How do you pick just a few?

[loopyloo]

That is my problem too. How can you pick? We pick what we will eat first of all. We also try to get things that we can store, can, dehydrate, or trade. If it is cheap and easy to get at the store I usually dont grow those things. We have limited space for things so I feel like I need to be somewhat selective. Id love to grow corn but we just dont have the room.

Every year we grow tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and cucumbers. We also fit in things were we can. I love to do a row of beets in the front of my garden. They end up so pretty and take up very little space. The beet greens are great to eat and we can the beets. The goal of my garden is to offset my food budget as much as I can so that is the first thing I think about when I am deciding what to plant there.

 

[lovinglife]

I have enjoyed mixing veg in with my flowers. One year we planted extra onion sets in my front flower bed, it got a lot of water and I didn't think they would do very good, much to my surprise they did AWESOME I now water my onions every day and they are so very good and just huge. My garlic is along side my grass, I try to not water that as much but it is on our sprinkler system, I just don't water every day there. I am lucky I have 3 acres to mess with (and still its packed)...

 

[AndroidGirl89]

I am definitely going to do some tomatoes, maybe some peppers. From there- I still am not sure. I might try some strawberries and salad as well. There are just way too many veggies.

 

[Jessi]

Well, I had to compromise because my boyfriend had his own idea of what we would be planting this year, but we tried sunflowers, carrots, lettuce, corn and broccoli.

How did your sunflowers turn out?

We tried them a few times in the past and they were really hit or miss. One year, they all grew and bloomed beautifully. The following year, they were complete duds and then dried up. We didn't seem to have a crazy summer or do anything different, but it was really disappointing.

 

[Tam]

How do you pick just a few things to plant each year?

I am going to be starting a garden this spring and I have so many things I want to plan. However, I know that I cannot handle too much my first year gardening. So, how do you choose just a few things to plant?

Romaine lettuce is my favorite in the lettuce family. It stays fresh longer, leaf lettuce wilts very fast and spoils quickly. I plant this lettuce every two to three weeks then you have new fresh produce the whole summer. It grows quickly and easy to clean.

 

[Amalia]

Romaine lettuce is my favorite in the lettuce family. It stays fresh longer, leaf lettuce wilts very fast and spoils quickly. I plant this lettuce every two to three weeks then you have new fresh produce the whole summer. It grows quickly and easy to clean.

I agree. I love Romaine lettuce. It tastes great and you can make great salads with it.

 

[AndroidGirl89]

oooh lettuce is a great idea! I love Romaine lettuce- although there are some other kinds I don't like . I'm very picky about the lettuces I eat lol.

 

[Amalia]

I like all types of lettuce. Fortunately I can find it in the market in the winter time.

 

[ChanellG]

Very deliberately, lol. Just keep reminding yourself that all that growing requires a lot of time and effort and is a big responsibility. As long as you remember that it's a huge time management problem with any number of unknown variables to battle (pest problems, disease) you can start small and take your time expanding.

 

[claudine]

I have a very limited space so picking up things to plant is hard because there is so much that I have to give up on . Usually I make a list of my favourite and most useful plants and then I let my boyfriend add some.We plant as many of them as possible .

 

[bellahpereira]

How did your sunflowers turn out?

We tried them a few times in the past and they were really hit or miss. One year, they all grew and bloomed beautifully. The following year, they were complete duds and then dried up. We didn't seem to have a crazy summer or do anything different, but it was really disappointing.

The sunflowers turned out great! We had about 12 that were about 8 feet tall. It was worth waiting all that time to see them grow, although I could have done without the ants and other wildlife they attracted. I couldn't believe the damage all those little ants did to my sunflower leaves though, and the stems! It gave me a pretty big yield of seeds to roast though, so that's always good!

 

[LouisFerdinand]

My grandparents grow tomatoes, beets, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers, celery, carrots, parsley, and onions.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Rather than overload DW with 5 gallon buckets of produce, I am taking the approach of less is more this year. I have not been injecting fertilizers or fungicides or pesticides, and though the production is lower, it costs less in a supply shocked world and is less work out there. This, while.still producing what a kitchen garden should, which is dinner.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I am definitely going to do some tomatoes, maybe some peppers. From there- I still am not sure. I might try some strawberries and salad as well. There are just way too many veggies.

There is no indication where you are, and that can be quite important. This year is very hot and my outdoor tomatoes are doing alright, but most years you would need to be careful about the variety in England. That is another thing, having decided on tomatoes you have to decide which. It is worth growing one cherry type just for the fun of picking and eating as you go past. If you buy a plant for the rest early on you can root the side shoots as you take them off, just putting them in a glass of water does it, but I am told sloppy wet compost does it better.
Most lettuce likes it a bit cool, lamb's lettuce will grow even in winter when there is not much else. I go for Little Gem for my summer lettuce, but again it will depend where you are.
Potatoes are a good first crop, They will take a good bit of fairly raw organic material to improve the soil, they are vigorous enough to suppress most weeds, then you earth them up which has another lot of weeds, and finally you dig them, which mixes all that organic stuff in and leaves the ground pretty clean.
In England I recommend 'runner beans' to beginners, I think they are called 'Lima beans' in the US. They taste so much better fresh, you get a good crop, and beans fix a bit of nitrogen which improves the soil if you leave the roots in. They may not be suitable for all climates, but any sort of climbing bean (Pole bean in US) is going to be a good bet.

Consider what sort of soil you have, and what might improve it, there is nothing so depressing as poor crops when you are starting, and nothing as encouraging as a good one, so pick something to suit your conditions.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

An afterthought on strawberries.
The accepted advice on strawberries is to pick all the flowers off the first year after planting as you will get far more than twice as many the following year. When I have moved to a new garden I have taken runners in pots with me and planted more than I need so I can take the flowers off some and still have some to eat first year, okay if the runners cost you nothing, a bit rough if you are buying them.
Of course if you are in West Sussex or East Kent I could root you some runners, but that's a long chance