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.
Poll: SFGers
How big is your SFG?
How many squares do you have for each veg?
Are you happy with the number of squares for each veg?
How many people are in your household eating the produce?
[I'm redesigning our SFG and trying to figure out how big to make the beds so that one bed could contain all the nightshades, another could contain all the root veg, etc.
Re: Poll: SFGers
My two favorite cats!
I have two 3x3 beds, so 18 squares. Certainly not enough space for my family. I just don't have a huge yard and it slopes, so I'm a bit wary of putting a SFG on the slope.Family size - 3 (Me, H, DD)
Here's what I've discovered:
Strawberries need WAY more space than I have available. I'm going to have to dig them up and keep them in planters. I need those squares for other crops.
I need three grape tomato plants. Two just didn't produce enough yield.
One regular size tomato plant is ok. The Early Girl did well. I may need a larger tomato. I may try a Better Boy next year. Or it could have been the heat. That may be why the Early Girls didn't get very big. But, they were perfect for fried green tomatoes.
I need 3 jalapeno plants. We like salsa, so I need more plants! I generally only got three peppers at a time on a plant, so, more are needed.
Cucumbers - yeah, no need to plant more than 2 of those. Man those things are prolific.
Okra - 2-3 plants are needed. I had two plants and they produced just enough for my daughter to get her fill.
Romaine lettuce - 4 plants (1 square) really seemed to be enough. I was shocked, but they produced well this spring. I plan on planting more this fall. I will probably do 2 squares.
Spinach - sticking with as a fall plant. The heat sets in quickly here and it bolted before I got any real use.
I have 6 4x4 squares plus 2 traditional in ground gardents that are about 3-4' wide and 15 feet long. 1 of the inground gardens is strawberries, raspberries and blackberries and the other inground garden is my herbs and tomatoes and about 12 pepper plants.
In my squares I planted onions last fall to harvest in the spring. I did 2 full boxes so 32 squres of onion and garlic (I got a lot but I'm already out of all of the onions and garlic). In the early spring I planted 8 squares of lettuce and 8 squares of sugar snap peas. In another box I planted 8 squares of carrots in the early spring and I attempted 8 squares of beets but the bunnies had other ideas. I also planted 32 squares of potatoes.
Once the lettuce and peas were done I planted cucumbers. Where the beets didn't work I planted beans. Where the potatoes were I planted eggplant, but again the bunnies had other ideas (although they have come back, just not in time to actually produce anything.) I planted potatoes where I had melons last year and they self seeded so one box (16 squares--although not 16 plants is melon).
I just planted fall crops. I took out some cukes because I have too many and planted 4 squares of swiss chard. Where the carrots were I planted broccoli so 8 squares of that. I also planted beets and red cabbage where the onions had been.
I also made nets to stop the bunnies. I've been gardening at this house for 4 summers and this year has been the worse for bunnies.
There are 6 of us eating the produce plus I give some away.
Next year I want to plant some corn but that will be a whole box (16 squares).
I think next year I'll do fewer cherry tomatoes... we just can't eat 30 a day with everything else.
I may try to do squash again. I didn't do it this year because I had stink bugs last year and I read that I needed to not do squash this year since they lay their eggs for the next yeaer. I haven't seen any stink bugs this year.
This is my realization. I'm going to give them one more year & if they don't do a crazy bumper crop, they are going. We've got 2 blueberry bushes now & I'd rather replace the strawberries with another blueberry bush or even a bush cherry or two.
I'm on year 3 of my strawberries... I had a huge crop this year. Each year I get more and more. I let some of the runners spread. I put them directly in the ground...not in a raised bed.
How did your peas do? I am planting snap peas this weekend for my fall crop. I'm going to do two squares (according to the SFG book you can plant 8 peas in a square). Do you think that will be enough? My DD loves peas - me, not so much, but if I cook it, the family has no choice but to eat it. Or I can give some to my neighbors.
I've got one square filled up (carrots, spinach, broccoli, and romaine lettuce). The other square is sparse - turnips, peas, collards. I have 3 squares left. I'm thinking of just throwing in more carrots and turnips to finish it off. I can never eat enough turnip greens. Yum. I'm dreaming of fresh cooked greens and cornbread right now. (Ya'll can't tell I'm from the south can you?!
)
Oh Kastle - thanks for the seed recommendations! I ordered from Southern Exposure this weekend. My seeds are in the mail! Hopefully they'll get here soon and I can plant this weekend.
Our garden is 8x4 and we are adding a 4x4 box. We feed currently DD, DH and myself and are expecting a baby this January which won't impact use much next year, but definitely the year afterwords. I don't think we have nearly enough space for the amount of produce we consume. I would like to add a raised herb garden off the back patio and another 4x4 as well. I think that these two additions will happen on a year to year basis.
This year we did the tomatoes 1 per square which made for a very crowded tomato cluster. It didn't seem to affect production of the smaller tomatoes but the slicers did not perform as well even though the vines were massive. I think I will plant fewer tomatoes next year (we had 12 plants - 3 rows this year) and see if that helps with crowding out. I may also plant some of them mixed in with my foundation plantings and along the fence.
The zucchini was given two squares on the edge of the garden and it spilled over to the lawn as expected. I might need to give them three squares next year, the foliage was hug and shadowed the nearby plants too much.
We did two squares of cucumbers, 4 plants each square. It climbed all through the tomatoes. I would like to trellis these next year and am looking for a way to make this work.
The cantaloupe (4 plants) had one square and just spilled over into the lawn.
The sugar snaps had 1 square, 8 plants. I wish I had done 2 squares to make enough for multiple dinners. Two years ago I did 8 squares of string beans which was a huge mistake, we were inundated. I think 2 squares would be ideal of any bean/pea for my size family.
In the past when I've had a larger garden we've planted butternut squash, eggplant, broccoli, corn (although not successfully - I think my soil was not rich enough), peppers (we did this year but they were completely shaded out by the tomatoes), string beans, more melons, and more companion plants to help with pest management. I miss these and would like to do them again. Plus I would like to add pumpkins and other kid friendly plants as my daughter gets more and more curious about gardening.
At my parents house we plant strawberries as a ground cover and get pretty decent yields for plants we do little to maintain. Is that an option for your garden? I thought about putting them in my front bed for the very same reason.
Nitaw-
I got a tonne of peas... but I eat them in the shell... I don't think I would have had enought to freeze large amounts if I was shelling peas
my plan is to put them under the netted blueberrires. That way the chipmunks won't eat the few that we get. The problem is, the area that I'm planting the blueberries won't support the number of strawberry plants I currently have. SO, I'm wrestling with replanting ALL that I have and replanting only what will fit under the bushes.