My first garden...

Discussion in 'Member's Gallery' started by Busted, Jun 13, 2013.

  1. Busted

    Busted New Seed

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    I posted a while ago about my first garden design/plans if some of you remember. Anyway, I had to make some changes and certain things didn't grow as expected and I didn't have the room I thought I had. I used bamboo/river cane as stakes because that's just what I happen to have, and Lowes wanted $6 for 4 stakes... Other than a few minor setbacks everything is doing ok, though I have some concerns about some of my plants (will make another thread). Anyway here it is :D

    Rows
    1 - Onions/carrots
    2 - Cherry Tomatoes
    3 - Bell Pepper
    4 - Tomatoes
    5 - Beans

    Potted Plants
    Collard Greens (for my Bearded Dragon)
    Spearmint
    Peppermint
    Chocolate Mint
    Sweet Mint

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    Frank, eileen, Pianolady and 5 others like this.
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  3. waretrop

    waretrop Strong Ash Plants Contributor

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    Very nice first garden. So glad you shared it with us. You will be so proud when it begins ti full in. Please share pics along the way?
     
  4. eileen

    eileen Resident Taxonomist Staff Member Moderator Plants Contributor

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    I'm impressed!! Everything looks so neat and tidy. I hope all your plants go on to produce lots of good eating for you and your bearded dragon. Do keep us updated with your progress won't you?
     
  5. carolyn

    carolyn Strong Ash

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    Are you sure this is your first garden? it looks awesome!
     



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  6. cherylad

    cherylad Countess of Cute-ification Plants Contributor

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    I think it looks great. Hope you get rewarded with lots of good stuff to eat!
     
  7. Busted

    Busted New Seed

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    Thank you, it was a lot of work having to move the fence, rewire it, mark the rows, dig the sod off of the soil, and then till it up without a tiller. I enjoy it though and I can't wait until everything is producing yummy veggies. I will certainly try to keep everyone posted and updated on photos. I will likely just add them to this thread.

    Thank you, I tried to keep it neat so it would look nice and be easy to work with. My dragon is already enjoying the collards I started them as soon as I decided to get my dragon, Toki. Now I am just waiting to dive into some yummy red bell peppers :smt118 . I will try to keep everyone updated with progress and photos.

    Thank you, this is indeed my first garden. I have grown a plant here and there before but never a garden. When I was in middle school we had a greenhouse and toward the end of the year they would sell plants. This is where I got started, we had a cherry tomato plant grow to about 10-15 foot tall! It was a monster and I wish someone would have taken a photo of that thing. Other than that I have experimented here and there with trying to grow things from seed. During the winter I took a tomato from the store and took some seeds and pulp out of it and germinated the seeds by soaking them in water with the pulp for a couple of weeks and then planted them. About 98% of them grew to about 2ft or taller without repotting. It was too cold at that point to try and keep them alive and well, I had like 30 or more. Just wanted to prove I could do it.

    Thank you, really can't wait to enjoy some tasty veggies.


    I forgot to post these with the other photos, These are my 4 mint plants. I got them from Walmart(except Spearmint, it was from a local nursery) and I believe they had Burpee labels on them, if that matters. They were rather small when I first got them and hardly grew at all. Then I read up on them a bit more and found out how to harvest them and they really made them kick in. I also have another mint plant unpictured. It's a Mountain Mint, or that's what they called it... I got it for free basically. I was at a nursery and asked if they had mints, and they broke of a bit of mountain mint. She said "most people don't care for it's smell", it was minty but not a sweet smell like other mints. So instead of tossing it on the ground I just stuck it in my pocket. Then I walked around for a while and went to another nursery for mint, nothing there. Anyway, by this time the poor mint cutting was looking really bad, it had been in my pocket the whole time. I stuck it in some water when we got home and let it sit for a day, perked right up! Then we rooted it and used something called Root Blast (works great). That little cutting is now a nice little mint plant. I'll have to get a photo of it soon.


    I believe this is the order of them,
    Sweet Mint
    Chocolate Mint
    Pepper Mint
    Spearmint

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  8. eileen

    eileen Resident Taxonomist Staff Member Moderator Plants Contributor

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    Lovely healthy looking mints you have there. Did you plant them in containers or straight into the garden? The reason I ask is that mints can be very invasive and before you know it they could spread out of control.
     
  9. Busted

    Busted New Seed

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    They are all potted, though I think they need bigger pots now. Some of the roots I think are starting reach the bottom of the pot and into the ground.
     
  10. Busted

    Busted New Seed

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    Here is a picture of the Mountain Mint.

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    waretrop likes this.
  11. waretrop

    waretrop Strong Ash Plants Contributor

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    Very nice.
     
  12. Busted

    Busted New Seed

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    Cherry Tomatoes are coming in :D [​IMG]
     
    Henry Johnson likes this.
  13. sgmgarden

    sgmgarden In Flower

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    Wow, for a first garden this is great. Are you sure it is your first one?! You can really see you have made a great effort and it has paid off. Well done
     
  14. koszta kid

    koszta kid Young Pine

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    You did great .Going to cut some kohl rabi to share at church
     
  15. Busted

    Busted New Seed

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    Well I have a few pics of today's harvest. Then I have some bad news. Due to the weather for the past two months, my garden has come to a stop. The cherry tomatoes and big tomatoes both are dying from blight. I harvested what I could off of the big tomatoes which isn't much. My pepper grew larger but the fruit is showing signs of blight as well. It has rained pretty much everyday for over a month. Several local people have had the same problems in their gardens. In some counties around here farmers have lost crops as well.

    Anyway, here are the photos.

    This is around the 5th time I've gathered these cherry tomatoes. They did great, produced a lot, and have a wonderful taste! I will grow these again!

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    My first harvest of beans!!! These also did good and I will be growing them next year as well.

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    The big tomatoes did good and had about 4 or more tomatoes to a plant. However they didn't get ripe before the blight set in :(

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    Overall this first garden I think has done well. I didn't have the money to buy anything other than the plants so I made do with what I had. I've already gotten plenty of compliments on my garden as well, which is always nice. Despite every plant getting off from a bad start because of the wrong dirt was put in the bag. This meant the seeds and seedlings got far to wet and I lost a lot this way. Then what didn't die had a rough start. Though in the end I got to prove I could do it and learnt a good bit while doing it.


    Plans for next year:
    - Increase the size of the garden, move the fence down another notch.
    - Fence in the garden to keep the dogs out, they helped dig up my onions and knock over plants
    - Extend the bean row to keep a full row of it
    - move the tomatoes to a single row
    - Add squash and cucumbers
    - I might attempt carrots and onions again...
     

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