Garden Starting. What to do?

Discussion in 'Plant Propagation' started by Mirek, Mar 4, 2008.

  1. Mirek

    Mirek Member

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    Location:
    Brantford, CANADA
    I am very anxious on starting my garden this year. I am just worried about when to start my tomato plants and other vegetables indoors from seeds. I am in southern Ontario, and i do believe that our ground gets nice around the May24 weekend. I don't know, Maybe May1st? I just went to my local grocery store and picked up a few seed packs.

    Cucumber - Earliest Mincu
    Carrot - Tenderlong Imperator
    Spinach - Long Standing Bloomsdale
    Beet - Detroit Dark Red
    Tomato - Bush Beefsteak
    Tomato - Big Beef Hybrid

    I also have bought some herb seeds that i will grow indoors all year round. My plan is to build a few raised beds and separate certain vegetables. i will probably build 4 beds.

    eg.
    1st raised bed for tomato's only (to make tomato sauce in the fall hopefully)
    2nd raised bed for taproot vegetables, carrots, beets, onions, potato's?
    3rd raised bed for cucumbers, and ... pumpkins? what can i put with cucumbers?
    4th raised bed for spinach, lettuce, green onion

    i would probably make the bed 8' x 8' or 8' x 6' or 8' x 4' i don't know yet. i've never made raised beds yet, but it looks and seems practical and easy to maintain. (as seen on gardengirltv.com)

    I guess once i've finished making the beds, i have to decide what type of medium to put in them. I was thinking Triple-mix topsoil. Maybe mixed with peat moss? Does anyone know what would be the best to use for raised beds?

    I hope someone can help me out to make a good garden this year.

    Thanks

    Mirek
     
  2. Anne58

    Anne58 Active Member

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    Location:
    Burnaby, BC
    Hi Mirek,

    Dheck out the posts by Durgan in the Vegetable section. He also lives in the Brantford area so should be able to offer advise that will be appropriate to your area

    Anne
     
  3. richardbeasley@comcast.net

    richardbeasley@comcast.net Active Member Maple Society

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    Location:
    Piedmont Virginia
    The over use of peat has a tendency to make the soil too acidic for tomatoes. I would use humate, it is superior to peat moss for building soil structure and it is composted of a vast reservoir of essential nutrients. To improve your biomass you could use leaf mold, compost or anything other then peat moss. It takes years to build good soil, but humate will give you a major short cut. All of your vegetables will be much sweeter, and have a greater nutrient content plus higher yields. Ph for tomatoes is 6.5 to 6.8. spinach and the rest are at 6.8 to 7.2. Tomatoes set fruit at temp above 14 degrees. These pH recommendations are what myself find to be generally true some may differ. I am absolutely sure of my comments on humate. I tried to give you a link about humate from someone that did not sell it, but those articles were hard to understand so I had to use this one. This is a excellent product anyways.
     
  4. lhuget

    lhuget Active Member

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    Location:
    Calgary, Alberta, Canada Zone 3a
    DEFINITELY check out Durgan for your area. Why/what herbs indoors? I built a circular stackstone herb/greens bed. Only takes 8 feet in diameter but amazing what you can grow and your zone is hardier so you can winter over more than I can. I divided each level into 8 sections with plastic edging so I could create the soil needs for each herb ie. loam, sand/grit etc. I have 2 levels and use the height from the 2nd level to push the zonal envelop on the first level through winter. If you use light coloured stack stone or local stone it absorbs alot of heat from the sun so you will have an earlier and later season in that "spot" than you will in the rest of your garden. I'm in my 5th year with this method. Just a suggestion as outdoor herb plantings are way less maintenance in my opinion and you're in a great climate to do it easily. In the fall, after I've harvested for drying I let them finally go to seed so you get a wonderful late fall flower garden too.



    Les
    A Herbie
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2008
  5. lhuget

    lhuget Active Member

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    Location:
    Calgary, Alberta, Canada Zone 3a
    In the same loam space I mix my herbs with greens: bacolie (sp?). romaine, kale, butter-crunch lettuce, and a mesclin mix. Note: I've done the mesciline mix in with sage in sand/grit/loam with great results.

    ps this was supposed to be an edit but I obviously didn't do it right. oh sigh the trials and tribulations of a non-techie (blush)
     

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