Our Family's First Garden Journal!
Hey there fellow HiveGardeners! As I have only recently joined the HiveGarden community, I thought it only fitting to post our family's very first entry of our Garden Journal, which happens to also be the first real garden my fiance and I have ever planted! We're ecstatic to say the very least, and I am super excited to share what we've been working on!
First and foremost, before we even get into this Journal entry, I would like to take a second to recognize and say thank you to all of the curators of my "Introduce Yourself" blog post that I published last week. Thanks to you, and all of your support, you have made this publication of our Garden Journal possible! For that I sincerely and humbly thank you, and hope that I can provide engaging and informative content to the community!
I personally want to thank @generikat for the follow, and for your recent and awesome post about how you plant your potatoes, which gave me more than a few good ideas for next year! (Sadly, I already planted my taters before joining Hive!)
I also want to thank @daltono for the follow, both on here and on Twitter, helping support my growth as a content creator, and for being a huge contribution to the publication of this post. Thank you so much bro, your amazing!
And once again, thank you @nicksmitley for bringing me into this wonderful community! Can't wait to do a collaboration with you one of these days!
Now then, with that out of the way we can finally move on to the real reason you stopped by:
Our Garden!
Since this is the first entry of our journal, as well as our first garden, this post may get kind of dry in some places, but don't worry, I will try to spritz in some fun along the way! (I know, I know..that was bad haha)
Terrible puns aside, I want to start by lightly digging into our gardening background, then I'll go a little deeper into our setup. (Aw shoot, I did it again!) After that, I'll discuss our trial method we used for planting and what plants will be going into the garden this year!
Finally, as a little community engagement exercise, I will finish up with a few questions that my fiance and I personally have for the more experienced gardeners out there!
A Brief Background
So, as I've said, this is our first real garden that we'll be planting this year, but for context, we have planted some different peppers and tomatoes in 5-gallon buckets on our back patio at our old apartment in the past. Our patio was too small for grow boxes, so the buckets worked for space that we had, but we knew we wanted more!
Anyways, the patio garden got started because my previous employer had a greenhouse, and had unintentionally started far too many plants for himself to use, so he gave me some a few banana pepper, cherry tomatoes, bell pepper, jalapeno, and a few miscellaneous tomato and pepper sprouts that never really produced much, so I'm really not quite sure what they were.
He gave me the buckets and dirt from his farm, and I just transplanted them all and went from there. I didn't have to worry too much about weeds since they were in the pots either so that was nice, but you could tell the plants weren't thriving like they should have.
The banana peppers and jalapenos had a very decent yield all season for the size of the plant (they were in bigger pots, and we're able to fully mature) and we had more than enough for our family; the cherry tomatoes did produce fairly well, but not nearly enough because we can never seem keep tomatoes for long in our house!
Then, in December of 2021, when we inherited my fiance's childhood home from her parents, we knew immediately we were going to go all out on a garden this year!
Our Current Setup
So with our patio gardening behind us, this year, my fiance and I tilled a 12 foot wide by 40 foot long plot in our backyard, strictly dedicated to our goal of becoming self-sufficient over the course of the next few years because let's be honest here, with all things, gardening included, learning takes time!
As to the size of the garden, I'm not sure if we tilled too large of an area for what we'll be doing, but we do plan on having an assortment of different types of plants, and I wanted to make sure we had enough room for everything to have enough room to maximize the yield of each plant!
The reasoning behind this is that, due to the current state of the economy, we want to start canning our produce as well; with the hopes that we will not only be producing what we want to consume, but also have a nice supply for the winter months!
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About one-third of our garden was tilled with our little Mantis (from the gif above!), but the ground proved too hard, and we eventually borrowed our neighbors tiller that made some pretty light work of the rest! (I'll try to get some pictures of that bad boy at a later date)
Trial Planting Method No. 1
Now that you have an idea of what kind of an area we have to work with, we can shovel our way into the trial method were using this year! Since we are both fairly new to gardening, I've been utilizing a few garden companion style mobile apps (Which, since I'm still figuring everything out, I'm unsure if I'm allowed to name those apps?) to help me start out and get a good basis of when to plant. They also provided some good information on different companion plants to give me an idea of where I should plant our seeds!
During this research, I found two interesting methods of planting; one by dividing your garden into one foot by one foot sections, and planting only a specific number of plants inside those squares, and the other by planting your crops in a triangular pattern.
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Apparently, both methods can potentially increase the yield of each plant, and I thought the were both good ideas and made sense, but, due to the variety of plants in our garden and being the person that I am, I took it a step further! I divided my garden into one foot by one foot sections, planted a specific number of seeds into a designated square, and then skipped a square between each plant!
Other than a few plants that were transplanted as starts, all the other "cold weather" plant seeds that have been started in our garden were sowed directly into the tilled dirt, just using my finger to poke holes in the dirt and covering them, and then sprinkled with an all purpose vegetable fertilizer used as directed on the package!
Our Plants
Due to the fact that we've still had some pretty cold weather so far this year, and with the info I found in the apps I was using, we officially started our garden on April 17, 2022! I wish that I would have joined Hive before we started planting, because we would have taken pictures of the planting process! But, we do still have the warm weather plants to start soon, so I'll be sure to take some good pictures then!
All in all, we transplanted asparagus, onions, and a few potatoes that we purchased from our local Rural King store, and since we're both newbies to this scale of gardening, we just transplanted each of them as directed on the packages. The way we saw it, we couldn't possibly go wrong by simply following the directions, right? Lol
The asparagus was first to go in since it would take the longest to mature, and we transplanted a total of 6 plants: three Mary Washington, and three Jersey Giant into the first two rows. We planted one per square section (I mentioned the certain amount of plants per section above in the growing method), leaving some space for strawberry plants (which unfortunately got squished by Junior during one of our daily waterings) and bell peppers, which will be getting planted later on this month!
Next, I moved onto lettuce and spinach. For lettuce, I read that you can have 16 per one foot section, and for spinach you can have up to 9 per section. For these, I did sow that specific amount of seeds per section into the next row. We planted three sections of lettuce, left a few sections of space for banana peppers. (Which will also be getting planted later on this month)
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Once we finished up the lettuce, we went right into the spinach on the opposite side of the plot (again, leaving room for warm weather plants) and planted 3 sections, with approximately 9 seeds in each section.
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With the spinach planted, I decided that our tomatoes would get planted in the next few rows. Since they are warmer weather plants, and couldn't be planted for at least another month at the time, I quickly sectioned off about 5 more feet worth of space dedicated solely to tomatoes, because I said earlier, we can't ever keep them around for long!
Moving passed the empty space that was now designated "matey land", we went right into sugar snap peas! A total of 8 plants can be grown per section, so I quickly planted 4 sections worth, and then got going on the broccoli. You can only have one broccoli plant per section, so those three sections went by pretty quick.
Once the broccoli seeds were in, we moved on to beets (my fiance's favorite), which can have a total of 9 plants per section. Planting a total of four sections, we decided to move on to carrots! Being able to have up to 16 carrot plants in one section (which seems absurdly high to me personally), we planted a total of three sections, although, since Junior started helping about that time, I'm unsure exactly how many seeds actually got sown into those holes. Unfortunately at the time of posting, I have not noticed any sprouts for the broccoli, beets, or carrots :(
After leaving some space after the carrots for okra, next up were the onions and potatoes! I read that you could have up to 16 onions per section, and up to 4 potatoes per section. I thought that was a lot personally, especially for just starting out, so I didn't plant near that many!
For the onions, we planted a total of 4 bulbs per section, and each bulb had a decent sized sprout starting to form already at the time of transplant. I must say we love onions in our household, and use them in almost everything we make (hooray for antioxidants!), so we have 10 sections in total. 6 sections of Reds, 2 sections of Yellow, and 2 sections of White!
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For the potatoes, which I believe we're russets, we waited until they had good eyes on them, and threw the whole tatie in a hole and covered it up. We only planted 2 per section in the first two sections, and 3 taties in the last section. I must say, I was really nervous about the taties at first (as I was all the plants really since it's our first time growing most of them), but after reading that post by @generikat that I mentioned earlier, my nervousness quickly passed!
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After the potatoes, we planted three quick sections of cauliflower to wrap up the cold weather plants. Only one plant can be grown per section, so we sowed a seed into three separate sections and called it a day! So far, no cauliflower sprouts have been sighted.
All of these first few pictures of our sprouts were taken on May 1st and May 3rd, so right around 2 weeks after the initial transplant and seed sowing! We were so excited to see this little bit of progress on all of these plants, we both started to sprout smiles! And as a side note, I do need to weed, but I wanted to make sure that everything sprouted first, to make sure we didn't pull anything we weren't supposed to!
As I've mentioned, once the weather does start warming up a little bit more in the coming weeks, we plan on starting a few different types of tomato seeds that will hopefully produce more than enough for our tomato loving loving family! We also plan on planting okra, banana pepper, bell pepper, jalapenos, sweet corn, zucchini and cucumber seeds as well! (Future updates coming soon!)
Questions For My Fellow HiveGardeners
Since Hive is all about engaging with others, I do want to leave a few questions for my fellow HiveGardeners as a community engagement exercise! I'm doing this with the hopes of learning some new insights, tips and/or tricks that the more experienced gardeners out there may have discovered throughout the seasons, and to also hear about all the different views and opinions from around the globe! While replying is always optional, I do hope to hear from you! :)
What methods do you prefer to use to start your seeds? Germinating inside, or planting directly outside as I have done?
What kind of spacing do you use between your produce, and what plants do you tend to grow together? (Example: my onions grown directly next to my potatoes)
Are there any specific crops that you prefer to grow in separate containers, away from the rest of the garden? (Like garlic or different herbs)
What natural or non-harmful methods have you found from keeping unwanted visitors, such as rabbits and squirrels, out of your garden other than fencing? (Example: specific types of plants, scarecrows, noise makers?)
Are there any natural or non-herbicidal methods you use to help keep weeds at bay? (We have a little one on the way, and we plan to cook and mash our produce for baby food when the time comes!)
Final Thoughts
Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my first Journal Entry, in what I hope will, eventually, lead to a Collection of Garden Journals! I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day, and an amazing week! Happy Gardening!
Signature was custom made and created by @doze! I love the work he did on my personalized signatures, and can't wait to see what else this amazing creator comes up with next! Visit his page for more information on how you can get your very own custom made signature! Or click here to view the original post!
All photographs used in this post have been taken, created and edited using my trusty cheap-o Motorola Moto G Stylus.
GIF of Tyler Junior edited from a video using GIF maker app for Android.
All images resized using Image Size - Photo Resizer app for Android.
Congrats on starting,
we are also just starting a big urban garden so we can grow food to eat. We HAVE gardened before but not really at this house. This is our first attempt at a BIG garden.
my advice is compost!!! and also flowers... plant things that encourage benificial insects to the garden. Biodiversity. Especially if you dont want to use pesticides.
If you planta whole area in one plant... the bugs will come and you will need beneficial insects to eat them.. lol
Good luck and keep us posted :-)
Sarah
Thank you very much! And congrats on your first BIG garden! We are definitely having a lot of fun and enjoying the work, so I can only imagine how much fun your guys will have!
Honestly, I have been thinking a lot about composting, just not really sure how to start yet! And I was considering planting different types of flowers as a border, but haven't done a whole lot of research on which types yet! So I will definitely start looking more into that, thank you!
Thank you so much for all the advice and I will definitely post some updates soon!
Great to see some lawn dug up to replace with vegetables - garlic, potatoees, broccoli - can't wait to see how this progresses! So exciting and so exciting to see you on HIVE! I might see what me and @minismallholding can do to get these questions answered over the next few weeks. One thing I love is a good weed/herb tea - a bucket of water, add comfrey/yarrow/broadleaf green weeds and maybe a handful of chook poo and allow to rot and stink for a few weeks - add to your veggies.
Don't talk to me about rabbits - I'm traumatised.
Let me tell you, it was an awesome learning experience using the tiller! It took a while, but it's definitely been worth it already! I love being apart of Hive already, and that would be awesome if you could!!
What exactly do you use that weed/herb tea for? Is that strictly used as a fertilizer/compost? Or does that help keep critters out too?
Hahaha! Well I am sorry, but I kind of interested to hear that story now! Lol
Excellent post, looks like you spent s lot of time on this one & will continue to work a lot with your garden too. I don’t have the land to grow anything myself right now. It’s wise to be as self-sustainable as possible. Looking forward to seeing your progress.
Thanks man! And to much of my fiance's dismay, I did in fact spend a little too much time on this one! Lol. Learned a few new things on image formating and basic coding thanks to some of the newbie guides, and still being new I wasn't thinking about the size of my images at first so that was a learning curve as well, but overall, I learned quite a bit from this post, and can't wait to provide future (and shorter lol) updates! But yes, especially the way things are going right now, we figured it was time to start! And honestly, you can definitely grow a small patio garden using pots, but you are kind of limited to what you can grow depending on the size of space you have!
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Glad you're here bro! Looking forward to reading some garden posts so maybe I'll learn something myself😅😂
I'm already learning a lot from ya man! Keep it up👍👍
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Wow! What an awesome into post! And I love the budding garden footage! Okay, the dump truck cracked me up too, been there, lol!
Cold weather crops I tend to direct seed, with the exception of the occasional flat of lettuce and cabbages. One of my favorite intercropping schemes is to plant a cabbage in the middle of a square foot section and then seed quickly maturing things like radishes and spinach around it. By the time they are done and eaten the cabbage can fend for itself and take over the square and then I don't have so many dang weeds to contend with lol!
You all are going to have so much fun! And probably be annoyed. And mystified at times, growing your own food is so rewarding, and by the end of the summer you will have notes galore of what works and what doesn't. That you are out there doing the work is the absolute most awesome part of it ever!
Can't wait to see future update posts!
Thank you so much! And yea, I love having the kids helping out and playing in the garden, our new puppy, Poppy (Australian Shepherd/Blue Heeler mix 💙), loves helping by taking clumps of dirt away when we're digging around trying to weed the rest of the plot! Kind of how Cora does with you lol.
I will definitely be taking note of that intercropping method, and try it out next year! Less weeds are always a plus, and that sounds like an awesome, all-natural, method!
I can't wait to see how this year turns out, and honestly, we have been having a lot of fun already! But I'm sure I'll have more than a few annoyances, one being I may have to transplant some lettuce starts, because A LOT of those seeds germinated fairly close to each other (we've had a lot of heavy rains the past few weeks). Which isn't necessarily a problem, I just want them all to thrive as much as possible! So maybe I can put a few around the cauliflower I have planted now! :)
I can't wait to see more updates on your garden too! Our potatoes have already grown tremendously since last week, so I personally can't wait to see more on how yours are doing, and maybe I can learn a few more things along the way!!
I have to start almost all my seeds inside due to having sandy loam. it doesn't stay damp enough long enough for germination. Large seed plants like beans and peas are direct seeded. Some things like carrots, parsnips, etc that have taproot must be direct seeded. I have a hard time getting them to germinate.
I use rows and maximum spacing as plants do best when not competing for nutrients.
I have 2 veg gardens and an herb garden. The only thing I grow in pots are mints and spiderwort. These are highly invasive here.
Good sturdy (not chicken wire) fencing that is buried at least 9" and a solid gate is the only thing that worked here. Nothing will keep squirrels out...
I have used deep hay mulch, yes, HAY mulch, since 1992. If applied properly, there are no weeds to speak of.
Wow, what an informative reply! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer each question! I saw your from Western Mass, and while I've never been to Massachusetts personally, I know you get some really cold weather too!
I really like your germination setup, and that may be something I could try in the future! That would definitely ensure you know exactly how many plants are going at one time! I'm currently having that issue, as only about half of the spinach that we planted germinated, and I don't think the carrots germinated either to be honest.
How far apart do you space your rows normally? Just enough to walk between them? And how far apart do you plant those plants? I do feel like my spacing could become a little bit of an issue for what I've already planted. I have been able to get in and start weeding, but now I'm questioning how much room I'll have after adding the warm weather plants!
Ooh, that's awesome! We have also been considering growing some of our own herbs, like basil or parsley, but wasn't sure if I should do little pots or if it was something I could line the garden with, almost acting as a border of sorts. (I've heard there are some herbs, like mint, that act as a barrier for ants and other critters because of the smell I guess?) We have a chocolate mint plant along the side of the house for decoration, but I will definitely have to do some research on invasive plant species for our area so I don't hurt the rest of the garden!
Our new puppy has been doing a good job of keeping some critters away, so luckily we haven't had to fight the squirrels or rabbits too much yet! My hopes with the chicken wire was just to keep out the critters while the plants were germinating, and it's doing an alright job, but I do want something sturdier! And I'm guessing you dig it into the ground to keep critters from digging underneath it? That is an awesome idea, thank you!
Wow, hay mulch! I do live in Amish country, so thankfully hay is pretty easy to find around here! I will definitely try that out! Do you mulch it yourself or do you buy it premulched? Just curious, as I would most likely just try to mulch it myself!
Thank you so much for all your advice!
Spinach will not grow inside. I've tried different temps and light and it doesn't come up. It should be direct seeded. Carrots are a taproot plant and any plant with a tap root hates being transplanted. They should be direct seeded. Most seed packets tell what the row and plant spacing should be. There are far too many plants to try to tell that info.
I used to do the recommended 12". 18" 24" and 36" row spacing. But I am not longer 18" wide so all my rows have gone to 24" or larger as required.
I would STRONGLY urge you to only grow any mint or plant from the mint family in pots. Mint is extremely hard to get rig of once it invades. If you grow herbs in small pots you will get small herbs. All plants need plenty of room to grow. And if you are growing herbs for medicinal purposes, they MUST have soil teeming with biology to make the needed essential oils you seek. That is only found in properly prepared soil in the ground.
Fencing should be buried a minimum of 9" deep and PLEASE don't use chicken wire. It won't last 5 years and leaves hundreds of very sharp rusted points everywhere, tetanus hazard.
Hay should NEVER be broken up from the leaves that come in the bales. For more infor:
https://steemit.com/gardening/@goldenoakfarm/about-using-hay-for-mulch
Wow, ok! Thank you for that tip! As of right now, the spinach is looking pretty good but I still haven't seen any carrot sprouts yet :(
As of now, since all my plants are kind of staggered, I'd say I have about 12-18 inches between each plant, but my rows themselves are only 12 inches between the plants, which I hope is enough room, but again, trial and error is the best teacher in my opinion!
After reading this, I definitely need to go out and check the chocolate mint we have outside and see just how far it's spread because it's been there for many years, my fiance's family planted them a while ago for decoration haha. As for the herbs, I'm really glad that I didn't buy own of those starter kits that you put inside on a window sill! Those may definitely have there own spot in the garden then!
I personally didn't want to use the chicken wire, but we had a good sized roll here at the house that was the perfect size to put up to temporarily keep critters out. I definitely don't want rusty metal hanging out in the garden, that's for sure, so I'll definitely start making some plans to build my own fence soon! (I really enjoy DIY projects!)
Holy cow, I'm glad I found you on here then! I wouldn't have even realized that you couldn't mulch hay from the bale! Thank you so much for all your help! I'm learning so much already and am so excited to apply all this knowledge to the rest of our gardening this year, as well as the many years to come!
I am glad to be of help. If you have other questions about gardening, just ask. I don't mind answering, as i'd like everyone to be successful at gardening. :))
Well thank you very much for that! I truly appreciate all of your help! And I hope that you have a very bountiful season as well! I'll make sure to keep you updated on how things are going! :)