This is a good thread! I am going to have my first garden this year. I have to mend the fences (They are netted to about 10' high) and start rototilling as soon as we move in to the new place. I already have raspberries and a grape trellis that produces okay, but the raccoons are hard on it.

The garden is one that my grandparents had for years, I am going to be re-starting it after about a 6 year layoff. I'm super excited. Really want to grow peppers, zucchini, squash, onions, carrots and tomatoes. Basically, I want to grow anything that I can put on the grill.

Planted Boc Choy in the greenhouse last week. It's alreday up. Report later.

You definitely need some pests protection. My garden is surrounded with an 8' tall wood frame, wire mesh fence, grape arbor entrance. No deer, but raccoons climb the fence for my grapes each fall.

I do two types of corn, early sweet and "peaches & cream". 3 rows of each planted 2-3 weeks apart. Lots of jalapenos, onions, basil. 9 varieties of tomatoes, I plant around Mother's Day weekend. I also use 6 raised beds with indoor/outdoor carpet between to keep weeds down. My raspberries (two varieties) are off the charts.

Vedder has pics of my garden, maybe he'll post a pic of it taken from my deck for a full view. Thanks Dave.

Sorry Snake. I didn't save them. I thought YOU might have.

Don't forget brussel Sprouts. Great on the grill.

I will definitely try to grow brussel sprouts too. They are my wife's favorite vegetable.

I do not have acerage but I do have a couple raised gardens that I grow my veggies in. I also grow potatoes in a garbage can. Drilled holes planted taters then as they grow layer dirt on and late summer dig in ya got tators. I also reccommend Walla Walla's oh and Strawberries. Pretty cool when your working out in the yard and you can walk up and have a snack.

Now if I can keep the neighborhood cats from using them as a litter box. WristRocket!

Coho,

What kind of wood are you using for your raised beds? I was thinking 2x10 cedar cuz pressure treated wood supporting the soil for my organic veggies has got to be a bad idea.

Sg

You can recycle old tires to make small round beds. Seen an old man do it.

Hey, if the Greeners us 'em for artificial reefs and to build houses out of they should be ok, right?

Don't know if you want your yard looking like a Newark tiredump though.

Use cedar or redwood for raised beds. Raised beds are nice because it is easy to pick stuff and you can put covers over them (PVC with painters plastic) to extend growing seasons.

I put my peas out last night. Sprouted them indoors in a bowl with a damp paper towel for three days. Will try some lettuce and other cold weather stuff this weekend. I always try and plant early. If it works... great. If not, I replant. I figure the seed costs very little and sometimes I get an early/extra crop.

Coho, I have been wanting to try the garbage can potato idea. Sounds like a great way to introduce kids to gardening. Something easy for them to do with lots of results.

Dogfish, I am not much of a gardner, I try but I just don't seem to have a reall good green thumb? Something to think about. I used to live in McCleary, and that has a little different growing season than say Olympia area. It seems to be a longer season there? There has been a lot of good advise. Some things can be planted now. I usually follow what one of my neighbors does. And he has onion starts in already. Ask aorund there, for some reason the Elma McCleary area has an earlier start season and a longer end season. The time is at hand. Oh and it sounds like with 1 year old horse manure in there. You should have a great crop. You will get a ton of weeds though!!
God Luck

Buck

Don't use PT wood for boxes.
I use scrap anything to build the beds. You can paint the inside of a wooden box with boiled linseed oil and/or paraffin to stretch its life a few years.
Don't use 1" for beds, it'll rot fast.
Raised beds warm faster, are easier to cover, easier to work on, and more pest resistant.
Staple chicken wire or hardware cloth over the bottom to prevent burrowing critters.

Buy/check out Steve Solomon's "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" for excellent regional-specific advice. And he's got a kick-ass formula for home made "Complete Organic Fertilizer" ("COF" as you'll see it mentioned on many gardening sites). His other books, especially his "Hard Times" book are supposed to be great too.

Another book to consider is Seattle Tilth's "Garden Guide" iirc. Its a month by month planting guide.

You can grow veggies year around with some planning and a greenhouse/row cover system.

Definitely lime your soil, even if you don't add anything else to it. If it rains on your ground, it will suffer from leaching and acidification. Lime balances the pH, which is important for all of the crops listed here. Don't lime blueberries.

Don't plant one big garden all at once. Like others mentioned, "succession planting" is key. Plant your seeds every two weeks or so, and you'll have continuous food.

Learn about cover crops like fall sown cereal rye, winter wheat. Spring sown clover, buckwheat, field peas. These are amazing soil conditioners. Any time you've got an open row, throw some buckwheat seed down.

Consider getting chickens to feed garden scraps too. They'll reward you with excellent eggs and crap to put back in your gardens.

Limit your inputs (stay away from pesticides, non-organic fertilizers, imported soil), maximize your outputs (harvest weekly, trade your neighbors).

Use non-Monsanto seeds (look 'em up). Territorial's selection isn't great in this area. There are many local seed houses which deserve your biz.

If you're really cool, you'll use "OP" seeds and save them yourself.
Growing a garden from seed you've collected yourself is a lot like a DIY trophy elk hunt to me. Satisfying. (I imagine. I've never successfully popped any elk, much less a trophy).

SG--I used the wood you should not. PT. It was an after thought after I completed. So I did add weed barrier that seems to help. Veggies still seem to do fine, if I were to do it again I would use Cedar.

yes Brant the Taters are fun. I cannot recall the type I planted last season, but everytime I dug in I would get enough for a dinner for the 3 of us.

This is the theory of the square foot gardening-This was passed onto me from another fish head. If you are limited on space this works well.
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

Also, plan before you plant some veggies grow better when planted together and some do not do well. JCoho advised me on that.

Supposedly some PT is OK but you need to ask the manufacturer about that. In the old day's PT was treated with cyanide and could even leach into your skin and cause all sorts of disorders.

Speaking of fish head......my home fish cleaning station drains right into the compost bin and receives what I don't save for crabs.

Stam's and Vedder's gardens are legendary.

i like Aunty's planned obsolescence...her own?

Stam (or anyone) do you grow winter squash?
I'm looking for someone who can tell me about curing them in late fall, maybe in front of a woodstove, to store for more than a couple months.

Sodfarmer, do you grow small grains to harvest as grain? I know some local farms are trialing different wheat, barley, etc.
I want to figure out how acres/dollars and time I need to grow a couple tons a year of small grains, corn and/or soy to make my own poultry feed.

Pie in the sky?

I appreciate all of the suggestions. This is what I was looking for, so all of that input is great.

Ordered my seed catalog today and I'll head to the local farm store on Saturday to see what they have for starts.

Looks like right now I just need to work on getting the fences rigged up and work on getting water run to the two spots so I can just get things going in the next few months.

With two different bed sites, I can separate the two varieties of corn by 20-30 yards. Is that far enough away?

Also, once I get the garden in I plan on building a small hen house and having a few chickens. Eventually we'll add on to that and add some pheasants and other birds.

Many thanks.

I have never heard of seperating corn before. I grow two types and they are only seperated by about two feet. Taste fine look fine. Maybe they're compatible types :scratch head:

corn needs time, not distance.
if you want different varieties, look for their maturity days. You''ll want to get varieties with at least 20 days difference.
There's all kinds of corn: dent (for corn meal), flint, sweet, pop...
its an american original.

corn likes to be in blocks at least 16 plants strong (I've read) to get good pollination. I've hand pollinated smaller patches, but it didn't worky too good.

I will also be popping my green thumb cherry this spring. Couple stupid questions here. Can asparagus be grown on the westside here? Also I am taking over a garden that has been going for years its 15x15 or so. It has always had beans climbing up the back, row of corn, punkins, peppers, onions, carrots, squash. Does all of that stuff need to be re planted every year? Not sure about some of it. Probably drop the punkins and squash for taters and cukes. So what do I need to do to get ready to plant what needs to be planted? Pull weeds and till it up? Sounds like I should get a bale of alfalfa to till with. Any help is appreciated.

Looks like a bunch of us like playing in the dirt. This last spate of great weather has been great for getting the ground ready; garden patch spaded, new cold frame build, etc; everything ready for the first of the cool weather crops

Stlhdr -
Asparagus can be grown here on the west side. However it does require a fair amount of space and time - takes up to 3 years to have the plants fully established. My asparagus patch is enough for two. Aunty check my patch today and still no spears up.

Dogfish -
With the space you have you should be able to grow virtually the "vegies" your family needs. With our cilmate here on the west side a number of cool weather crops due quick well. Peas, snow peas (pods); green onions, potatoes (love Potomac reds and Yukon golds, kale, the various lettuce (leaf varities the easiest), brocculi, cabbage, caulifower all do well.

My best advise is that don't be in rush to get the warmer weather crops (corns, beans, various squashes, cukes, tomatoes, peppers, etc.) in the ground. They do best when they can grow more or less constantly and a period of cold nights really slows down their development and ultimately the yield. I try to hold off until the latter half of May to play those crops. Once experimented with 3 plantings of bush beans (all the same type); one in late April, one in mid-May and the third in early July. The earliest and latest ripen about 10 days apart with the later planting yielding roughly twice as much.

You might also think about putting in some perennials. Rhubard, the various berries, horseradish, asparagus, and fruit trees are all good. While my space is somewhat limited (live in town with a lot of only 1/3 of acre) we do manage to squeeze in a fair amout; in addition to 1,400 space feet for veggies I have 3 fruit trees( "drawf" varities), 4 rhubard plants, a 4 x 10 apsaragus patch, a 4 x 10 strawberry patch, 30 feet of raspberries, 10 feet of blackberries, 9 blue berry bushes, and lots of flowers. All in a fenced back yard shared with two labs.

Careful; gardening can be addictive.

Curt