Hoping this will be the garden I can deal with

Hello! I am sold on the idea of little weeding and seeing a melon grow vertically! I have a seed starter greenhouse, buckets of seeds, and enthusiasm. My family and I have been slowly becoming "mostly" vegetarian, so the idea of being able to grow our own makes a lot of sense.

Hoping to find help, support, and inspiration. Thanks to everyone sharing their knowledge!

I'm so glad you are going to give SFG a shot. We are a helpful bunch no replacement for Mel's book though. It sounds like you have read it already. Nothing tastes as good as home grown vegies You will be rewarded for your efforts in more ways than you can think of.

Well hello there! Welcome - glad you joined us!

I'd say growing your own veggies certainly does make a lot of sense indeed! Share pics of your seed starting when you get going please! I'm doing it for the first time this month.

Oooh, and I want a melon to grow vertically too. Still not sure I'm going to try it yet this year though - too many other things competing for my trellis space.

I can speak to it being "the garden I can deal with." When I started SFG my oldest was not yet 4, her sister was 2, and their baby brother was 3 months old. I was potty-training the older 2 and nursing the baby. My husband has no interest in gardening. SFG was EXACTLY what I needed! I started with 2 boxes (2x8 because I like a lot of trellis plants) and was able to set it up and maintain it despite the challenges of 3 little ones. You can do it!

Welcome to the Forum MT!

Have you had the chance to read the All New SFG book yet? Are you finding the Mel's Mix ingredients in your area?

Hello Kim! I found a close source of vermiculite on the database. I hope to borrow some compost from a neighbor, and...still looking for peat. Walmart does some special ordering....might try that. I have the book, and I've read it pretty carefully.

Ellie, I only have one so far, but that is enough to keep me hopping! Thanks for the encouragement.

Gwen- I am hunting down some fenceposts to make sure mine is strong. I will take pics! Probably going to start Broccoli, Kale, and Cabbage today.

I am a little confused about frost dates. The different sites give me differet dates, from beginning to end of april. this winter has been so mild, I'm tempted to go with early to halfway. Any opinions about that? I'm in the lower part of zone 7

shoot! this garden dot org site says I am 6b instead! or 7a at the most. Borderline. sorry for the confusion

Shannon- love the little droolie smilie!

Welcome Music Teacher
Here is one of the better frost date sites that I have found (just my opinion)
http://www.victoryseeds.com/frost/index.html
Usually peat or sphagnum should be easy to find. Any garden center should carry it.
Looking forward to gardening with you this season

Music teacher, first of all, Welcome!

There is a lot of confusion over frost dates and zones. USDA put out a new, revised zone map just a few weeks ago, and there will be a lot of questions for a long time to come - is such and such a place 6a or 6b, 6b or 7a, etc. etc. etc.

My plan this year is to be reckless with any seeds of which I have plenty, are inexpensive, and are easily replaced if my gamble doesn't work. For instance, peas - easy, direct sown, cheap, plentiful. Regardless of my start date, I would be planting them a little this week, a little more next week, etc.

Hope I helped - sometimes I unintentionally obfuscate.

obfuscate

nKedrOoStEr wrote:

obfuscate

Martha! BRAVO, it's not everyday one can actually use that word. Apparently you have succeeded by simply using it.

But if someone obfuscates, what better word to use than obfuscate? And, I must confess, I only know the word from listening to Car Talk.

elliephant wrote:I can speak to it being "the garden I can deal with." When I started SFG my oldest was not yet 4, her sister was 2, and their baby brother was 3 months old. I was potty-training the older 2 and nursing the baby. My husband has no interest in gardening. SFG was EXACTLY what I needed! I started with 2 boxes (2x8 because I like a lot of trellis plants) and was able to set it up and maintain it despite the challenges of 3 little ones. You can do it!

Considering what you had to deal with, elliephant, my lugging an oxygen tank on my shoulder should be a snap! And my beds will be 2-fers as well!!!

Music Teacher wrote:Hello! I am sold on the idea of little weeding and seeing a melon grow vertically! I have a seed starter greenhouse, buckets of seeds, and enthusiasm. My family and I have been slowly becoming "mostly" vegetarian, so the idea of being able to grow our own makes a lot of sense.

Hoping to find help, support, and inspiration. Thanks to everyone sharing their knowledge!

Hello MT, Welcome to the forum .
Have a great time here .. the site is good for me infact very good it's got me up and about ...I've lost over 13 pounds since November & I feel much better for it.

Are you moving to being veggies for healthly eating or emotional things wrt animals ?

Plantoid, a little of both. I've been reading a lot of Michael Pollan and watching "Food Inc, Food Matters, King Corn, etc., and we are enjoying moving to a more "plant based" diet overall. My husband has stomach issues in his family, and he is feeling better. I have struggled with my weight all of my life, and I have been losing better on this than any "diet." We have slowly, over the last 2 years, been moving away from processed food. It's been a long process, but we sometimes make it out of the store now with only whole food.

Emotionally, I don't like the feedlot way of raising animals for meat. I don't think it's decent for cows to stand in the mud all day getting sick on corn, for chickens to live in battery cages, etc. I don't mind eating some humanely raised (trying to support grass fed, free range) meat now and then. We aren't doing this perfectly, but we are making changes. We will keep a few chickens this summer for eggs, and we are eating a lot more tofu, beans, and fish.

Pastured meat is expensive...makes it easier to see it as a splurge.

Regarding this subject, I urge everyone to become enlightened by watching this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6361872964130308142#

All of us should be consciously aware of where our food comes and how it is treated before it reaches our table.

This video will make you appreciate growing your own food.

Please share this with others.

Nice post MT ,
I asked because of the need to continually source animal manures for composting to top up the nutients in the beds Mel advocates . I looked in to getting animal friendly stuff and hit several big high walls ,not much is available here in the UK .
Usually at the day the creature ends up as a meat source for other animals or humans so I started thinking about what & where one could make a different compost .
Unless you have a large range of species in a massively large area zoo near by I feel you're scuppered before you start .

I'm wondering if any veggie has come up with vegetable compost alternatives .. I know you can use comfrey ( Bocking 10 ) , sea weeds & to a certain extent waste vegetable preparation materials but I can't find out much about it's nutrient levels .

plantoid wrote:Nice post MT ,
I asked because of the need to continually source animal manures for composting to top up the nutients in the beds Mel advocates . I looked in to getting animal friendly stuff and hit several big high walls ,not much is available here in the UK .
Usually at the day the creature ends up as a meat source for other animals or humans so I started thinking about what & where one could make a different compost .
Unless you have a large range of species in a massively large area zoo near by I feel you're scuppered before you start .

I'm wondering if any veggie has come up with vegetable compost alternatives .. I know you can use comfrey ( Bocking 10 ) , sea weeds & to a certain extent waste vegetable preparation materials but I can't find out much about it's nutrient levels .

This won't help with the start up garden but Mel says if you use your own compost you don't have to mix 5 kinds together. Compost does not have to contain manure but if that is what you are after your chicken manure would be a good addition to the compost heap. Don't add any to your garden without composting first with the excption of rabbit poo, or it will burn your plants. I'm lucky there is an organic gardener at the farmers market here that sells rabbit manure cheap. She is a great gal and raises her rabbits humanely. Factory farming and corp.s like Monsanto are a blight on the planet. My family and I let our $ do the talking and do not buy their stuff. He## no, no GMO's.

Plantoid, sorry about that. I haven't worried much about manure, just planning to use compost made from mostly plant stuff. Have you tried both ways? It may not make much of a difference. Guess I'll find out.

Till now ( nearly forty five years ) I've always used animal droppings and their urine soaked beddings either as a manure or as a composted manure but I may soon have the chance of getting 200 to 400 pounds of friut & veg prep waste per month for a few months from a local business that preps raw stuff for schools , hospitals and hotels etc.
Composting that in my Daleks might be a bit sulphurous & otherwise stinky .
Some non composted matter will also be used for building up a couple of large worm tubs so there will be differences in the two finished products .

It will be an eye opener if the nutrient & trace element content of the totally vegetable composts exceeds that of the amimal based stuff but I'm not holding my breath .

I imagine that if you layer those new veggie scraps with straw that should take care of any smells that would offend the "Lady" next door, don't you think. Maybe it's time to start buying Daleks wholesale! You could paint them in pretty colors, cartoon characters, or portraits of Henry VIII or Darth Vader; better yet one of our politicians.

tom

I've thought of the layering Tom , it'd be a darn sight cheaper to stick a big bulldog clip on her nose and have done with it.

Reckon I'll layer as you say I've stil got a full bale of wet barley straw .
I'll soon have some vegetable matter only compost & worm casts so think I'll cap off each full Dalek with five inches of that and spread it out as the contents shrink daily
I'm hoping for a bit of a warmer spell for the last 10 days the temp has not climbed much above freezing except for today whe we hit a balmy 50F ( 10 C)
One of the Daleks was frozen solid , so was the heaped contents of the trailer.. Ever tried cutting out nearly a cubic yard of finest frozen composted stable muck ?

If things don't warm up soon I'll have to stop collecting the manures till they get working properly again.

I tried to plant the last garlic today .. The first two inches of MM were light ,soft & fluffy then I had to chip out 5 inches of frozen stuff .. I know garlic likes a frost or two before it performs well but that was rediculous .

MT - last year was my first year with SFG boxes, and this is what I got in the melon department:

The SECOND 2 sugar baby watermelons from this vine!



The first 2 hung down in the exact same fashion. After picking them I thought that would be the end of melons for the season, but then I found these 2 and had to see if they would make it. They DID!

You are going to have a blast with SFG. Find your peat when you can to get started, then watch toward the end of the season for clearance sales because you will probably want to add more boxes for the second season. Can you say 'addictive'? Around here - the 1/2 off end of season sales - I grab a few bags and save them for the next season. I have seen the 4 cu ft bags get down to $0.50 to get rid of them in August (we get frost in September).

GG