Call for help! Garden novice

[izzyscout21]

All you green thumbers, I need some assistance.Being early, I'd like to start planning my garden. I've notice quite a few of you are quite adept at this.Trouble is, I don't know how to plan this properly.I need to produce crops as long as possible, as we go through a ton of food. Hoping to help save some money here.SO we're going for sustainability and high yield.Please help me plan this.I don't know where to start, but my family really needs me to pull this off this year and for the forseeable future.Help me pick crops and the layout. What can I plant with what? What veggies will give me the best yield I can attain?What info do you guys need to help me with this?Hopefully someone else can find this thread useful other than just me.

[helomech]

Wish I could help. My aquaponics will be my first garden.

[Stg1swret]

Try the following: snipurl.com/hrn4c , or snipurl.com/hrmgo

[LUNCHBOX]

Remember that concept--grow what you will eat to start off. Seeing you have little ones meanwhile they may jot like peppers. Think about corn, green beans, tomatoes, types of melons, fruit trees. My garden wasn't huge by any means but I still have tomatoes froozen and peppers dried. Green beans are not overly priced, maybe look at buying them and canning so you can work on other crops. Only one of my girls is a pepper eater but after drying them I can flavor anything with the powder. (Next time we talk I'll explain that a little more)

[izzyscout21]

I plan on canning anything we cant eat at first. Going to get my MIL to show me how. We just go through so much fresh veggies, our food budget is expanding rapidly.

[ladyhk13]

Do they like broccoli? Pretty easy to grow in our (your) area. Cukes totally easy, any kind of squash. Squash get HUGE here (the plants themselves), I grew my cukes on my fence last year so they wouldn't drag the ground and take up space and it was great. If you are tight on space try a raised bed and a book called "Gardening by the Foot" I believe. You make a grid of 12"x12"s and plant more stuff within them instead of the normal rows. You can actually get more food packed in that way. I made 4 beds like that within my garden for certain veggies and then put other stuff all around them. Potaotes are really easy to grow as well as every kind of lettuce you can think of. Totatoes I have a harder time with except for this weird one I got from Lowe's on a fluke this year - I usually don't buy from them.
Just remember that whatever seeds you get you should always try to buy heirloom and harvest your seeds for the next year. There are a lot of good companies out there. These are a few quick thoughts.

[Sniper-T]

^ X a million! look at what your family likes to eat, and start there. How much space do you have? what is the sun like? How is the soil (ph)?

How much time do you want to spend, out in the garden? deciding to "grow your own" before you realize how much work, how much time, how much effort is involved, is setting yourself up for failure before you even start. Things like Zuchini and squash... you can almost plant and forget. but things like tomatos and peppers need more attention. You plop anything into the gound, and it'll grow, but growing and producing a plethora of fruit is a different story. you will need to weed, pinch, trim, snip, etc.. all on a daily/weekly basis. make sure you have enough time or resources (kids) to devote to this project, before you start.

[ladyhk13]

The good thing is that your girls are young and impressionable. If you get them involved in the process they will be amazed at what they are growing and will probably eat about anything that comes out of the garden because "they" grew it. Sit them on the living room floor with a bunch of cagalogs and ask them what veggies look good and what do they think "they" want to grow. Allow them one or 2 items that they can plant and water and weed and be in charge of (let them pick different things so you now have some diversity). After only a couple of years you will be amazed at not only how big your garden has gotten but at how many new things they will try and you have built in cheap labor!

[ravensgrove]

I am not even sure where to start to give you advice not knowing your zone etc. But a few things to remember and we have produced all of our own produce and sold commercially for years:

1) Buy the book Square Foot Gardening, the concept was referenced by ladyhawk...in the book you will get a great deal of information on companion planting.
2) If you are growing for subsistence while heirloom plants are nice...they don't have heavy yields as a rule, especially for tomatoes etc. The best growing tomato everywhere we have ever lived, and we move alot for the Army, has been your standard roma tomato. The yields are very heavy and you can use them for anything from salads to sauce. By all means grow heirlooms for variety...but don't plan on subsisting on them...unless your entire garden consists of heirloom tomatoes, each plant will yield minimum fruit...the difference is each fruit is generally much larger than your standard plant. I grow several heirlooms for market...but we EAT primarily romas and we eat tons of them as we have a primarily mediterranean diet.
3) Give up the idea right away you're going to be able to grow enough shelled peas, or dried beans etc to subsist on...its virtually impossible without a giant.....we're talking an acre plot here, for even my family of 4, the yields are just too small out of each pod. In lieu of go for your snap peas, green beans, bush beans, lima beans etc all of which supply protein and can be eaten whole...you get alot more nutrition and volume out of these varieties.
4) Succession and back crop. This means two things. Succession...using a 4 row example of the same item: plant each row 1-2 wks apart...this way each row is coming ripe at seperate times. Back crop...meaning once areas in your garden go fallow and crops end for the season replant with shorter season crops especially those which fix nitrogen (legumes) back in the same area. For instance, follow early cabbage with peas, then in the late summer early fall you can follow the peas with cabbage again...etc.
5) Grow alot of roots: potatoes, carrots, beats, turnips...you can on many of these plants in essence get two crops as many of the greens are edible as well as the roots.
6) Grow squash especially zucchini and hubbard...both of which can feed a family almost indefinitely. You need squash recipes I have five gazillion. Hubbard squash especially grow easily, bare huge fruit...we're talking upwards of 20lbs a piece...and store very easily almost all winter long. The other great thing about a hubbard is it is edible all through its life cycle from blossom to hard squash...early fruit taste more like zucchini, and by the end of fall you have more of a hard butternut variety.
7) I can not overstate the benefit of heavy mulching for both water control and keeping weeds down. MULCH, MULCH, MULCH.
8) Start composting now...it'll take you until spring to get anything of any use.

If you grow corn...you have to grow a great deal of it as a subsistence crop for a family, and it needs to be planted in blocks to germinate correctly. Not knowing how much area you have I can't advise on whether I think the room for corn is even a good idea.

How big of an area are you planting and what is your zone? I will open myself up to you for any questions, we have subsistence farmed for years and ran a successful CSA. I also teach classes as part of my income on everything from gardening to animal husbandry. I am all about sharing information and will be as helpful as I can.

[Sniper-T]

^ LIKE, Like, Like, Like

cause I can only like once in the forum!

Raven, you want to adopt me?