to earlier and later sunlight. This is my 4th year gardening here, and I have found I have enough light. Barely, but have not suffered from the lack of light.

 

[Denim Deb]

If you were to look at a satellite view of my area, it's kind of amazing that I'm able to have a garden. I have about 100 trees in my yard on the east side. And on the west side, less than 75 ft from my garden, I have the woods.

 

[User4960]

My garden is definitely visible on Google Maps. I can tell the satellite photo was taken around July 1st 2011.

 

[Wannabefree]

My garden is definitely visible on Google Maps. I can tell the satellite photo was taken around July 1st 2011.

Mine is too, and I could see a nice place to put another garden, and where to put shade loving plants as well. LOVE Google maps!

 

[FarmerJamie]

Mine is too, unfortunately, it's not a flattering photo....

 

[CheerioLounge]

The Google maps image of my place is from before we bought it. I think it is at least 10 yrs old.

 

[Wannabefree]

Our image is from last summer for sure. You can see our tomato plants

 

[CheerioLounge]

Bing maps image is from last year...