Originally Posted by
TanyaL
I want to start a veggie garden. Would appreciate all the tips y'all will give to make this easier. My neighbor is going to plow the plot for us. It is going to be about 20 x 40. We have our own well. The area will get afternoon shade. I hope that keeps it from burning up next summer. Last summer all the gardens, field crops, etc. burned and it was so sad. Please, let's have a good thread on gardening.
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MULCH..MULCh...check out Organic Gardening and Farming mags, old or new.
Grow TALL plants on the North of the plot, shorter ones towards the South..and like others have advised, corn can hold up lots of viney plants and still produce ears of good tasting corn. My smart little WV hillbilly Grandma used to plant corn, then beans and pumpkins in the same rows. Soon the vines killed the weeds and kept the corn roots shaded.
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We use old semi or tractor tires, mix our own soil like greenhouses do that holds mositure for the roots of the plants.
----------Use LAYERS of tires for potatoes. masses of potatoes. You MUST, and I say MUST keep on top of these and keep adding more soil and more tires, since after about 4 days in the sun, the potato vine decides it is a VINE and not a ROOT...and the roots are what produces potatoes. Just leave most of the green stuff but cover the stems and you'll get more potatoes, but needs masses of water. If you could find the stuff nurseries use to add to soil to hold water cheaply, it'll sure help. I found a lot of cheap, new but damaged packages of adult diapers (NEW ones..NEW) and took
them apart and added them, minus the covers, to pot plants and it held masses of water. Didn't have to use much water for those pots.
Be sure in pots to put coffee filters over the drainage holes, and if you have a problem with slugs or snails, get some copper screenings for your more valuable plants. It'll kill or discourage slugs that only dine on top grade plants.
And add Epsom Salts to all in your yard and garden..it's NOT a sodium but a magnesium supplement. Nurseries use it by the hundred pounds in their plants. Makes them grow stronger. In my lemon tree in the back yard it makes them grow bigger, skin thinner and juice sweeter.