# New to Gardening.... Where to Start?



## Silver Panner (Apr 15, 2009)

So I've been wanting to start a garden for years and I'm making it happen this year. Originally I wanted to (still may) till up a spot in the back yard. Thinking now of a couple large raised beds. Would love to hear pros and cons of each from you guys. 

What I'm really hung up on is planning it out. Does anyone have a good site or book that can help with what to plant when and where? I've read just about everything on MSU's website but its all to general. It does have some links to some good info but the planning portion is to vague. 

Thanks!


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## Waif (Oct 27, 2013)

Mel Bartholomew square foot gardening is interesting.
Free planners online.
Planning involves soil , planting dates ,and space required for individual plants by size.
Cool season plants can be replaced by warm season ones,if they can reach maturity before fall frost.

Average last frost where you are matters. Too ,soil temps.
And ,if you are starting seeds indoors ,or in a hothouse , or cold frame or just planting seed on/in your garden .


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## ebijack (Apr 20, 2009)

IMHO, with raised beds. Using either 2X8",10"12" by how ever long you want, use plain 2 bys. NOT treated. They last around 7 or 8 yrs on average. You don't have to mess with the grass and soil below. Dump in your base soil, add some composted manure. Rotate/turn over the fresh soil 2 times for a good mix. Start composting! Add all your fish guts to the compost. 
As far as when to plant. That is on you. I don't follow the norm. 
Yes some years I have to replant, but the years I do not. Wow does my harvest work well. I get veggies weeks before others around me. As long as I did not have to replant. 
If the weather looks like the first week of April will be sunny and nice. I plant seeds. Sometimes I have to cover for frost. But the seeds planted in the garden will grow faster.stronger than the seedlings I start/plant in the house and wait till late April to plant. I've pretty much stopped planting seedlings. If I have to replant I buy plants. I don't have to room required to start that many seedlings. And getting lazy.
Depending on the year's weather. You should have some great years and some ok years.
I put/mix my compost into the garden in mid March.
Plants like zucchini finish early. Even more so if there is alot of rain. Butternut/pumpkin take massive room, don't bother with a raised box. Just put your "garden soil" right on top of where you want them to grow, mix well and plant. Some squashes take 2 yrs before you will get fruit. After that you are off to the races. 
Also when replacing rotting 2 by's. I have always ended up making the raised beds even larger.


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## Scout 2 (Dec 31, 2004)

After filling with soil get a soil test kit and check your PH. I do not have a raised bed system but I like them as you can plant early and then add hoops over the top and cover with plastic for a mini green house. Our tomatoes do not ripein good here so this year I have a stock watering tank and I am filling that with manure and adding 8 inches of potting soil on top. With plastic over the top. this way I can plant earlier and control the heat


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## Radar420 (Oct 7, 2004)

There's been a pretty good gardening thread on here the last couple years that you may be able to glean some info from: https://www.michigan-sportsman.com/forum/threads/2017-garden-planning-and-report-thread.578648/

I've got a big garden up north and some container plantings at the house. My large garden is planted directly in the ground and fenced off. It's rectangular in shape and slopes downhill from East to West. I till everything up in early spring and then rake into several planting mounds. Taller plants like tomatoes and climbing vines like peas and beans I'll plant on the N and E sides of the garden so they don't shade the rest of the garden. Long trailing vines like squashes and watermelons I'll plant on the W side to hopefully encourage them to grow downhill and out of the garden. Then fill in the remainder of the garden with things like potatoes, cabbage, bush beans, greens, etc


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## WALLEYE MIKE (Jan 7, 2001)

For an early start. Will cover with plastic in the next couple of weeks








Started this last year. Lot easier to take care of.


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## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

What do you want to grow? 

Keep it simple and modest. Gardens quickly get to be too much work (imo) if they are overplanted or overly large. 

If this is your first year, till up a 4' x 8' plot, and plant simple things like beans, peas, tomatoes and carrots. You will harvest peas first, then beans, then tomatoes and carrots. It will keep you entertained all summer and into early fall. 

Raised beds have advantages, but are not necessary. 

In Michigan a generally safe rule of thumb is to plant around Memorial Day. In Pennsylvania I planted the third week of April pretty safely. Depends on the crop. Seeds (beans, peas, carrots) can be planted earlier than established plants (tomatoes, pepper, etc.).


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## Fishndude (Feb 22, 2003)

Think about the things you like to eat a LOT of, and then think about how much space they will take up. Corn takes up a ton of space, and doesn't produce well in smallish gardens. Tomatoes are great plants for smaller gardens. Beans are good, too, but I can buy a LOT of garden-fresh beans cheaply. I can never grow good Bell Peppers in my gardens, but I can buy big perfect peppers cheaply. I grow a lot of (real) hot peppers in pots, some tomatoes, some pole beans (I put them on a trellis, and they provide more than we can eat in a fairly small space), a few Eggplants, and some Herbs (various parsleys, basil, oregano, etc). Cukes, melons, and squash need a lot of room, but you can put cukes on a trellis, too. 
I built A-frame trellises with 2x4's, and some welded wire fencing. They are 8' long, 4' wide, and about 7.5' tall. I can put pole beans on one side, and cukes on the other - and have more than we can eat of both.
Leaf lettuce is easy to grow, and yields well, but the Bunnies, and Robins will wreak havoc on it. They hit Beans hard, too.


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## maddie (Mar 13, 2013)

crocketts victory garden-all the help you will need


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## rork (Dec 22, 2016)

MSU extension's "planning a vegetable garden" helps me - deciding what you like to grow is much more important than whether the beds are raised or not. No two people want the same things. Fencing is critical for me due to deer.
I have already started spinaches indoors. I will plant pea pods, radishes, kale, beets, turnips, carrots, parsnips, leeks, spinaches pretty early - far before memorial day. Cukes, summer squash, beans, onions, winter squash, tomatoes come later often over the tops of the early stuff. I plant short rows of beans about 20 days apart and by fall most of my body is composed of them. I still have butternuts and onions in the basement, parsnips in the ground, and frozen spinach for omelettes - but that's me. Near Livonia peppers can work too, or eggplant if you think that is worth anything. I've gardened in MI for 40 years and what do I want and how much is still the hardest question. My leaves, grass clippings, and plant byproducts make me 8 cubic yards of compost, but only with considerable effort and space.


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## kbrun (Aug 27, 2012)

Look into straw bale gardening. We tried it last year and I’ll never go back to soil.
No weeding. No kneeling. Start earlier in the season.


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## michael marrs (May 22, 2017)

every year is an experiment, I don't do corn anymore, takes up too much room. what to grow is easy, what do you like? some plants like cukes and the vining plants, can be trellised to save room, and they do take over. , tomatoes are easy, cukes, peppers green beans are easy , ( or pole beans , again trellis . I have done potatoes but , you bury them to plant them, and bury them to dig them up,too much work ,and , when in season, they could not be cheaper to buy. A compost pile is a good consideration, and how you want to fertilize. I like organic, and use garbage from the house, coffee grounds, fish parts if I go fishing. also, don't know what your garden area looks like, but we get critters. Good luck, a lot of work, but when my garden looks good, my yard looks good. I also used to do a garden 25 x 50, with 3 ft. in between, and I used to carpet the walk area and had very little weeding to do


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## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

Good comments on what to grow yourself, compared to what can be bought cheaply and with good quality. 

Easily purchased cheaply and with good quality: green onions, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce

Better (imo) grown at home: peas, green beans, TOMATOES, carrots. Especially tomatoes. 

Peppers for me are a toss up. Growing at home is not too hard, but they are plentiful, cheap and decent quality at the grocery.


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## kbrun (Aug 27, 2012)




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## michael marrs (May 22, 2017)

just found this on FB ,,, scallions, garlic, cilantro, bok choy, basil, carrots, and celery, you can re-grow


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## Silver Panner (Apr 15, 2009)

Thanks for all the input! Beans, carrots, beats, cukes and the wife INSISTS on tomatoes. I could literally never eat a tomato again and be fine. However, I'm hoping that home grown ones will be more to my liking. Kale would be nice too. I love peppers but they don't love me. Reds and yellows are not to bad but the darker ones are instant heartburn. We will probably stay away from the peppers.

I don't have room to start anything. Found these guys. Anyone ever bought their started stuff? http://www.michiganheirlooms.com/ 

Understanding what to plant when and what you can plant over something else is what I am trying to understand now. That hay bale planting is pretty interesting. I'll have to read up on it. 

I'm pretty excited to finally get this thing off the ground.


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## Silver Panner (Apr 15, 2009)

maddie said:


> crocketts victory garden-all the help you will need


Looks like a good resource. $5 on Amazon... done.


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## rork (Dec 22, 2016)

Silver Panner said:


> Thanks for all the input! Beans, carrots, beats, cukes and the wife INSISTS on tomatoes............
> Understanding what to plant when and what you can plant over something else is what I am trying to understand now. That hay bale planting is pretty interesting. I'll have to read up on it.


The stuff you are listing won't intercrop that easy. Spinach, radish, lettuce are things that end early enough to have other rows planted (or a mixed planting) in the same spot or next to them (it's one of the reasons I bother with radish - it's gone very early, and when my spinach is gone I can plant another row of beans there). Maybe you can afford to plant tomatoes right next to the beets and not have them fight much, or think to yourself that the cucumbers can over-run the beats later in the game. Carrots and beets maybe can start April 15-20 near Livonia - they can take frosts. For the stuff that can't I start looking at 10-day forecast starting around May 5th, and if there's no frost called for, I might take chances, starting with beans cause if I loose them I'm out $1. You may be slightly warmer than me and May 1 may be possible. Depends on if you are higher on a hill, south slope, near house, etc. Pushing the date doesn't help that much though. Planting 2 weeks earlier for things that like warm weather means you get to pick things 3-4 days earlier, and you risk killing them, or having them be unhappy or crippled. Many folks say memorial day, and that might be true in Mt Pleasant (not sure), but this "diminishing returns" of going early might be part of why folks say that. Pepper don't seem to grow at all til June. I tell myself they are growing roots, but it might be a lie.


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## Silver Panner (Apr 15, 2009)

I will add spinach and lettuce to the list then. Radish, besides tossing them in a salad, I have no idea what to do with them.

As for cukes, I originally thought I could grow anything then pickle what I cant eat fresh. After doing some research I see that's not the case. I did find one called a Tendergreen that can be pickled or left on the vine and picked latter as a slicer. Anyone have any other varieties that can do double duty?


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## Scout 2 (Dec 31, 2004)

Silver Panner said:


> I will add spinach and lettuce to the list then. Radish, besides tossing them in a salad, I have no idea what to do with them.
> 
> As for cukes, I originally thought I could grow anything then pickle what I cant eat fresh. After doing some research I see that's not the case. I did find one called a Tendergreen that can be pickled or left on the vine and picked latter as a slicer. Anyone have any other varieties that can do double duty?


I like the bush pickles, they don't crawl all over the garden and you can eat them fresh or pickled. I have potatos coming up. I bought a bag of the little different colored one at the store last week and put some on wet paper towels in a plastic box on the window ledge to see if they would sprout. They did. I will plant them in pine wood chips later by just laying them on the ground and covering with chips


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## JBooth (Sep 21, 2009)

all your greens, lettuces, radishes can be started pretty much as soon as there is no freeze. I've got onions coming up already. Seeds are planted and ready. 

Easiest way to start is go buy a bag of "garden dirt" for fruits and vegetables at the store. Buy a couple pots and plant what you want. A small garden feeds my family all growing season without trips to the store. If you just want to try it out, keep it simple.


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