Question: I need help. My son, Matt and I want to plant a garden. Neither of us have ever done this before. Where do we start and what to do?
Answer: The foundation is the most important part of any venture whether it is your house, your health or your garden. That is where we will start when planning the vegetable garden which actually can be applied to a flower garden, also.
STEP 1: The first thing you want to do is take a soil sample of the area you want to have as your garden. Go to 3-5 spots to fill up a quart ziploc bag which should be about 1 pound of soil. Take that to your County Extension office and they will send it off to determine exactly how much fertilizer and lime might be needed to have a prosperous garden. I don’t advise a soil test kit because it will not tell you how much fertilizer and lime needs to be applied.
STEP 2: While that is taking place, look at the area and see how full of weeds it is. If you can catch a warm day, I would take the generic Roundup which doesn’t transpose into the soil, spray all the weeds and grasses, wait 7 days then till that under.
STEP 3: When you are tilling that under, get a bag of Treflan to till in at the same time which will keep any weed seeds from germinating. Doing this will definitely cut down on the hoeing time!
Treflan is recommended around these vegetables:
Before Seeding:
Carrots, Okra, Southern Peas (cow peas), field peas, black-eyed pears, lima beans and snap beans.Before Transplanting:
Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, peppers and tomatoes.After Transplanting:
Irish potatoes
This will be a great start to building a strong foundation for your garden; soil sample, kill present weeds and then apply Treflan to deter weed seeds from germinating. Now all you have to do is decide what you want to plant and plan out the next phase of the garden.
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