Home Gardening for Beginners

Hi ack012!

The Square Foot Gardening book and website are great.  http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

I haven't followed all of his instructions (I'm still using mostly large containers), but this is the most enthusiastic gardening book I've ever read.

I also suggest checking out the Definitive Gardening forum on this website -- lots of knowledgeable folks.

Happy gardening!

becky

Doggonit, Becky, you beat me to it!  But, here's another good one:  http://www.amazon.com/How-Grow-More-Vegetables-Possible/dp/0898154154.

C1oudfire:     But, you've gotten your revenge - the book you recommend is making me salivate!  Something else to look for at the local used bookstore.

becky

I would recommend John Seymour's The New Self-Sufficient Gardener. This book is a great organic gardening reference book. I appriciate the diagrams and pictures as they guide a visual learner better. Topics include garden design, organic methods, building structures and in depth guide to all fruits/vegetables and herbs. There is a section devoted to food storage as well.

I have used his techniques on my tomato plants this year and I am happy with the results. The plants are healthier and the fruit is amazing.

Beginner gardeners usually want to start by taking over the "point-less" shrubbery border gardens for starters. Try planting a few fruit trees as you take out meaningless landscaping plants or try planting strawberries, swiss chard or colorful kale in the understory below your  present landscape trees and shrubs. We did our lake place by ever increasing the border with medicinal and food plants as well as scatter in flowers to attract frogs, birds, bees and insects.

Try using climbing vines to shade a hot side of a house or sprawling plants to cover a slope (then you don't have to mow either!)

Add a chicken tractor to run across your no mowing lawn ( they eat bugs food scraps, fertilize, aerate the grass, keep it short AND give you eggs! . if everything was this effecient we'd have it made.)

Pretty soon, before you know it, your old yard will look like this: Because You are on your Path to Freedom

Your Serious Plant Addict -EGP

 Thanks everybody for the suggestions! You all have been very helpful. If anybody else has anything more to add, please feel free to contribute.

Hehe . . . . Enjoy!

ack -

Two established threads with a lot of great info:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/forum/definitive-agriculturepermaculture-thread/15715

http://www.chrismartenson.com/forum/square-foot-gardening/18771

I'm a big fan of square foot gardening.  Cat and I have had had great success so far this year and have been eating out of our Square Foot gardens since the end of May.

Good luck and keep the questions coming.

Square Foot Gardening book has helpful charts to figure out what to plant when and the method really helps to keep organized.  I've used The Four Season Harvest for ideas to grow stuff nearly year round in Maine.  Start small but high quality, to keep within your available time commitment.  This is the first year I've ever actually put planning into a garden, and it's really paid off; just ate peas, carrots, radish, onions, and chard I pulled from my garden minutes before suppoer; very rewarding!

Good luck! Tom

I also vote for Square-Foot-Gardening! I've tried gardening in the past with poor results, and finally decided to try SFG this year. It has worked very well. The one suggestion I can give, no matter what gardening method you try, is to get your soil tested. I think some of my past failures were due to poor soil. Even this year's garden, though producing, is not as robust as it should be. I finally tested the soil and it was very deficient in everything. I just returned from Montreal and saw city vegetable gardens that put my Virginia garden to shame. But this time I take that as a challenge!