Gardening & Landscaping
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Start up costs?
This will be the first spring / full summer that we own our own house, and have a lawn. We would love to begin a vegetable garden this year.
1) I know nothing about growing vegetables, and would like to learn as much as possible-- any rec's for resources?
2) Estimated, what is the start up cost for a vegetable garden?
Re: Start up costs?
1. Your local library is a good place to start reading up on caring for your garden. Seriously, it's free and there is a wealth of information there. That's how I got started, along with a few conversations with my grandma.
2. Start up costs depend on what you're growing, how big your garden is, and whether or not you want to start from seed or if you want to buy plants that are already started.
Since you are new to your home, I recommend starting small and don't invest too much into it until you are more familiar with the soil and what kinds of weeds and pests you have. Also, see what kinds of stuff you've already got growing. There are all kinds of surprises lurking in a new home. Some people recommend not growing anything for the first year so that you can get acquainted with the foliage that already exists, but I didn't have patience for that. I couldn't wait to get my hands dirty! I do recommend starting small though.
over a year ago, we moved into a house that already had a HUGE garden plotted out. I knew absolutely nothing about vegetable gardening and I didn't read up on it much at all, just kind of winged it. Bought a bunch of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, squash and pumpkins to put in. Mixed in Miracle Grow garden soil into it while I was planting and everything went fantastic! I had TONS of tomatoes and mutantly huge zucchini. And even grew some carve-able pumpkins!
In some ways, you can read up as much as you want but you're not going to know what goes best in your soil unless you experiment. Pick a few things you'd like to have, and do 1-2 plants of each. See what turns out and what doesn't. That way you dont' put all your stock in one thing
pp give good advice.
I just wanted to say that you can have a garden on any budget *but* I would recommend spending 90% of your budget on the soil & only 10% on the plants. Soil isn't fun to think about or even look at but it is the thing that will ultimately determine how well the garden will do (along with light and water).
My soil is heavily compacted clay soil. I could have got a cheaper route by mixing loads of compost (homemade) into it & tilling it to lighten it up. However, I wanted more "instant" good soil so I did raised beds (had to buy wood, vermiculate, peat moss & some compost). It was definitely a pricier endeavor, but worth it to me.
My blog (link in sig) is my gardening journey if you want to check it out. This year I'm going to keep track of costs & weigh the produce to estimate how much my garden is producing.
This depends on how you go about it. You could have raised beds and fill them in with compost and topsoil OR you could buy a tiller to turn the soil over.
I recommend these $ saving tips and you could have a fabulous garden with not so much spent.
- Use seeds instead of buying plants. I have even had good luck starting with seeds from grocery store produce. Tomatoes, winter squash, cantaloupes and cucumbers are the best for that. Just dry them on a paper towel in the open then ziploc and label to save.
- Visit Garden Web forums regularly for advice and ideas.
- Mid-April, go to a home improvement store or walmart and get a Jiffy seed starting kit. It is like a mini greenhouse.
- Fill this up with purchased seeds, or those pulled from grocery store produce.
- Plant after all scare of frost is gone and grow baby grow!
You could have a rockin' garden for less than $100. If you are spending more than that, it should be for a tiller. Good luck!