Here's the list, Things I've learned so far.
*Do not let cucumbers or beans grow up corn or sunflowers like a trellis!!
-the reason? These vines want to pull everything down to the ground to smother and kill everything. Also because I have so many vegetables growing with the corn, my corn stalks are puny skinny short plants with one corn kernel at the top. It's weird the corn kernel looks like a pimple.. Most the corn stalks have now been eaten by the pumpkin and cucumber. Now the vines are taking over the sunflowers and beans.
*Use compost that is well composted
-the reason? I was under the impression, from different blogs I've read, that I can just compost directly into the garden because it's a good source of nitrogen and a slow release fertilizer. My experience?! WRONG! I have had to pull up soo many sprouties. Pumpkin, squash, TOMATOES, and whatever else had found it's way into the garden. From what I have seen, I believe that just taking a fresh tomato or any fresh vegetable, slicing it or placing FRESH seeds, placing it in the garden under some soil, The plant will sprout and it will be very healthy more healthy than ever buying seeds.
*Please mix soil with compost.
-the reason? Honestly, I am not 100% positive on this, all I know is I have lots of growth, lots of blooms and not very much fruit. I've seen gardens planted directly in the ground, no mulch, no compost, just fertilizers have been used. Guess what? These gardens are as big as mine, there is lots of fruit, and to me seem like there is a lot less maintenance. So my suggestion till compost and mulch into soil or do a good job mixing soil into compost and do a good job mulching in a raised bed or buy good quality premixed soil for raised beds. Which brings me to the next thing I have learned.
*Gardening is expensive!!!!!
-Our plan was to have an affordable big garden in our backyard. We spilt the price of straw bales, awesome! We both bought seeds and seed starting kits, not expensive at all. I reused many things, old chicken wire, tomato stakes, a headboard, hoses, hose sprayer, tin cans and other containers for planting, plastic bags, a variety of different things. We wanted to do raised beds and were going to do them with free pallets, when we discovered that would be too difficult we both bought a raised bed kit and built them that way. We spilt the price of horrible sour compost (aka chopped up leaves) from the Bordeaux composting facility, not bad. The compost from Bordeaux was really horrible and so we both bought bags of top soil from home depot, Ughh seriously? Then some the plants were eaten by bugs when I first put them out there so I bought some pepper plants, okra, parsley, and rosemary. Then the garden was far behind others on the street so I bought some miracle grow, hrmpf. Now we have a problem with insects, yeah I can go and get neem oil or some other organic insecticide. I am not willing to, I've decided I'm done now I'll just do what I can to keep the garden alive for as long as possible but bugs gotta eat too, that's part of it I suppose.
*Gardening requires tools
It's hard to use just shovels, one hoe, two handheld tillers, and a plastic rake. It was fun being out there and doing the work but it was also hard and we often got burned out quickly.
So the conclusion, gardening is fun! There's just a lot to learn and with experience it will become easier. I am also not trying to say one way is better than another, All I know is that whatever I am doing is not right. The way I have done things working out it's just not as rewarding as I was hoping in the beginning. I am excited about getting to do this again! I want a fall garden but that's probably not in my best interest..
Also, not everything is doing bad the collard greens are growing like crazy, so is the rosemary, sage, thyme, bush beans, catnip and lemongrass. The cucumbers, tomatoes, sunflowers, peppers and okra are producing a lot just not as much as I expected. The cilantro was a success but it's too hot and the cilantro is done for the season.
