Rather than allow Big Bad Voodoo Lou to hijack this thread (on books about gardening), let’s start a new thread filled with people’s practical tips for fellow gardeners – and questions from thems as have 'em.
BBVL’s question:
I’m neither a Floridian nor much of an herb grower, so I have nothing for him. Anyone?
My understanding of these things is pretty limited, but I believe that basil and tomatoes and peppers all love the heat: I’d guess you’d have a great chance of growing them. Were I you, I’d plant them in the ground, in as deep a bed as you can manage, filled with as much good dirt (compost, composted manure, etc.) as you can manage.
We started our garden last year, and probably paid about $100 in supplies: a wheelbarrow, spade, garden fork, hoe, trowel, and gardening gloves, as well as 400 pounds of compost, seeds, a trellis (for our peas and beans and squash), and stakes (for the tomatoes). The seeds themselves are pretty cheap.
We got far more than $100 in vegetables from it, and that’s only the first year. This year, we ended up spending about $20 on seeds, and things are going great.
Daniel
twickster, thank you so much for starting this thread! Left Hand of Dorkness, thanks for the advice so far.
I just started my first herb garden (my first garden ever, actually) and one of the plants I’m growing is Lemon Basil. All I did was follow the directions on the back of the seed packet and my plants are all thriving. I did use special seed starter soil and am growing them inside for right now. I will probably plant them in the ground either after I get home from school (living in a dorm room doesn’t provide one with much outdoor planting space) or once I get to the summer camp that I work at.
I know that the back of the Lemon Basil seed packet said it needed full sunlight, so I would imagine that Florida would be a great place to grow it. My dad has been growing peppers and tomatoes, among other plants, for years and they also require full sunlight, so again, Florida’s probably a good place for those plants.
As far as initial investments go, I didn’t have to spend to much, under twenty dollars. I bought six different kinds of seeds, one long pot that sits on my windowsill, two smaller pots for my partial sunlight plants, and soil.
Like I said, this is my first attempt at gardening and it’s turning out great! If I can do it with my deep rooted fear of dirt, then I have full faith that others can as well. I would get a start on the planting though, I think most seeds suggest planting them around the time of the last frost which was quite a while ago.
Good luck!
-Mosquito
BBVL - growing your own spaghetti sauce, eh?
You can do peppers, 'maters and herbs in the same bed. Basil and tomatoes love to grow together - there’s some technical fancy-ass name for what they do for one another, but I can’t remember what it is. Anyway, they’re good for one another in the garden AND in the cooking pot.
I have some genetic defect in my green thumb that prevents me from successfully starting seeds, but I’ve had oodles of success with pre-started seedlings from the nursery. Lemme tell you what I did last year in my own spaghetti garden and you can use the plan as a leaping-off point.
First, don’t grow chives and parsley in the same bed as the tomatoes. Chives are perennial, parsley is bienniel, and while growing them all together isn’t a big problem, cleaning out the garden in the fall and spring CAN be. I dug out a separate small bed for chives and surrounded them with parsley. Since you’re in a warm climate, your parsley may be just about evergreen, and it makes a pretty border alongside the chives.
Basil, tomatoes and peppers:
I put in two each of three different varieties of tomatoes - two heirloom, two basic beefsteak and two plum tomatoes - in a loose circle. Each plant got its own little metal cage. As they grow up into the cage, tie up the main stems to the cages with snippets of nylon stockings. This may be old wives’ lore, but tomatoes do seem to benefit from lightning, and the metal cages and nylon allegedly help the plants get the electricity they need. As your tomato plants grow, check the stems for blossoms. If you have stems WITHOUT blossoms, pinch them off; they’re just stealing nutrition from your fruit. Don’t use a regular fertilizer, use one specifically made for tomatoes. “Broadband” fertilizer will give you lots of lush greenery, but that’s not what we’re going for with tomatoes.
In another loose circle, next to the tomatoes, I planted two tall bell pepper plants. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong with those, as I never get more than two or three tiny bell peppers off them, but what I do get is yummy, so take that for whatever it’s worth. I put Thai “bird pepper” plants around the bell pepper plants. Very similar leaves, much smaller and more compact plant and it looks like it’s decorated for Christmas when it gets going. I got LOADS of them and they’re REALLY hot! I haven’t personally done jalapenos, but my sister-in-law has and they grow fine among her other peppers.
On the other side of the tomato circle, I put in as much basil as I could fit and stuck some of the leftover basil plants in my flower bed across the yard. Stuff grows like a weed. Pinch off the flowers at the base of the stem as they start shooting up; once again, they’re stealing nutrients from the plant, and pinching them off ensures a longer, heartier harvest of the leaves. You can grow all sorts of basils together, just arrange 'em by size for ease of picking and sorting.
Jeebus, that turned into a long post. Sorry 'bout that, but I hope some of it was helpful. Good luck!
Hee! She made a funny.
She’s right about starting seeds, though – if seeds are how you decide to go. I’ve only tried them a couple of times, and it was never a particularly successful experiment. (My friend B, who’s pretty much a beginning gardener, loves 'em, though, and finds it all part of the fun.) Buying plants at the garden center will be significantly more expensive (maybe $2/plant for veggies?), but less frustrating and providing a better chance of success for the tyro. (YMMV, etc.).
One tip on tomatoes: look for the so-called “heritage” varieties, which are the older versions, not the hybridized types pushed by Burpee et al. Here in Philly, Brandywine tomatoes are very popular – they’re ridiculously delicious. I don’t know if there are other varieties better suited to your climate.
Depends on what you’re looking for in tomatoes. If you’re looking for unique looking and tasting ones, you want heirloom varieties. If you want disease resistance, you generally want hybrids.
You can tell disease resistant tomatoes by the letters after their names. For example, a Roma VFNT would be a Roma tomato that is resistant to Verticillium Wilt (V), Fusarium (F), Nematodes (N), and Tobacco Mosaic virus (T). There may be repetitions of letters which means that it’s resistant to more than one strain of the disease.
The peat pellets are good for starting seeds, but I had trouble with tomatoes and peppers- they dried up and died in like 2 days after putting them in the garden. Spinach, kale and broccoli did fine with no special treatment.
Seeds planted outdoors will take longer than the little envelope says they will.
Slow release fertilizers like Osmocote or Schultz Multicote seem to work very, very well from what I can tell. So do Miracle Gro and Scotts 10-10-10 Flower and Vegetable. I think the key is just to fertilize your plants like they’re supposed to be fertilized.
Weeding is a PITA… mulch those bad boys as soon as you can.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/
Pretty much covers the gamut.
Depends, probably, on your source. We buy our plants from the local farmer’s market, where the vegetables are a four-pack for a buck. A couple varieties of tomatoes, a few different types of peppers, some brocolli, and maybe some peas (although we haven’t had much with peas 
) sets me back a whopping seven bucks or so, and produces more vegetables than we can use. For us, at least, buying plants isn’t much more expensive than buying seeds, and much easier to do. Herbs are a little more – maybe a dollar per plant – but the same market has a guy who’s got a pretty wide variety. I assume that I’m probably paying on the low end of the scale, but I would think that a couple bucks for a single tomato plant might be high.
**Big Bad Voodoo Lou **: I’ve gotta concur that you’re probably in a pretty good area to successfully grow the plants you want. What’s the dirt like in your yard? Personally, I’d stick the plants in the ground (versus in a pot), but if you’ve got poor soil, you might want to enrich it in some way. If your soil’s good, and you own a shovel and a hose, your garden should cost hardly anything; just the labor and the initial cost for the plants.
Oh poop. Forgot the last comment I was gonna make, also directed at BBVL: the vegetables you’ve listed are annuals, of course, but some herbs are perennials, including chives and things like rosemary, oregano, and sage. So you might want to plan ahead on placement of the plants that will stay from year to year (although you can always transplant them later).
I use seedlings also for tomatoes, peppers, jalapenos, eggplants and squash. I’ve done seeds, but I don’t have a good place in my house to put the trays. They don’t believe in window ledges around here. I’m also lazy.
My garden here started out with horrible soil - all clay. I’ve improved it over the years with ample amounts of composted horse manure from the barn where my daughter’s horse is kept. That, and my kitchen compost has made the soil really nice to work, and has improved my yield tremendously. Most barns have big piles which they have to pay someone to haul away, so if there is one near you, just ask. I shovel it into black garbage bags and throw it onto the truck. I need to make a run this weekend for the new season.
Horse poop is my #1 tip.
I have limited space and am big on growing things in big pots. This also helps fight disease. (Soil is changed every year.) Tomatoes, basil, peppers etc do fine in the pots on my patio, we have cool nights but the flagstone retains the heat.
I grow lots and lots of basil.
I have been disappointed with heirloom varieties (they just don’t taste all that good to me) and have gone back to hybrids. Adore Celebrity and Champion tomatoes.
Ha! I’m going to be a first time gardener this year, but I still haven’t started. Please note the location before you say that I’m a late starter - apparently we’ll be getting a frost this weekend. However, I am scared that I am starting too late - anyone want to reassure me?
Since I’m a beginner, I don’t yet know what to plant. I’m thinking tomatoes, peppers (like jalapenos - I’m a sucker for the cute little peppers), maybe some radishes and broccoli. Are these good choices? It’s a south-facing garden, so there should be lots of sun, but small - maybe two feet wide by six, six-and-a-half feet long. (Thought I’d start small and easy first, then expand later as I gain experience.) I’m planning on buying the tomato plants rather than planting from seed (partially due to my late start) - is this a good choice?
I’d like to do herbs like rosemary, chives, basil, maybe parsley, but I’ve heard that these can take over, so it’s better to start these in pots to make them easier to control - is this good advice?
Okay, before it becomes “ask the real gardeners,” I’ll stop. But thanks for any help you could give me.
Snickers, with the same warning that I’m a very, very amateur gardener, here are my tentative answer:
No, you’re not starting too late. Just remember that certain crops go in at certain times. Cruciform veggies (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc.) are fairly frost-resistant and can go in early; tomatoes and peppers, on the other hand, are much less forgiving. If I were you, I’d go ahead and plant any cruciform veggies you want, as well as any lettuces and peas; wait awhile on the summer crops until you know there’s not going to be a frost.
My favorite gardening book is The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible. The title kinda makes it look like a scam/fad/cult or something, but the book is well-written, sensible, and full of great, specific information. He also lives up north somewhere (Vermont, maybe?) so his seasons might have at least some similarity to yours.
Daniel
“Last frost date” is a real, meaningful bit of information – here in Philly it’s May 15th, so it’s got to be later than that for y’all up in the tundra. Yes, your earlier veggies can probably go in now (but should probably be protected, by a blanket or something, if you get some more seriously chilly weather), but wait till after your frost date to plant tomatoes, etc. Generally they won’t go on sale till it’s safe to plant them, so you shouldn’t get into too much trouble.
With the caveat that I’m only an amateur, I’ll take this.
Basil, for the most part, is an annual, and I’ve never seen it get huge, so I wouldn’t think that would be a problem. Huge being relative, though. Ours seem to top out at a foot high and six inches across or so, and they’ll die in the winter.
On the other hand, chives are perennial. However, our little plot of chives doesn’t really spread much, so you’re probably OK planting that in the ground.
Rosemary’s also a perennial, but it’s doubtful it will withstand winters in Minneapolis. We’ve got ours in a pot, and bring it inside every winter – you might want to do the same.
I’ve never grown parsely, a quick search implies that it’s a biennial, often grown as an annual in colder zones. You’d probably be OK with that in the ground as well; it seems unlikely to get very big, although Ill defer to others who’ve actually grown it.
There are certainly other herbs, sage and mint coming to mind, that are perennial and can grow fairly large. As in, two or three plants completely taking over your two by six garden. However, the ones you’ve listed should be fine in the ground, the exception being that you probably don’t want to kill your rosemary every year for no reason.
On the other hand, some people like to have all their herbs in pots, easily accessible from the kitchen door and available to move inside in the fall. If that’s your personal preference, go for it.
Hmm–is this in a pot? Our basil last year was almost certainly over two feet tall, and over a foot wide: we planted it near the tomatoes in good deep soil, and when the flowering finally got out of control (i.e., more flowering than we could reasonably pinch off), we took down all the basil plants and made a crapload of pesto out of it. I think we still have a few cubes in our freezer.
Daniel
Huh. Maybe I’m misunderestimating. But anyway, it’s in the ground, not a pot. Although we do keep pulling leaves off it nearly every day all season (tomato basil sammiches; yum!), so, to be fair, the plants would be a lot more massive if we’d only leave 'em alone.
And still, a basil plant a foot across is “small” compared to something like sage (our plant flopping across a three by three section) or mint (we’ve got some chocolate mint that sends out creepers; it essentially took over another section of about three by three, and would have gone farther if we hann’t pulled much of it up).
That’s true, certainly! I worked in a market garden for a summer when I was eighteen, and we grew a couple rows of basil out there; in good NC Piedmont soil, those basil plants were about three feet high by August. Man, that was tasty stuff.
Daniel
Another MasterGardener checking in. We grow our veggies in big plastic pots. This is a great way to go for those that have limited plot space. It also eliminates the various systemic diseases that tomatoes are famous for. Your current night time temps should be your guide in selecting the best variety of tomato. There are a few summer/heat tolerant varieties available if you are just starting out and your night time temps are above 70 degrees F. Most important advice I can give when raising tomatoes is consistent watering. This will eliminate most problems with blossom-drop, bottom-end rot and cracked fruits.
Peppers, such as jalapeno, are very easy to grow. We raise various pepper varieties in pots as well. We have one particular jalapeno plant that is over 3 years old and yields fruit 10 months out of the year.
As to herbs, I grow all of mine in a strawberry pots. They do quite well and look really cool too!