A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 What do you plan to do next year?

Wow, Dee, glad you spoke up.
I wouldn't grow it for looks - I thought it would taste like a regular patty pan.
I wonder why it's sold if it's tasteless?
I grew that round zucchini once and it was wonderful. And fun.
Thanks again for saving me from a waste of time, effort and money !
This forum is really great ! For input just like this !

for one, i'm going to start MUCH earlier! i had a very late start. other than that i am just going to plant tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, beans, etc and maybe some melons and just hope i get a turn out!

Wow, I spoke too soon on our garden plan...it's already evolving! I guess the basics still apply though - but I've added quite a few things the last few weeks.

Here's a question: given the plan that I posted, and the fact that the sun travels from behind the garage to in front of the house (meaning, full sun most of the day) where would be the best place to put trellises for the melons and cukes? Would they grow well if I made them a "shelving unit" trellis out of lattice?(or something with bigger openings?) This is my idea:

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Any thoughts?

I am making three very large raised beds for the new veggie garden!

I definately will have some bright lights swiss chard, my friend grew it and it was breath taking!
http://www.cooksgarden.com/prodinfo.asp?number=499&variation=&aitem=5&mitem=12

I'm also planting some dandilion greens as well, I must be insane to plant dandilions

How do you cook dandelion greens?
I'd like to try eating them - it'll be my first try.
I couldn't use the dandelions in my lawns, since the gardeners use chemicals on the grass. (Not my doing, I live in a condo).

I have a big garden that I have trouble filling every year and even more trouble WEEDING! Next year, I'm gonna pass on growing corn...it turns out to be a bigger disappointment each year. I'm gonna plant LOTS of the stuff we eat alot of: tomatoes, peppers, carrots, radish, beans, leaf lettuce, peas, potatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, melons and pumpkin. And I'm ripping out those so-called-raspberry-bushes that have not given me a single raspberry in 4 years! I'll put in more blackberries and strawberries. And I'll continue to add to my asperagus patch. And I'll keep it weeded (or more likely make the rows wide enough to run the roto-tiller thru!! )
Gee, I'm gonna be really busy out there !

That all sounds so nice.
You'll be busy but happy !
I like all of your choices. YUM !

myndful.....Here are my thoughts: I have always heard that garden rows should run east to west direction, so the trellis should be on the west side of a growing area, so it does not block the sun from other plants for the biggest part of the day, if this makes sense. What program did you use to make your garden plan with??? I see it says garden planner, is that name of the program you used???

My plan has changed already a couple of times since I started planning, so at this point and time...I have no definite plan for my garden next spring, but I still have months to get it worked out.

Netty,
What do you do to/for you corn to grow?

Corn is a veryyyy heavy feeder..
Needs' lot's of nitrogen...

Netty...how big is your garden??? Sounds kind of like me...I always seem to end up with a little extra space, and too many weeds.

Ciao netty,

I'm with you, corn is a pain in the you-know-what. My boys like it, which is why we've grown it, but I refuse to tend to it, so it ends up sucking up water and space and resources without getting used. God willing, we'll be moving West of the tundra soon, so next year, we most likely will not have a garden, but I don't see corn in our future. I like your reasoning too..plant stuff you use a lot of and I think berries won't be a problem..they tend to grow like weeds out West, with zero care by gardeners. We'll see. This year's garden has out-done itself with the bounty and it ended up being more than I could handle myself. We'll need to make some adjustments, but at this point, I'm not sure what those will be because it will be a whole new space with a new (and higher) growing zone.

Cheers and buona fortuna with your '07 plans.

Julianna

I went a little crazy when I made my veggie garden -I had just moved to our almost 3 acre property from a 50 X 120 lot. I think my garden ended up being about 25 ft X 50 ft! Now I've got lots of Asperagus growing and that takes up lots of room. We can buy fresh picked corn for about $2 a dozen at the end of the road, so I'm not going to waste my time with it next year.

Julianna, what do you mean by West?
Also, no garden? Is that going to upset you? I can't imagine you without tomatoes ! I have learned alot from your posts and would miss ya !

Netty...My garden is 50'x50'.
I have the same feeling about this, we can buy if off the back of a farmers pickup truck and sometimes $1.00 a dozen, even at $2.00 a dozen it is cheaper and much easier to buy it then to grow it!!!! Besides it leaves more room for other veggies to be grown.

Wow Comfrey! That's a BIG garden to take care of!
How do you control the weeds?

I love corn for Fall/Halloween Decorations...
And for me, I've finally figured out that I just feed mine lot's of bunnie poop and they do great...
I hardly even watered mine this year..

Alright, alright, I"ll share another tid~bit of something I do for my corn too....
I plant peas' at the base of each corn..
**I let the corn get a head start, then push the seeds in at the base of the plants.. then as each grows.. the peas don't over whelm the corn.
In fact it's the other way around..
I sacrafice the peas to the corn...
The corn, being heavy feeders, use up the nitrogen the peas put back into the ground..
And the peas don't do all that well, cause the corn sucks up all their stuff and shades them terribly, but the corn does good...**

That's a good idea, Weezie.
I never could figure out that nitrogen-fixing thing. Or what a pea inoc-something does either.

Netty..normally (I didn't do this last season and got in a real big mess with weeds)But I save my paper feed bags, also cardboard works well, I lay it down the rows and then I mulch on top of that with hay, straw, grass clippings what ever I have or can find, the paper/cardboard helps to keep the weeds from growing up through the mulch and it helps the mulch to break down slower, plus it also helps your garden to retain moisture better, and all of that organic stuff does break down and can be tilled right back into the soil at the end of the season. My mistake was that I got one of those little row cultivators, and it works really well, if you make sure to keep at it on a weekly basis, but when it got really hot and I was busy canning, I let too much time go by before I tried to get things under control, and the rest is history ...tooo many weeds to get under control. I only have half of the garden cleaned up at this point and time, but we just had our first frost and it was hard one, so now I feel better about pulling up anything left out there. I'm in my 50's have a bad back and do all the work by myself, so it is alot of work, but you know I have to enjoy it in order to keep trying.

Comfrey - I thought about using cardboard to help keep the weeds down. The problem around here is WIND! I am still trying to figure out how to keep the cardboard in place...

Comfrey, thanks. I guess I'll put the trellis next to the garage, then. I'm hoping to make it short height-wise and longer length-wise, than the ones I've seen for sale.

Rob downloaded the garden planner, I'm not completely sure which one he used, but I did a quick search and found this:
Garden Planner
It has a free trial, so no loss if you don't like it!

Netty it is windy here also, that is why I put the mulch on top of the carboard or paper sacks, but I also have used boards and rocks to hold mine down when I was short of mulch material, or until I could get the mulch put down.

Thanks myndful!!!!

Ciao Deb,

We're focusing our efforts on Vancouver. I have great difficulty with Toronto winters as I'm a California transplant. Some things are just too big to adjust. The sidewalk snowplows were cute for about a split second and then I got over it.

Yes, I will miss having a garden immensely, no doubt about that, but the knowledge that I'll be back in the land of my beloved Canucks and the only thing in my driveway during the winter will be wet pavement, not snow, not salt will more than make up for it. We might look into the community garden thing and if we have an apartment with a balcony, I could still grow some things in containers. We'll just have to see.

No worries, I'll still be posting here, though.

Cheers,
Julianna

I need a gremalin wiping her brow...
Whew..
Can't imagine the Vegetable section here
without you Julianna!!!

Julianna, how strange to think of you as a container gardener as I am !
But it sounds as though Vancouver is a happier choice for you.

My garden is about 50x55 and plan to expand a small bit next year. I plant sweet corn for shade and wind break for my tomatoes and peppers. Really helps. I have never had much trouble raising good sweet corn. I mulched really heavy this year. Hay,straw and grass clippings. Probably 6" worth before I finished. As the garden in winding down will start working it in and then put a light amount of manure down. weeds and grass was very little trouble this year with the mulch. So much worse if you don't. Have some early before plants are big enough to mulch around. JD