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Re: Novice gardener

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

On Sat, 5 Jun 1999 09:57:15 -0400, sstrubel@juno.com , late of Pablo
Fanques Fair wrote:

>Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>Hello.  I just joined here this week.  I have NO CLUE about gardening. 
>We live in SC.  Our tomato plants looked good, but now they look droopy
>and slightly yellow.  Any advice.  Tell me exactly how you would start
>plants, etc... I know nothing.  It seems like everywhere I look for
>gardening info they assume you already know something.   We also have
>zucchini, yellow squash, pumpkins, cantaloupe, lettuce, radishes, and
>carrots.    ANY advice is appreciated.
>Our soil is techinically clay, but it has a lot of sand in it too.  My
>neighbor says it is very rich if you can just loosen it.  I do not have a
>lot of money to put into a garden at this time.  I just want good organic
>food for my family.  Thank you.

Karen,

I don't worry that much about how to grow plants. As an organic
gardener, I have learned that secret is to grow the soil, and if I
do that the soil will grow the plants just fine. Growing soil means
organic matter, and the types you need to focus on are compost and
mulch.

All of my plant material (garden waste, kitchen scraps without meat
products), plus egg shells, coffee grounds, etc. goes into the
compost bin. I don't get too fussy about the recipe, I just throw it
in and leave it for a while. Because I take the lazy man's approach,
this year's collected materials become next year's compost for me.
It is done when you have a crumbly black material. I put a layer of
this on top of my beds in spring to help feed the soil. After I
plant my veggies, I put a layer of mulch on top of the soil to
retain moisture, cut down on weeds, etc. The mulch could be dry
grass clippings, salt marsh hay, or any commercial organic mulch
like cocoa shells. This mulch, being organic, will gradually break
down and feed the soil as well, so you need to put a fresh layer
down every year.

The only other advice I would give is to not try and do everything
at once. Sometimes people get so full of enthusiasm that they try to
put in a full garden in one year, then give up half way through
because of the work involved. I would recommend getting Mel's book,
and setting up maybe 3-4 4'x4' squares your first year. If you do
this, and use mulch the first year, you should have a ready-to-plant
set of beds the second year that will not require much work at all.
So the second year you add 3-4 more beds, and so on until you have
as much garden as you want. I look at gardening as a life-long
activity, and each year I have plans to add a bed here, or plant a
tree there, etc. I think it works better if you pace yourself rather
than try to do everything at once.

Good luck with your garden!


-- 
Kevin B. O'Brien                  TANSTAAFL
kob1@ix.netcom.com
"I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don't intend to
waste any of mine running around doing exercises" - Neil Armstrong

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