Reader Help: How to Make My Garden Grow

by Caitlin

Gardening and I have a long history. We always had a garden growing up, and I have clear memories of picking bowls of green beans and tomatoes for dinner. Is there anything like the smell of tomato leaves and dirt on a hot summer evening? I want that back in my life.

My parents were known to make us baby food from what they had in their garden, and when we got older I remember being allowed to help decide what to grow. One particular summer I took a special interest in the cucumbers and watermelons. The cucumbers did great. The watermelons, however, proved a lot of fun to squish between my thumb or forefinger when they were the size of small gumballs, and thus never had a chance to grow into anything edible. You win some, you lose some.

In my many apartments over the years since college I've tried my hand at container gardening, with some successes and some failures. Mostly failures. Basil likes me okay. Tomatoes sort of put up with me. And everything else generally turns out to be a stubborn, dying waste of time and hope.

When my husband and I moved into our house in the summer of 2009 we were SO looking forward to finally having a proper garden. Shortly after we moved in we lovingly out together some garden beds. We clasped our little hippie hands in glee and our eyes misted over while we dreamed of piles of beautiful produce, and benevolent bushels of tomatoes and zucchini given to our friends. No! Please! Another tomato, why I couldn't! Here, take this beautiful, hand-woven basket of heirloom goodness. 

Yeah, here's how that turned out:

 

Photo from allthingschristmasnigeriainnerpages.blogspot.com which...okay.

Of the three summers we've spent in this house, we've only planted a full garden during one of them. (Why are summers so BUSY?) Generally, our herbs have done well. We've found it best to keep them in pots on the deck, else they take over the whole garden: Our basil is the size of a shrub, our rosemary is almost three feet tall, and I'm going to reconsider using oregano as ground cover and lemongrass as filler for the flower beds (Yes, we're still getting fresh herbs in Virginia in February. This insanely mild winter is, well, insane.).

Alas, chard didn't grow past the baby leaf stage and by the time we realized it wasn't going to grow, it was bitter and tough. Tomatoes? We grew four or five different kinds and the only ones to turn red were the baby/cherry tomatoes. And they turned red about 4 at a time. If you have a great recipe that calls for four cherry tomatoes I'd LOVE to have it! Nothing else really turned out, and then we were out of room. Perhaps we need more beds.

The other issue is that there is a rogue band of squirrels living in our neighborhood. I like to imagine them in teeny leather jackets and dark RayBans, prowling the streets at dusk, snapping their fingers in unison, and maybe engaging in a dance fight a local gang of raccoons. They're especially fond of climbing our peach tree, picking the most beautifully ripe piece of fruit they can find, climbing the stairs to our deck, and eating it in front of the doors to our kitchen, while flipping us the bird. If we're not around to watch, they just make sure to leave on our deck a lucious peach with one squirrel-sized nibble removed from it. They're also sure to nip buds and fruits off the plants in our garden beds.

So, dear readers, with all this in mind, I need some help. I really want to successfully grow a garden this summer. Zach and I go through a lot of produce, and it would be a really rewarding thing to be able to grow the things we love to eat in our own yard, and I see it being a hobby I could get into. Do you have a favorite gardening reference - whether a book, a podcast, a wbesite, anything - for beginner garnders? Do you have a recommendation for a place to order or purchase heirloom organic seeds that are wholly untouched by Monsanto's slimy, bioengineered arms?

Any tips on how to keep saucy little squirrels out of your garden and away from your peach tree? I'm worried that the only viable solution is building a chicken wire cage over the beds, which sounds expensive and annoying.

Vegetables we're interested in growing and/or eat a lot of that we'd love to pick freshly out of our own garden: broccoli (so much broccoli. So very much broccoli. It's in my top 5 foods.), asparagus (I know it takes four years, which is why I wish 2009 Caitlin had planted it), potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, zucchini, sugar snap peas, kale, chard.

Do you have any words of wisdom you'd like to share about growing the above? And tell me, what are you planning to grow in your garden this summer?

Comments

[PomJob]

Squirrels are the bastard children of the devil and someone else really evil. I think they take delight in showing off their carnage, as my tomatoes and eggplants could attest, if they weren't destroyed. Stupid squirrels. If you figure something out, please share.

[Rebecca (Bearca)]

I have basically zero advice for you on this, because I abandoned gardening when my ONE tomato plan was ravaged by the largest rats I've ever seen, and I really haven't recovered.

Oh, also, if there is a better smell than tomato plants in the summertime, I sure don't know what it is. THE BEST.

[Kate]

This is too funny; it's like we're living parallel lives or something. I have no gardening advice because we have had the exact same troubles. Amazing herbs, crap veggies, YEAR AFTER YEAR. A couple of years ago, we got about 5 of the toughest skinned, tartest cherry tomatoes to ever grow. We moved on to beefsteak tomatoes and got a ton, but the skins split and they stopped growing at approximately golf ball size. Tons of zucchini flowers, no zucchini. The only plants I can't kill are parsley, basil, chives, and arugula. I think this year I should probably just take the garden money and get to know my local farmers market vendors instead.

[Elissa]

We had some success with our garden last year. I think the keys were:

1) building raised beds to fill with a mix of purchased topsoil and leafgro (the naturally occurring soil in our yard is kind of clay-ey). There are online tutorials for how to build a raised bed--if you or your husband are handy it's not too difficult.

2) finding a spot with adequate sun. You will not get great tomatoes unless they are getting at least 4 hours a day of direct sun, preferably more.

3) fencing. We have some squirrels, but deer are the biggest pest for gardens in our neighborhood. My husband rigged a 7 foot tall fence around our raised beds using some poles from Home Depot, some plastic mesh deer fencing, and zip ties. This worked to keep out all of the deer and most of the squirrels.

4) using seedlings from the farmer's market (rather than our local nursery). The tomatoes and greens that did the best for us came from New Morning Farm, which has a stand at the farmer's market near my office.

Good luck--hope it goes better this year!

[Duncan Hannah]

hello, this is Caitlin's Dad. I can't tell you how to be a successful gardener but I can solve some specific problems for you.

cutworms: little bugs that get into tomato plant stems and kill them from the inside out. buy Trpicana OJ in the 12 oz frozen plastic container. use the concentrate to make orange juice and drink it. tastes good with vodka, Svedka if I recall the posts correctly. the important part is 'don't throw out the container'. cut the bottom off, leaving a tube about 2inches in diameter. cut that in half so that you have 2 shorter tubes. Sink those into the dirt and plant the seedlings in the middle. cutworms enter through the roots and by the time they chew through the tough plastic, you're nicely besotted and the tomatoes are doing fine.

deer, rabbits, squirrels, and raccoons: Buy a dog. we had no problems at all until Shelby died, and then the rodents moved in. My sister raises dogs and sends us bags of dog hair to put around the garden. Works pretty well but does not involve any cocktails. cutworms are still my favorite...