Advice For An Organic Newbie Veggie Gardener In Northern Nj?
I will be starting my first ever veggie garden. I need it to be both 100% organic and easy to maintain because my time is super limited (I had my first baby in December 2006.) I have tons of squirrels and quite a few trees so location is also an issue. Should I do a raised bed and “fence it in” with chicken wire? How much area will I need? Would planting marigolds around the garden help defer bugs?
I would like to plant tomatoes, zucchinis, peppers, carrots, eggplants, cucumbers, string beans, lettuces and some herbs. Any suggestions on homerun varieties? Also, how many plants of each should I plant? I will only need veggies for my husband, my son and myself this summer but I can give extras to relatives and neighbors.
Should I start from seeds or plants? Who is a reputable company to order from?
Lastly, I will need to prepare the soil but I am not sure what to use. I don’t have any compost and I worry about using cow manure because my son is so young. Any suggestions?
I use raised beds and find they take a lot less effort to produce great veggies once you have actually built them.
I have three 5′wide x 8′ lond x 2′ deep beds and just efficiently rotate the crops and interplant (marigolds are great for pest prevention) to maintain optimal yields.
I think your selection of veggies sounds great…buy the egg plants, peppers and tomatoes if this is your first time…they can be harder to seed indoor and harden for outdoors without a greenhouse. If you plant about 3 -6 tomatoes, one zuchinni, 3 peppers, several 5′ rows of carrots (plant three weeks apart for longer harvest), 3 eggplant, 3 cucumber, a bean house? or long string pergola with beans around the garden to make dappled shade (helps maintian moisture in heat of summer), mesclun salad mix 8-15 plants (pick leaves, or cut to base of rosette to regrow 2nd crop), and herbs…whatever you like..Basil, chives, arugula, rosemary and margoram are my faves.
As far as the cow manure goes, it is not recommended by many gardeners…those that have used it for vegetables are simply lucky that they did not consume E.coli laced soil residues or worse (in some areas, there are a lot of potental pathogens in soil)…it does happen sometimes. For a baby that could be fatal. Please don’t use unrotted manures, particularly cow and chicken manure. I am a microbiology student…I know my enteric pathogens.
You can start your own compost pile…as soon as you start weeding you will be able to rot the green waste, any fallen leaves, kitchen scraps… But, for the initial garden, just invest in some local landscape soil and add store bought compost…from a reputable place…careful not to get soil full of weed-seeds…or raw cow manure!!! Mulching with straw can be eally helpful, once it’s all planted.
Here’s a few sites that specialize in organic seeds and practices…I reccomend you try to find a Rodale’s organic gardening book from your local library.https://secure.westcoastseeds.com/index3…http://www.richters.com/http://www.organicgardening.com/
I hope this helps and you enjoy the experience!
LMAO about the cow manure and your son . There’s no danger dear .
Anyway, the best advice to give is this : Buy Jerry Baker’s Books . Pick one and you’ll have most of your answers for now and answers for certain future questions .
Get to know three very important products: lemon dawn, hot pepper, and vinegar. A few drops of lemon dawn in a spray bottle with water will be your favorite pesticide. Bugs hate it! Strong vinegar can be used to kill weeds. Hot pepper oil or sauce can also be used as a pesticide. Heres one from AMazon that can be used at the table and in the garden: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CBB…
Use at least 4 square feet for each tomato plants. the rest can be planted a bit closer together. What I do after clearing the area completely or weeds is I lay double layers of shade cloth down on the area and pin it in really tight (available at home depot or other similar places.) I take a razor blade and cut an “x” just big enough to plant the plant. After I plant the plant, I place a conical tomato cage over the plant. This keeps me from having to stake or tie anthing! I also have plenty of squirrels, but I’ve never had an issue with anything eating my veggies. It wouldn’t hurt to cage it in though.
I don’t know about Marigolds (they don’t grow here in Florida).
You can start seeds inside now and be ready to plant them when it is warm enough outside. Seeds will be less expensive and give you something to watch while you’re inside during these gloomy winter months! Seeds of change is one of the best seed companies and they do all organic and have a lot of great heirloom varieties that are hard to find.
http://www.seedsofchange.com
The other website I highly recommend is Gardens Alive:
http://www.gardensalive.com
Not only do they have any possible organic product you might need, but they have a lot of good information on identifying and troubleshooting pests and diseases.
I would plant as many plants as you have room for. If you don’t know how to can and pickle, its a great thing to know, and your own home grown canned veggies far outweight the store bought ones!
As far as your soil- you can buy fully composted manure which means it has reached temperature high enough to kill all organisms, diseases, etc. mix that with some high quality garden soil. and think about starting to compost– your vegetable will be so much better with compost, and you will reduce your waste.
good luck! you will be so happy you started an organic vegetable garden!
we have a garden every year. we have found it easier to buy seedlings that are already started. i wouldnt worry about cow manure as long as you keep your son out of the garden. we mix peat moss with cow manure and this has been the best mixture to retain water and stay aerated. marigolds will help keep bunnies out of the garden, and we use sevin dust for bugs. not sure if thats on your organic list or not , but it works. you should only need 2-3 tomato plants, 6-8 pepper plants, carrots are a pain because the seeds are so small ( i havent been able to find carrots already started) cucumbers will grow anywhere. we tossed out rotten cucumbers in our compost pile and at the end of summer we had tons of cucumbers growing in it! lettuce you will want to plant in stages if you are doing baby spring mix and spinach and such. plant 2-3 plants every 2 weeks through the summer so that you have a constant supply. i have never done iceburg lettuce because it has no nutritional qualities. if you plant your tomatoes next to your peppers your tomatoes will have a wonderful spiced flavor. i reccommend the string beans that vine. the bush variety dont yeild as much and they take up alot of space. we strung clothesline all the way up to the roof and grew them beside the house. eventually you will just have to pull it down to harvest, but the quality of the vining ones is better.
as far as storing veges that you dont think you will eat, just wash and put in a ziploc and freeze just after harvest. i never can. canning takes alot of nutrients and flavor away. we even freeze whole tomatoes and use them for stew later. there is nothing like the taste of garden fresh hot green beans on a winter day. i freeze peppers also. my husband is FREAK about chemicals and he thinks the sevin dust is ok to use and not harmful. we never cage the garden in and have not had problems with pests.
the only time we had pests, we planted peas ( i will never do peas again, way too much work for 5 oz of peas) we got these little white flies all over. as soon as we pulled all of the pea plants out, they were gone . good luck and have fun!!!!