Well it still doesn't look so great. When you start a garden completely from scratch, what kind if soil do you get? What do you mix in with it? I want to plant some ocra and beans but I'm afraid to do anything until I know I have good enough soil.
Get some bags of compost and mix that in with the soil you have where you are going to plant. You can check with a local garden center about getting a soil test kit. Then you will find out if you need to amend further. Okra will grow in just about any soil and unless you really, really like okra don't plant more than 3. Once they get going they are kind of like squash and tomatoes, you won't be able to keep up with them.
PDM, Keep working at it... building a garden is work and it takes time. Do you compost your scraps and kitchen waste? try not to compost meat or dairy products as that will draw the vermin and rodents. Anything else...compost, even cardboard, tissues, paper towels, newspaper etc. building good soil takes time especially if you haven't had a garden there before. You can add horse, rabbit, chicken, cow, goat and practically any other domestic farm animal (I wouldn't use pig manure, though.) manure at the end of the season and let it decompose and enrich your garden over the winter. Weeds, as long as you clip off the seed heads, grass, hay, straw, leaves (except for walnut and anything in the "juglans" family) etc. can be used as mulch to retain moisture and they also decompose and enrich the soil over time. collect coffee grounds from anywhere and put them directly on the garden. Just be patient and keep working at it. The soil is really the main part of the garden as it supports all your food plants. if you don't have good soil, you can achieve it over time, and eventually your garden will be great.
Don`t be afraid to plant. Beans and Okra are two of the easiest crops to grow. Okra takes a long time to germinate, up to 10 days or more but it will produce till a freeze kills it as long as you keep it picked. Beans are usually up in a week or a little more. I would plant more than three okra if you like it as much as we do. Clemson spineless is a good variety.
Thank you all. I'm going to build a compost pile (I'm just going to take some pallets and cut them down to size and connect them). That should work...right? Lol! I bought some okra seeds yesterday. I thought I had some but I didn't. I bought two bags of compost at the nursery yesterday. (I also got a Pride of Barbados and I'm soooooo excited about it!!!). I have some green beans that I have sitting in wet paper towels that have roots coming out of them. I have a lot of them! I was told that it's time to pull the tomato plants now and plant the other stuff. Two of my tomato plants seem to finally be doing better. Not sure if they are determinant or non. I also have pepper plants that haven't produced a thing yet. Do I just keep those planted? Boy there is a lot of thinking that goes into gardening. Lol!
If they look good leave them. The peppers like heat, don't pull them. You are doing great. keep it up.
I'm not on Facebook so I don't know about that. Seeds show appreciation and thanks for the post...funny, helpful, etc. What are "Seeds"?
I have some green beans that I did the wet paper towel thing with and they are sprouting. Is there a certain way to plant these? Like should I make sure the sprout is pointed upward? Is this a really stupid question? Lol!
Plant with the sprout down. that will become the root and the plant needs a root before it needs a leaf.
Next year if you do green beans, (Blue lake bush is my favorite and heavy producer) just drop the seeds in dry and water well. No need to sprout them because they come up quickly. My mother used to soak her okra seed in tea overnight and plant next day to speed up the germination process.
Sounds like you are doing well with your garden. The soil thing just takes time. Plant what you can, and see what happens. You never know. Some things do not mind poor soil like others. Pallets work for a compost heap. Almost anything you can make walls and a rough box shape with will work. Don't worry if your box shape is crooked. It won't matter. Scrap metal works too. Get a pitch fork of some kind to "fluff" it and stir it up frequently. That helps the process. I need to haul my heap around to my veggie garden, and also to my rose bushes. I ALWAYS WISH THERE WAS MORE COMPOST. I had had mine divided into two bins, but I needed the metal sheet dividing it for one of my dog houses...so it is one bin now. I will leave the part where that surprise vine is growing. I can't wait to see what is growing there. It looks real good. I never pull any plants that are bearing fruit/veggies and healthy. The only plants I pull are sick ones, or ones that are finished for the year. Like potatoes. When they are ready to dig, the plant turns brown and dies off. So I pull them, and dig the taters. Don't leave your taters in the ground until frost. Varmints will get them and not leave you any. When my boys were growing up, I was trying to teach them about gardening. I bought 100 lbs of seed potatoes and planted 1/3 of my garden in potatoes. We had a bumper crop of potatoes too. A friend told them they did not need to dig them up until frost. By then our lovely taters were GONE. And no foot prints to ID the culprits.
