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crabjoe

How large is it?

19 years ago

Ok.. The real question is "How large is your garden and what are you growing?" Mine's aprox 20x40' and I'm going to expand it this fall for next year.

At this time, I've got 2 squash, 6 Toms, a few rows of corn, some bean, Okra, Soy, cataloupe, watermelon, hot peppers, bell pepper, lettuce, spinach, green onions and broccoli... I think that's it.

I was told 20X40 should be plenty big for me to grow what I wanted but I've found once everything really kicks in, all the room disappears... The vines are the worst... I planted one cucumber plant and since last week, it wants to take over everything. It's going up the trellis and all over the ground. If I didn't know I had planted just one, I'd think it was 4 or 5!

Comments (20)

  • 19 years ago

    6 raised beds:
    2-24x6ft
    1-22x3ft
    1-22x2ft
    2-16x4ft
    plus 64 pots of varying sizes

    plants include 8 var. tomatoes, several types of chile peppers, asparagus, 2 types of potatoes, several onions, carrots
    plus a varied amount of herbs (lovage,catnip,lavender,sage,nepitella,oregano,thyme,chives,rosemary,dill,cilantro,basil etc)and we usually do spring/fall plantings of turnips, radishes, lettuces, broccoli, carrots, etc.
    {{gwi:80904}}


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    {{gwi:80907}}

    kendra

  • 19 years ago

    crabjoe,

    Stop by a library or book store and check out the Square Foot Gardening book. It's a simplified form of intensive gardening where you learn how to grow 100% of the produce in 20% of the space. You can apply the spacing principles to your own garden and there is an entire forum devoted to the topic here at GardenWeb.

    {{gwi:33392}}
    {{gwi:33394}}
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    {{gwi:33396}}{{gwi:33397}}
    {{gwi:33398}}{{gwi:33399}}{{gwi:33400}}
    {{gwi:33401}}{{gwi:33402}}{{gwi:33403}}

  • 19 years ago

    Mine's about 40 à 50 feet and I could use four times that size. About half is berries: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and gooseberries. I have about 10 kinds of hardneck and porcelain garlic. Lots of greens  kale, chard, lettuce, spinach, radicchio. I especially like the beautiful kale varieties: blue Scotch, red Russian, and Tuscan. Arugula leaves earlier, flowers now. Finishing the pea harvest. Lots of herbs. About 10 tomato plants of different varieties. Paprika and jalapeño peppers. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Savoy cabbage. Chinese leeks, bunching onions, shallots. Sowed carrots, beets, parsley root, parsnips after pulling the bolted lettuce. 4 trellises of winter squash, cukes, melons. Flowers mixed in.

  • 19 years ago

    I am down to just about 25' X 75' but I leave a little bit of room at each end and along one side I have a rather permanent row of {{gwi:80902}}, as seen along the concrete block wall. On the other side I have a fig tree trying to expand through the fence into the garden and some spearmint, peppermint, chocolate mint. and lemon balm

    I have a PVC header pipe across one end on a quick coupler to the water supply along the fence on one side and hose bibs (faucets) to connect seven 75" soak hoses to. With the highly unusual rains and flooding this spring, that is hardly needed, but the day will soon come when it is. Right now,the garden is rapidly {{gwi:80903}}. I may soon have to have a machete to hack my way though it, and and I only have 5 1/2 rows in the garden, not counting the perimeters.

    My row of green beans is done and has been mowed, leaving the roots in the ground in hopes that they have some nitrogen nodules on them. My black eyed peas are almost finished and I will cut and remove the vines soon to shred up into the compost pile with my mower. I have already dug what few potatoes I had and most of the onions.

    Remaining is okra and over 75 tomato plants, a few sweet potatoes, plus stuff that I have in 7 half barrels like some herbs, cucumbers, watermelons and of course more maters.

    When I feel pretty good and the season is young, I often wish for more room to plant other things, but as the heat, drought, and onset of various diseases and onslaught of insect pests,I think that I have too much to take care of right.
    Bill P.

  • 19 years ago

    Mine started out as a strip behind the house 4 feet deep by 25 feet wide. That being a success, I earned the right to destroy part of the yard, and the garden expanded to 22 x 48 for a couple of years. Then my husband decided we ought to share with the neighbors who's house is surrounded by woods, and is too shady, so this year the garden is 50 x 75 and has just about everything in it. But, the original stip behind the house with the all day southern exposure is still my favorite. That is where I grow my tomatoes, eggplants in pots, and finicky things like Okra, and dress it all up with herbs and marigolds so it blends with the landscaping.
    I spend all winter on an excel spreadsheet planning my rotation and estimating how huge the zuke plants will get.

    My special variety eggplants in pots are incredible this year. This morning they were about 18 inches high and have huge healthy leaves. I can't wait for that first purple flower!

  • 19 years ago

    Wow, mine's teensy compared to most of yours! Our veggie garden is about 20 x 25 this year. The herbs are about 3 wide and 50 long (down the side of the house). It looked so big when we started, but seems so tiny now we want to at least double it. We're also considering how best to expand next year so that we can expand again the following year.

    We did make one MAJOR mistake when laying it out this year. We planted everything by the exact measurements the plants asked for, and forgot to leave room for walkways. So as the plants grow, it's getting to be more and more challenging picking what's growing.

    We have corn, beans, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, pumpkins, spaghetti squash, hubbard squash, zucchini, cantelope, 2 kinds of carrots, scallions, beets, and garlic.

  • 19 years ago

    We planted everything by the exact measurements the plants asked for, and forgot to leave room for walkways. So as the plants grow, it's getting to be more and more challenging picking what's growing.

    When you know better, you do better. Now you know better.
    *wink* Gardening is a journey. Every year you learn something new, it's endless. One workaround for efficient use of spacing is plant whatever you want in rows four feet wide (taller plants in the middle). Make sure your pathways are three feet wide. This way you have room to bend down, kneel, etc. Most people can work a four foot wide area from both sides since most people can reach in two feet with their arms.

  • 19 years ago

    The main veggie garden is 40x40 with corn, watermelon, summer squash, chard, beets, beans, peas and bushel gourds. No winter squash this year - have enough frozen from last year to last a very long time.
    There are other pockets of gardens here and there, some mixed in with flowers. These contain asparagus, rhubarb, broccoli, lots of basil, chives, thyme, organo, rosemary, angelica, orach, peppers, tomatoes, and a very contained mint. Plus there's gooseberries, apples, cherries and plums. I don't really know how much room these all take up. I have an acre and it's spread all over.

  • 19 years ago

    OK, a little trial and error taught me how to post photos directly.
    Here is my garden in late April when it still looked like a huge expanse of dirt. You can barely see some seedlings and of course my marker stakes.

    {{gwi:80910}}

    And my special behind the house garden in late May. By mid July it will be a productive jungle!

    {{gwi:80911}}

    and then about 2 weeks ago as things begin to take off.

    {{gwi:80912}}

  • 19 years ago

    All the pics of the gardens are very nice! Good luck. I always enjoy looking at the pics. as they always give me lots of new ideas. :)

  • 19 years ago

    Me too, after seeing ardnek710's photos I realize that I'm not the only one who uses containers in the garden, and I went to WalMart and grabbed the last of the pots that match mine. Tonight I'm going to transplant the extra bell peppers that I stuck in a corner and move the herbs somewhere else to give the peppers the prime mediterranean microclimate too!

  • 19 years ago

    HARVEST HUNT Wow, mine's teensy compared to most of yours! Our veggie garden is about 20 x 25 this year. The herbs are about 3 wide and 50 long (down the side of the house). It looked so big when we started, but seems so tiny now we want to at least double it. We're also considering how best to expand next year so that we can expand again the following year.

    Now you can really walk IN your garden!!!LOLdont worry about miscues just enjoy what you do have!!!

  • 19 years ago

    Wow, your gardens all look so pretty. Ours isn't as pretty, but it works. Our original garden is about 15' wide and 50-something' long. We "outgrew" it so this year we added 2 more: one on one side of the deck for squash, cucumbers and Brussels sprouts and on the other side of the deck is tomatoes. Here is our main garden last month:

    {{gwi:80913}}

    The board is so we can drag the hose all the way through without hitting anything.

    The garden is growing; we picked peas and green beans this weekend. Yummy!! But if it doesn't start raining more, the corn isn't going to make. No matter how much we water with the hose it just isn't as happy as when it rains.

  • 19 years ago

    Man... I sure am glad, I can't find my Digi camera. Everyone's garden looks fantastic compared to mine... Y'all be laughing if you saw what mine looked like.

  • 19 years ago

    I have/had: garlic, swiss chard, watermelon, muskmelon, onions, around 35 tomato plants, african basil, beans, peas, and one Atlantic Giant pumpkin plant. This fall I'll put more peas in, as well as mustard and probably some bok choi. The plot is 73x25 feet.

    Abby

  • 19 years ago

    I'm using a small area of the plot for the first year. The total for veg. is 600 sq.meters/6450 sq.feet. I had until last weekÂs storm, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce; still have: a grape vine, a few sunflowers that the wind didnÂt damage, mache, strawberries, carrots, and some herbs. Currently in pots to plant in the garden, IÂm growing seedlings of: lettuce, beans, peas for the fall, chard and pumpkins.

    Carol

  • 19 years ago

    ediej1209, your garden looks very picturesque, I like it.

  • 19 years ago

    Thanks Carol. The wild daisies growing alongside it drive my DH nuts because I won't let him cut them down, but I think they add "character"! You can just barely see the netting we have had to put up since the rabbits discovered the Chard. I'm so sorry to hear about your storm damage. Isn't that just heart-breaking, to go to such work just to have it gone in an instant?

  • 19 years ago

    I have two raised beds. One is 5' x 7' and has 4 tomato plants, eight pepper and two zucchini (Big Mistake).
    The second bed is 2' x 6' and has 2 zucchini and 2 summer squash (BIGGER MISTAKE!) as well as three brussel sprout, I had to move the 3 swiss chard to pots (they were being consumed by the squash). I have an inground figtree and one in a pot, plus three bluberry bushes and one unproductive gooseberry. The yard is mixed with assorted roses, hydrangea, clematis, daisies, foxglove, lillies and assorted annuals. It's a bit of a jungle!
    Then I have Earth Boxes. Two tomatoes per box, cucumbers in another. 3 large pots with cherry tomatoes, one pot with two pepper plants, and the potted swiss chard.
    I do not know what I was thinking when I planted the squash!!! Oh well, everything seems happy so far...every year is a learning experience.

  • 19 years ago

    This is my first year at this house and with a garden. I have 2 raised beds, 4 x 8. I have overplanted to the extreme. Mostly because I was using 5 year old seed which I wasn't sure would produce. They all did though. I have about 5 Tomato plants with another 4 volunteers. 4 tomatillos, a bunch of sweet pepers, beets, 4 vatiety of zuccini, 2 pumpkin, and 3 water mellon, 1 honeydew, and some asian melons. I also have some huckleberries, and other volunteer beans and lettice. I have the tall plants between the vines and the vines are at the sides so I can train them over the sides into the yard since there is no room in the bed for them.

    So basically I have a jungle and the pumkins are in the lead. I think next rear I can plan a little better.