How much can you grow in a small garden?

[Amaranth]

How about a growing challenge for the 2016 season to see how much we can grow in a small garden? If you have a large garden that's fine. You can just designate a portion of the space.

If you would like to join in, what size garden would you like us to choose?

Usually one of these is easiest, especially if people want to use raised beds or data from Square Foot Gardening or Jeavons's books.
4x4'
4x8'
4x12'
100 square feet of bed space (such as 4x25' but lots of others work)
A deep salad table
An earthbox

Another helpful part to the challenge would be to have at least 5-10 different food items being grown. The number would depend on which size we chose.

We could have a lot of fun seeing how well we could do with this!:cool:

[CathyA]

I have a large garden and have gone to all trellises and raised stock tanks for all my stuff.
But........if I only had a small space, I would do a lot of vertical growing. And I would probably grow other things around the bases of those trellises.

[razz]

I am in with a 16x3.5 foot small garden. i am starting some of my seeds today like tomatoes, leeks parsley plus flowers like asters which need 6-8 weeks before last frost date which is 3rd week of may here

[Rogar]

I read the book on "square foot gardening" and followed the instructions for Mel's magic soil mix, which was slightly pricey. So my raised bed is 4x4 feet and 10 inches deep divided into a grid of 16 square foot plots. I also have a small open garden space and some things seem to grow better there or take up a lot of space like squash, but the little square foot garden is amazingly productive. I have a vertical frame with gardener's netting on one end of the raised garden to support peas or tomatoes, which do very well.

[Gardnr]

Mine is all garden boxes.

1. 3x12
2. 3x40
3. 3x14
4. 3x12
5. 3x12-long term strawberry be
6. 3x14
7. 3x14
8. 2x20

We have a wonderful blackberry patch planted years ago. It is dying off d/t neighbor tree getting to big and shading. They don't want me to trim to the fence. Since we are both her for life, I dont' want to piss them off. So the patch will continue to die. We might have gotten 2 cups last year. Makes me sick. We invested nearly $200 in organic thornless canes to start it about 7? years ago. I'm sick. We should be getting gallons.

It sounds like alot when I write it out. It was all hubby and I could do to put up the harvest last fall. It came on late and sudden. Started with 27 tomato plants. I love putting up ratatouille in the freezer and we made 60pints of salsa and 12pints of tomato sauce.

I kept records of production in 2015 so I can compare year to year.

I'm excited to see what we get this year.

If anyone has advice for onions, I'm open to trying anything. It is ridiculous that I cannot grow them. I have the greenest thumbs in the 'hood:)
1 bed was all beets and carrots and we got nothing.
1 bed was leeks and onions-I planted sets. We got tiny 1" onions. I have FAILED miserably with onions. I don't get it. They are supposed to be a no brainer???
The 2x20 was squash. Near fail. Perhaps 6 squash total.

My local organic nursery advised chicken compost. Let it settle in for 3 weeks and then till. This is my worst harvest ever. what went wrong? Compost too hot? Tilling big mistake? I haven't tilled in years as I understand that ruins the biome system soil builds naturally.

Sheesh, a few paragraphs disappeared.

If anyone has advice on growing onions, I'm open. i cant' stand that I cannot accomplish this. I have the greenest thumbs in the 'hood:)

i would love to hear YOUR garden plans.

[Gardnr]

By the way.... I planted 2 tomatillos. I wanted 12 pints of salsa verde. What did we get? 40 pounds of tomatillos. 24 quarts of salsa plus what we cooked and ate fresh.

Our best harvest of all!!!!!

[lessisbest]

You can find gardening charts on-line. Something similar to this: http://www.yourgardensolution.org/how-much-can-you-grow/ Check out the "Square Foot Gardening" book from the garden for more ideas (http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/). A meeting with the County Extension Horticulture Agent or a Master Gardener could also be helpful. They will have all kinds of free hand-outs.

[Birdie]

I have five 4 x 8 beds for vegetables and separate beds ir half barrels for strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, herbs and asparagus.

Gardnr, chicken manure is higher in nitrogen than other manures and 3 weeks in the soil before planting should be plenty of time (we recommend two weeks). You might try doing a soil test to see if your soil needs something more or less. In the Master gardener demonstration garden, we test the soil every couple of years. There are soil test kits for about $20, that can do a number of tests.

Onions.....if you are talking about bulbing onions not green onions, here you go. In CA, we start the seeds in August and transplant in October. There are short day, intermediate day and long day and you plant the variety that grows in your part of the US. We did a trial with all three and short and intermediate did well, long day bolted too early. Our onion expert recommends not using those small bulbs, which are grown, chilled to stop growth, and then available for sale. He says that the onion bulbs think they are second season onions and bolt early.

We fertilized the onions twice in early and late spring and harvested them in June, We cut the water back as soon as the necks started bending, then we bent all the necks over and let the onions start to dry. I think we kept them in the ground for a couple weeks and then pulled them up, laid them on the mulch and let them cure. They are like garlic here, they take a LONG time and tie up a bed. I prefer to grow more quick vegetables in my garden.

This spring I will plant 10 different varieties of tomatoes, 2 or 3 different eggplant and 3 varieties of winter squash. Also 2 zucchini plants. I eat fresh tomatoes all summer and freeze and use them in the winter for soups or chili. I do donate to a local food bank also.

I second the suggestion to contact your local Master gardeners or look for their website. The most important thing with vegetable gardening is to improve your soil so it feeds the vegetables (which are heavy nitrogen feeders) and plant the appropriate crops at the right time. We have a planting chart that we give to people so they plant the right things at the right time. It depends on where you live, your climate and conditions.

If I were you, I would speak again to your neighbors and mention the loss of berries because of their plants. See if they are willing to do something to prevent you being impacted. Good luck, maybe they will be willing to work with you.

[Gardnr]

If I were you, I would speak again to your neighbors and mention the loss of berries because of their plants. See if they are willing to do something to prevent you being impacted. Good luck, maybe they will be willing to work with you.

He is admant the tree will stay and not be severly pruned on one side. He had it "thinned" last year (hubby agreed to pay half). Still full shade. And it's only going to get bigger. It's a beautiful tree but planted inches inside the fence. It sucks for us but I'm not going to make them totally mad and hack it away.

[CathyA]

Long ago, when we lived in a condo and had a tiny yard, I planted pole beans up a teepee-like trellis and grew cucumbers in a whiskey barrel that had a small trellis up it. I planted some tomatoes in the ground. It was great........but the Neighborhood Association didn't like it. :( I think once you figure things out, you can get quite a lot of produce. Good luck!