Farmville IRL! Or, easy gardening tips for a novice city gal

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve inadvertently euthanized a lot of houseplants in my day. My biggest problem seems to be that I love them too much (vis a vis overwatering). The only bit of greenery that’s ever flourished under my thumb was an aloe vera plant, because I don’t think it’s possible to overwater those.

My most recent outdoor gardening experience was watering my mom’s tomato buckets 15 years ago. I’ve never owned land. However, I’m moving shortly to a home that has a garden plot behind it. Yippee hooray! I always liked playing with worms and dirt as a tween, and I can’t wait to get back into it. The plot is currently full of weeds and some small saplings, but there’s a powered tiller I can use. Most of the plot will receive full sunlight all day, but there will be some shade around the edges because of the fence.

I’d like to start planting around June 1 (that’s really late in the season, I think?). The climate is USDA Zone 5A, and I have no idea what that means. Ideally, I’d like to start with plants that are relatively low-maintenance, hard to kill, and high-yielding (to boost my confidence). Some flowers or small bushes might be okay, but I’d rather stick to vegetables/edibles. I’d also like to be able to plant things straight into the ground. If I have to do seedlings and transplant, I’d probably end up killing them… unless there’s some kind of biodegradable pot I can put them in, but would that mess up the soil for next year? I’d like to water no more than once a day, and weed no more than twice a week. Animal interference should not be a concern, because the plot is fenced. There are deer, but the fence will keep them out of it (right?). And as far as I know there are no burrowers, like gophers or wascally wabbits, to worry about.

So, what should I plant? Should I weed by hand, or use tools? How far down should I till, or does the tool handle that automatically? What kind of gear is required, at a minimum? I’m guessing a padded kneeboard would be handy… a hat… but what kind of hand tools? I dunno! I’d rather not use gloves, but is it common to go without? I have a white-collar desk job and I don’t wanna show up with dirt under my fingernails. But part of the reason I’m so excited about gardening is to commune with the earth, hippie-style. And hippies don’t wear gloves.

I’d also appreciate any links to a good gardening forum that’s newb-friendly. Thank you!

2

I live in 5A too, and yeah, June 1 is a little late to be planting. The good news is that vegetable plants will probably be discounted by then, so yay.

Perennial herbs like sage, mint, oregano, and thyme are easy to grow and hard to kill but they will spread like wildfire. Rosemary will not survive the winter unless it’s in a sunny, sheltered corner.

All peppers are pretty easy. Sweet peppers give disappointingly small yields per plant, but the plants are quite small. Hot peppers of any variety will be far hotter than the ones you buy in the grocery store.

Tomato plants are also not hard but benefit from staking. You can buy bamboo poles at garden centers that work for this.

Cucumbers and zucchini (as well as other summers squash) grow from seed and grow fast; June 1 will not be too late to start them. They require a lot of space and a lot of water.

Radishes are easy and fast, but you will be starting too late in the year. They need cool weather. Seed them out in late April of next year. The same advice applies to lettuce, carrots, and peas.

Swiss chard is easy to grow, and is cut-and-come-again. You cut what you need, leaving a couple inches of the plant, and it grows right back. Sow it from seed. It will be ready to cut very fast and you can keep cutting until the first hard frost.

Eggplants are easy if you don’t have blight, but in my experience it’s disappointingly common to have blight.

3

I’m starting late as well…probably even later, since I believe I am in 7a.

What can I plant now and have success with?

4

I won’t speak to particular plants for your area, as I only have experience in the South. I’m just chiming in to recommend S*quare Foot Gardening *by Mel Bartholomew. The old version, not All New Square Foot Gardening, which sucks.

The version I’m talking about came out in 1981, and used copies can be cheaply had in very good condition on Alibris.

5

Thank you for the book recommendation, Labrador Deceiver! I’ll definitely have to check it out.

That’s a lot of great info, Sattua. I figured tomatoes were a given. I know they can be picked green and ripened indoors if it starts getting cold–or hell, even fried green. I’m definitely interested in squash and herbs! I never heard of Swiss chard (sounds like cheese, haha), but I’ll look into it. The ability to cut it multiple times in a growing season is pretty appealing! And I wouldn’t be opposed to starting a small crop of eggplant. If they get blighted, it’s not too big a loss. But, can blight cross between species? I’d only be worried about ruining my whole harvest.

6

Blight is most likely to cross between plants in the same family–so between tomatoes and eggplants, or between cucumbers and squash and melons and pumpkins. We had eggplant blight two years ago, but it didn’t affect tomatoes.

We have a perisistent cucurbitaceae blight that affects cucumbers and summer squash both. I hope it has gone away this year finally. I feel silly buying zucchini in the supermarket.

7

If you like mint at all, then there is nothing easier to grow than a CONTAINER of mint. It grows so quickly and tenaciously that you should never plant it in the ground or else it will overrun everything, but a pot of mint will do well for most people
Mint comes in a huge range of varieties that have subtle flavor differences (chocolate mint is great for desserts for example).

8

I would strongly recommend not planting ANYTHING the first full year you’re in a new location, especially if you don’t know 100% what is already planted there, and don’t know what you’re doing. Some beneficial plants may come up later in the season, or may have come up early spring and died back already, but if you go tilling up the land, you’ll not know what’s what. Plus, tilling without knowing what’s there can actually cause you to have MORE weeds than what you’re seeing.

If you’re gung-ho to plant something, I’d suggest:
[ul]
[li]**Raised beds. **Start a couple of raised beds in an area of the “lawn”. With raised beds, you can determine exactly what goes in it and what there is. I’d recommend starting with herbs–basil, oregano, thyme are all good, but plant some you’d use (or want to learn how to use). Avoid mints (including catnip and lemon balm) which will spread like wildfire and you’ll never get rid of it.[/li][li]Pots. Tomato plants will grow in pots–heck just about anything will grow in pots if the pot is big enough and it’s well cared for. I’ve grown eggplants, tomatoes, peppers and tons of herbs in pots.[/li][li]**Check your soil. **If you have a Cooperative Extension of your state university around, they’ll have cheap soil testing kits, and will be able to help you decide what to plant where and what you need to add to the soil. (In my region, Penn State University’s Cooperative Extension offers soil testing for $9.) The cooperative extension will also have other resources–mine has a great canning book I’ve been wanting to purchase (but keep forgetting to do so).[/li][li]**Talk to Master Gardeners. **That Cooperative Extension should offer basic classes about everything from composting to planting whatever you could imagine, taught by Master Gardeners. They’ll answer your questions and give you tons of (usually free) information. Classes in my area are about $7 per class and they’re well worth the money. Plus, they’ll hook you up with a lot of stuff going on in your area, like plant sales, all day seminars, tours, etc. Most of it is free, or fairly inexpensive. [/li][li]Make friends with gardeners. Those classes that I mentioned? They’re filled with other gardeners, nearly all who divide plants in the spring or fall and are interested in finding something different and sharing what they have–and many times for free. My neighbors garden and I have a HUGE flower bed that’s filled almost entirely of plants they’d otherwise thrown away because it was starting to get to big, or spread, or they changed their minds and decided to plant something new. [/li][li]**Check out Craigslist. **I scored about $200 worth of hostas off of Craigslist for FREE because I happened to be checking at the right place at the right time. I’ve seen bushes, seedlings, seeds, plants, bulbs and all sorts of other stuff on Craigslist for free or pretty cheap at some point.[/li][li]Take it slow. Everyone will tell you–and you’re likely to ignore them–but take it slow. It’s really easy to get all excited when you start planning and planting, then mid-summer when your tomatoes are going ape-shit and your squash is over taking the garden to get really overwhelmed really fast. Don’t plant any veggies you don’t want to eat or give away.[/li][li]Know what you’re planting. There are a lot of invasive species out there, that once you plant, it overtakes EVERYTHING and takes an act of God to get rid of (Morning Glories, I’m looking at you). There are aspects of gardening that you may never have thought of–when I started gardening, I didn’t have a clue about Safe Seeds, the impacts of pesticide use, or the use of heirloom plants[/li][li]**Keep a garden journal. **Write down what worked and why, what didn’t work and why, what bloomed, when it budded, what it produced, what the temperatures were, when it rained/snowed/got warm, what you picked and when, what it tasted like, smelled like and how it looked, and how big it was when you planted it and where you bought it from. Draw diagrams, identify “next year”, make a wish list of plants you want to try and questions you have. You’ll absolutely use that info if you garden for more than one year. I reference my garden journal constantly.[/li][/ul]

I went to the closest I’d been to a garden was to see it from the car window, to several different HUGE gardens (veggie, herb, flower, mix, etc.) in the course of about three years. I’ve found that I absolutely love it and learn something new every day.

Feel free to PM me if you’d like. Good luck!

9

Wow, thank you phall! I really appreciate the advice. I especially love the to-do list format. :slight_smile: I will definitely start a garden journal and be sure to read up on the risks of invasive species–really thankful you and lavenderviolet mentioned the mint. I found out that one of my boyfriend’s coworkers is a gardening nut, so we’re going to bounce our plans off him. I am probably going to plant at least few things in the ground this year, because we’re already so excited about it. Plus, the landlord has been living on the property for quite a while. He’s already on board with our plans to garden, and should have a good idea of what grew in the plot the last couple years.

Still, those are all great objections/warnings to bring up. There’s a lot that never even occurred to me to consider. And you brought up a question that was in the back of my mind: how long do soil testing results take to come back? I’d really like to plant some sweet corn later in the season, and I read that corn is really dependent on soil conditions.