Today we are going through the basics of planting, some tips and tricks for some specific vegetables, and also some common pests that might try to make their home in your garden. The first thing to consider is how much shade/sun your area gets and make sure you  plant the right plants accordingly. You should be able to tell how much light a plant needs by the plastic label that comes in the pot. Next, figure out how much space each plant needs. For example, bell peppers don’t need a lot of space while starts for tomatillos will grow to be almost the size of a small car!

When buying plants I would recommend finding a local nursery to buy from. Not only do they plant better varieties for your local area, but with big suppliers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot there are more risks of disease and fungus. After buying your plants, double check your spacing by laying them out in the garden where you want to go.

Then it’s time to gather your supplies. You will need a Garden Trowel , watering can or bucket, Tomato & Veggie Fertilizer, and your plants. I highly recommend paying the extra to get stainless steel tools. They will never rust, even when they accidently get left out all winter long…not that I would do that…two years in a row!

First, dig your hole. Your hole should be a little bigger than your container.

Then add about a quarter cup of fertilizer to the bottom of your hole and the dirt you dug out.

To get the plant out of the container, place your fingers on each size of the stem, flip the plant upside down, and then pull the plastic off.

Next  place your plant into the hole.

I add a little dirt back in, and then add some water to the hole.

Finish back filling the hole. As you are putting the dirt back in be sure to mix the fertilizer in.

Then push the dirt down around the hole to make sure there are no pockets of air. You want to push down with even pressure, being careful to not push too hard.

With tomatoes you want to bury 2/3 of the plant. For example the plant on the left is what it looked like when I bought it. On the right is what it looked like right before I planted it.

I pinched the bottom stems off about an inch away from the main stem. The reason you do this is that those stems will turn into roots and make your plant much stronger!

After I got the plant in, I added my drip line back next to the stem, and then added my tomato cage over the top.

I love to grow peppers to make pepper jelly. The problem with peppers is that they can get really heavy. The first year I grew them I had full branches of peppers break off because they were so heavy. Last year I placed a tomato cage around each pepper plant to support it. It worked pretty good but I didn’t like that the peppers got smashed inside the cage. My good gardening neighbors told me that they plant 3 peppers in one hole and theirs grow up and support one another, so that is what I tried this year.

If you are planting melons and zucchinis from seed, you want to make them into little hills. I do 6 seeds per hill and then thin them out to 3 once they get really established.

Now onto some pests you want to keep your eyes out for!

When you are digging your holes keep your eyes out for little guys that look like these:

These are they cutworms. They are actually a moth larvae. They hide during the day and  come out at night to feed on your plants. I had a lot of these in my dirt this year and so I am treating them with Sevin Insect Granules . Sevin is my pest lifesaver! I tried the liquid kind but it didn’t work as well as the granular.

2011 was the year of the squash bug for us.

We lost all of our zucchini last year to it. These are vicious! Nothing we tried worked on them. So we finally pulled them and burnt them to try to kill the infestation. The best thing to do is keep your eyes out and check periodically under the leaves where they hide. If you see eggs like these under your squash or cucumber leaves (we actually saw some on our tomatoes leaves) squash them while you can! 

You can also prevent future infestations by not allowing leaves, and other organic matter to lay on top of your soil during the winter because they will hide out there.

2010 was the year of the tomato worm for our garden. I got these picture off of my personal blog at the time.

They are really hard to see on your plants, but if you see the tops of your tomatoes missing leaves, start looking. They usually stay on the tops and ends of the tomato plants. I didn’t catch mine fast enough and by the time I did, the tops looked like coral.

Don’t worry, plants do recover. The worms won’t hurt you, even with their ugly horn, but they sure do gross me out! Good news is these are easy to take care of. If I am seeing damage and not able to find the worm I just sprinkle Sevin on them. I like the powder for tomatoes and just sprinkle it lightly over the top.

The best kind of prevention is early intervention, so keep a sharp eye out! Also, if you missed it, be sure to check out the other posts in our Garden Basics Series:  Planters, Beds and Trellises and Soil Prep!

I may be linking this up to THESE great Linky Parties!

The first and most important preparation you need to do when gardening, is prepare the soil properly.  Today I am going to share a simple guidelines.  Every city, every piece of lands soil is going to contain different properties.  So, some areas soil will need more preparation more then others.  A good garden soil has depth and the soil is loose, fertile, drains well and has plenty of organic matter in it.  I highly suggest you taking a soil sample down to a local nursery to have your soil tested after you prepare it, to make sure it is good to go!  I have seen the cost of this range from $5 to $15. I have never used one, but you can purchase home soil testing kits too.  I honestly don’t know the science behind soil. I’ve only gardened for a few years.  But, I do know that the more attention my soil gets, the better my plants grow and the more they produce.

My family is gardening at an Organic Community Garden this year.  I am super excited about!  They prepared 50 ft long raised beds and we have 3 of them.  They already had the beds made, but we had to add things to the soil as well.  Their beds were made of a combination of ground soil and compost.  I would say it was originally a combination of probably 60% ground soil and 40% compost.

Then, because it is an organic garden, they provided us a list of things they required to add to our garden row.  Per 50×3 ft row we added:

3 bags of premium compost

2.2 cu ft (approx 65 quarts) peat moss

5# bag of Azomite Minerals

5# bag of DTE Fertilizer (What fertilizer you use, may vary depending on what your soil needs. For example, our soil tested a tiny bit on the alkaline side, so we bought a fertilizer to help that vs an All Purpose Fertilizer.  This is something your local Nursery can help you determine, once you know how your soil is doing.)

Again, these amounts are based off the need of a 50×3 raised garden row.  So, you will need to adjust the amounts to fit your space.

Here is a little explanation of what each of the suggestions are:

Compost: Compost is organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key ingredient in organic farming. Compost can be rich in nutrients. It is used in gardens, landscaping, horticulture, and agriculture. The compost itself is beneficial for the land in many ways, including as a soil conditioner, a fertilizer, addition of vital humus or humic acids, and as a natural pesticide for soil. (Source:  Wikipedia)

Peat Moss:  Peat moss is derived from sphagnum bogs and is a good source of humus for your garden. It is used in growing medium mixtures to increase air circulation and moisture retention. In garden beds, peat can serve several purposes: aeration of plant roots in heavier soils, adding body to sandy soils, absorbing and retaining more moisture and reducing leaching of nutrients in soil. Peat moss can hold up to 20 times its weight in moisture, releasing slowly for more uniform soil moisture.  (Source: Garden Guides – The Purpose of Peat Moss)

Azomite:  Azomite is a natural re-mineralizer for soil. It is a unique silica clay mined from a 30 million year old volcanic ash deposit which contains minerals unlike any volcanic deposit in the world. Azomite contains more than 67 trace mineral elements and every essential micro-mineral needed by plants and animals, including a wide range of rare earth elements and other minerals not included in fertilizers or animal feeds. You use Azomite to replenish the trace mineral content in the soil, to increase the number and size of fruits and vegetables per plant, and to help plants contend with disease.

DTE All Purpose Fertilizer:   DTE All Purpose Fertilizers deliver a steady supply of organic nutrients that stimulate soil fertility and microbial activity to produce healthy plants naturally. Application Rate: Apply 5 lbs per 100 sq.ft. Additional application rates included on package. Available in 6 lb boxes. available in 25 lb bags and 50 lb bags. call for pricing and shipping rates. Ingredients: Fish Bone Meal, Blood Meal, Rock Phosphate, Greensand, Langbeinite, Acadian Kelp Meal and Humic Shale Ore. (Source: Ali’s Organics)

If you want a much more detailed article on soil preparation (specifically in Utah, but got info all around), I found this great document from Utah State University.

Lisa has much deeper beds then what our garden rows are.  So, she makes her beds up of 40% regular soils, 40% compost and then 20% top soil (like a potting soil) and additives, like Perlites, Vermiculite, Azomites and fertilizers.  Lisa prefers to use a Vegetable and Tomato Granule Fertilizer, because it is only required every six weeks.

I hope this gives you some direction on getting your soil all prepped and ready to plant!  Also, if you missed it, be sure to check out the other posts in our Garden Basics Series:  Planters, Beds and Trellises and Planting and Pests!

I may be linking this up to THESE great Linky Parties!

It’s time for our April Group Giveaway!

To enter, just leave a comment on this post!  

One winner will win ALL of the following:

doTERRA’s OnGuard Cleaning Concentrate & a 5 ml bottle of OnGuard Essential Oil

A free CUSTOMIZED set of our Kitchen (or Bathroom) Printables!  This means you can choose whatever color combination that you want!

A customized Spring Peony Flower Hair Accessory from Posies and Petals!

and a

Pocket Emergency Survival Guide from Shelf Reliance

Emergency Survival: A Pocket Guide provides quick information for outdoor safety. A great resource for the everday adventurer or the occasional wanderer, this pocket book offers guidance on preparation, outdoor survival, major trauma, and medical emergencies. Additional coursework and reading material are also suggested in this handy resource.

To enter, just leave a comment on this post!

For a second post go and LIKE our Facebook page and leave an additional comment telling us you did so!

Giveaway will end on Thursday, May 3rd at midnight!  

Winner will be announced the following day, Friday, May 4th.

GOOD LUCK!

This is my favorite time of year – PLANTING TIME! I love to garden! I love the satisfaction of growing our food, picking it to prepare dinner, and canning it to use during the winter. This is my 5th year planting a vegetable garden, my 3rd in So. Utah – we live in a really hard place to grow food! But each year I learn more. Gardening is a process. I know so many people who try it once and when they fail they give up. Don’t give up! You learn more each year and so each year it gets better and better! This week Pam and I will be going through the basics of gardening for those of you who are interested in trying out your green thumb.

Today we are going to be talking about planters, beds, and trellises. You can plant anywhere – directly into the ground, pots, containers, raised beds, or anything else that will hold dirt! Most of our garden supplies have come from recycled materials. Our beds are made from railroad ties, we were able to get them for free so that’s what we used.

The downside to railroad ties is that they are pretreated for termites which means they have chemicals in them. To keep the chemicals out of our soil we placed plastic between the ties and the soil. Make sure you use a really heavy duty plastic so it wont crack and erode. You can not run the plastic under the inside of your bed otherwise you will keep the soil from draining. We ran it down the inside of the tie and then out underneath the tie. Then we cut the excess plastic off. You can see how its peaking out under here.

When it came to the plastic on the top John added a thin piece of wood over the top of the plastic and screwed it in. I wish I had better pictures, but back when we made these I wasn’t blogging. The good news is there are tons of tutorials out there on how to build a garden bed.

We used corner braces to screw them together so they wont fall apart. We also built some trellises this year to give us more space. The first was across our big rectangle bed. We have planted pole beans seeds underneath it so they can grow up. We again used recycled materials – 2×4′s and some fencing material.

The second trellis we built is a cucumber trellis:

The advantage to a trellis like this is that we are actually creating more space. The space between these two beds would have been wasted but with the trellis we have given ourselves a lot more room! First John cut the 2×4′s to the right angle. Then he hammered them into the railroad ties. In the back of the bed he only buried the 2×4′s about 3 or so inches.

He secured the top of the 2×4 with metal bracing.

Then he wrapped the fencing over the wood frame and secured it with staples.

Here are the starts of our cucumbers (they are the 3 plants closest to the trellis). As they grow we will just make sure they grow up the fencing.

You can use anything (nontoxic) to plant in. John scored some pipe off of a construction site that was trash. We are going to dig these into the ground and then fill them with good dirt to plant grape vines in. The best part is you wont see the pipe at all.

Another fun container I have is the old wheelbarrow from our family’s cabin. I have pictures of me as a little girl being taken on rides by my parents inside of it. Now its a beautiful planter in our yard. I use to grow strawberries in it, but now its flowers.

The key to taking something fun and turning it into a planter is to make sure it drains. With our wheelbarrow we drilled quite a few holes in the bottom to make sure the water would not pool on the bottom. Here are a few ideas other container ideas that I love:

Wagon

Galvanized Water Trough

Recycled Cans 

5 Gallon Buckets

I love how here they took burlap and covered the 5 gallon buckets and tied them with twine.

If you really don’t feel you have the room but still want to garden, check if your city has a neighborhood garden. Pam has 3 rows at a local community garden where she will be doing her garden this year. Its a great alternative if you don’t have the space in your yard!

I hope Ive inspired you to go get ready to plant a garden! You wont regret it!  Also, don’t forget to check out our other posts in our Garden Series - Soil Prep and Planting and Pests!

I may be linking this up to THESE great Linky Parties!

Lisa’s Family

Bullets new decor. Shells and coral from the Philippines

Cast is all off, and the pin is out! Lots of itchy skin left though!

For Grandma Silly’s birthday we wrote her birthday notes and then attached them to balloons and sent them to heaven.

And then enjoyed her Chocolate Chip Cookies for dessert!