This is my first garden on my own. I would like to plant chives, radishes, and possibly tomatoes. My problem is: where do i begin after I prepare the ground and get the seeds, or are seedlings the best way to go? When is the best time to plant these items? Thanks for all the feed back...much appreciated!:)
Where Do I Begin on Planting a Garden
Check for last frost date:
http://www.victoryseeds.com/frost/
and click on what is your states?
It tell the first or last frost date...
Thank you for the reply, Rusty56. I really appreciate it, and I've all ready checked.
I do not know about radishes, but I would go with seedlings on most things. Look for a bright fresh looking green on the chives. Look for nice stocky tomato seedlings with the leaves growing closely together. When you plant tomatoes you want to plant them as deeply as possible, even up to the second set of leaves. They will grow new roots all along the stem which will enable the plant to better feed itself. Have fun with your new garden! :^)
Can I use the chives from a local grocery store to start growing? Is there anyone from Iowa that is willing to offer advice?
Hi Jon and welcome to DG. First off, let me suggest you go into your "My Info" options and then select "Location" and update your USDA Hardiness zone. Looks like you still have the default of 2a showing up. Iowa is 4b or 5a (a few locations are 4a). It helps ppl on here alot to know the zone you're in and there's a big difference between 2a and 5a. Once you're at the Location section there's a link to check your zone on a map.
Unfortunately, I'm not able to give much advice on veggie gardening. Starting my own first one this year as well. Maybe we can learn together. There is a forum just for Veggie Gardening you might want to check out......
http://davesgarden.com/forums/f/b_veggies/ (Beginner forum)
http://davesgarden.com/forums/f/yumyum/ (more advanced forum)
and then there's some special forums like Tomatoes ( http://davesgarden.com/forums/f/tomatoes/ ).
Good luck on your garden. Hope to see you around the forums.
Brenda
P.S. If you haven't already, take the DG tour (link at bottom of every page).
Oh and to answer your chives question......
I picked up some small chive, basil, spearmint, rosemary and parsley plants at a local garden center. Potted them up and away they went! Very easy. If you put them in pots you can also grown them inside in the winter for fresh herbs.
Tomato plants are out now in the garden centers. Radishes (I think) are cool season crops so not sure if it's time in your area for them or not. Here in Kansas City we would start those earlier in the season.
Radishes are easy to do. Start with the seeds and they come up pretty quickly. For some reason I can't seem to get the computer to cooperate lately with adding pics but I've been picking a BUNCH of radishes from my garden all ready. They like the cold weather so you can start them pretty early. They'll even do fine with a lite frost.
You can sow the radishes seeds now and put like cold frame will heat up fast...
Chives are perennials; if it were me I'd buy plants and put them into the rose bed, where they will repel June bugs and aphids and not be disturbed by my grubbing around the annuals. You will need chive plants with their roots; if the grocery store sells them like that it should work.
Radishes, as mmistyrose says, are easy to grow from seed; they may take 3-4 weeks from sprouting to eating. The hotter the weather the hotter the radish, though, so you will want to sow in spring and fall and save the summer sprouts for practical jokes.
Tomatoes are tropical annuals, so I'd get the plants and put them in the ground well after the last frost date. Tomato plants will die at 34 degrees, they don't even need frost. When I lived in WI the traditional date to plant them was Memorial Day. When Labor Day comes around ask and I'll give you a great recipe for fried green tomatoes!
As several people have already noted, chives will come back every year, so pick a spot where you can leave them planted permanently. You ought to be able to find small starter pots of chives at one of your local gaden centers, and you can plant them now. (The sooner, the better, in fact - planting now will give the chives plenty of time to become well established before the summer heat sets in, and they can easily handle a light frost).
Radishes you sow directly from seed, and they like cool weather, so hurry up and get them planted now. You'll want to put something else in that spot during the hot summer months (perhaps a leaf lettuce?), but can plant another crop of radishes in late summer for a fall crop.
You'll want to get your tomato plants from the garden center (it's too late to start your own from seed). They also can be planted now with reasonable safety, as most of Iowa is past the average last frost date; if you want to be 100% safe, plant on Memorial Day weekend. Be sure to rig up some good sturdy support systems for your plants; the puny tomato cages sold at most garden centers simply aren't tall enough to do the job well.
Have fun!
Hey Jon, next year you'll have to come down to CR to the Iowa Dave's Garden Roundup! you'll meet a bunch of neat people and go home with a ton of plants! :)
Seems, most everybody here has given you great advice. Better, than me, cause all I ever grow for veggies is tomatoes and green peppers, and my husband does most of that. :)
Diann
I wouldn't recommend the cold frame for the radishes. They really do like the cooler weather and I think the frame would heat it up too much.
I was trying to add a pic of my 2nd haul of radishes but can't seem to get it to load for some reason.....oh well.....
have fun with your garden Ticker!
Misty - I noticed that I'm not able to post large file size pics anymore....so now I resize all mine to 800x600. Use to be that I could upload them straight off the camera.
ok...let's see if this will work. Hopefully ya'll will be able to see some radishes....hahahaha
Yummmmmm!
My dad would be drooling right about now. He loves them!! lol
they were pretty good actually....not too hot and not blah at all! The 2 that are at the bottom of the pic....I had to laugh at those when I pulled them. the one I saw kinda peeking up from the dirt and knew it was big enough to pull....but when I did it was HUGE! And the green on the top wasn't very much...but the one next to it was a pretty tall plant so I pulled it thinking the radish should be a pretty good size and it was way small. So the differences between the 2 were pretty amusing.
I'm also attaching a pic of my tomatoes. The hanging ones are cherry tomatoes (only 1 in the pic but there are 3 total)
mmisty ~ how do you like those red tomato collars? Is that what they're called? I read red is good for tomatoes, but can't remember why....more energy or something?
This is my 1st yr trying those as well as the topsy turvy planters (at the top of the pic). I'll have to let you know how they work. So far so good. I like that they cover enough ground that it cuts down on weeding! hahahaha And it's designed to deep water the plants but I know that you can put a plastic bucket into the ground with holes drilled in it to help deep water also....inexpensive and it works. The red collars weren't too expensive either and I also heard that red was supposed to help stimulate tomato production. I have T-posts set up with string to help with the vines so they aren't all over. The size of these collars don't really allow for the traditional round cages. I got these collars from the country store on line.
oh...they're called Tomato Boosters
This message was edited May 25, 2007 9:17 AM