Hi, first of all, grow what you (or your husband) like to eat.

Don't start too big. It's easy to think too big and end up with too much
for an inexperienced gardener to deal with. It ends up being more work
than fun and/or a big weedy mess.

On the other hand, I have seen people dig up a little 8 x 8 foot area
and think they can grow everything in that space. I watched my wife's
cousin do this and he then decided he must have bad soil or something.
What really went wrong was that he had enough planted in there to fill a
20 x 20 foot garden. Everything thing "looked" fine in June but by July
the plants were crowded and none of them had the room they needed to
produce anything. Follow the spacing recommended on the seed pack or in
books and don't stick in extras because you have seeds or plants left over.

Corn is fun but it uses up a lot of space. I grew a garden for several
years and claimed I would never grow corn because I didn't have the
space. I like corn, and now over half the garden goes to corn. If you
grow corn, remember it is a grass and needs lots of nitrogen to do its
best. I actually side dress with lawn fertilizer when the plants get a
foot tall or so. (Doing that with tomatoes would be a big mistake).
I now have a garden in 2 corners of the yard. One garden is just for
corn and pumpkins. In that garden I plant the earlier corn and plant it
a little sparse so I can plant pumpkins in with it. The early corn is
done and drying up when the pumpkins are sizing up and getting ready to
ripen. I like the combination.

Steve
By the way, say hi to Dorothy and Toto for me.


Auntie Em wrote:

This coming season I will be planting my "first ever" garden! And
boy, am *I* excited.

Despite the fact that I will be also turning 50 next year, my
lifestyle has been such (until now) that I wasn't able to realize my
dream of having a garden.

The problem NOW is - Holy smoke! What do I plant? Sadly, I am not a
big vegtable eater so after carrots, radishes, peas, corn, tomatoes
(for my husband) and pumpkins (for halloween!!!), I am "fresh" out of
ideas.

Tell me what YOU grow in your garden to give me some ideas guys, won't
you?

Thanks in advance.

Em
Be careful what you wish for....