Getting ready for veggie gardening season 2010

When I lived at home I use to grow tomatoes, mexican wax, habanero and green peppers as staples.

Would like to try eggplant sometime.

As for Ohio soil I hear it has a lot of clay or sandy so my green thumb is less green now due to the soil changes. Would like to try growing pumpkins up here.

we did two raised boxes this year, and the new fill dirt was so helpful we ended up harvesting several weeks before our neighbors. We're planning on adding a third box next year.

We had some problems with our greens & cauliflower (basically we were off on harvesting time) but had incredible luck with hot peppers, green peppers, tomatoes and herbs. I'm looking forward to trying more varieties of squashes and hot peppers next year.

Dino, I'm really impressed you start from seed. We're pretty lazy when it comes to this, and just buy all our plants at the andersons in the spring. Do you have any sort of green house or window box for the starters?

upso, I have enjoyed growing from seed for a few years now...I guess I enjoy and appreciate the process as much as the end means. I have had the benefit of south facing windows so I can start seeds indoors and also have had the help of a mini greenhouse that I used as early as April. What really helps to start seeds is a heat/propagation mat.

I've been told I bleed chlorophyl, but I havn't done veggies for years. I've been specializing in ornamental plants and landscape design. Anywho, you sure should talk to the OSU Extension satellite office on Bancroft near Toledo Botanical Gardens. The local office won a State award for their Victory Garden lecture series. It's a teriffic free program just folks like you.

http://victoryinthegarden.osu.edu/

I started lettuce, peas, and peppers from seed in a upstairs sunporch. The lettuce was fantastic, I'll space out seeding and planting next year so we can have lettuce all summer. The chipmunks ate my peas. Peppers and beans were great and kept coming until the first hard frost. Home compost is my secret.

I pick up my plants from the local green house. I've just been doing tomatoes and egg plants the last few years, but this year my cherry tomatoes went nuts and I couldn't stand them anymore. Though strangely they're sounding good again.

I'd just throw them in a bowl with a teaspoon of olive oil, a little sea salt and fresh ground pepper and that would be a side at almost every dinner. The kids loved it.

The egg plant, I'd take most of the skin off, slice them half inch think, dab them with a little EVOO, garlic salt and season salt and then throw them on the grille. Once done and they're on the serving tray I'd sprinkle a little parmesan cheese on them. Even people who didn’t like egg plant loved it.

I used to do zucchini, but I just couldn’t give them away or eat enough of them and felt bad throwing them away. You’d go out one day and have a 4in long zucchini and if you checked on it two days later it would have gotten to the size of a new born baby.

Next year I want to do potatoes, I just need to learn how to store them.

Great information from everyone...Thank You !!

I would love to grow my own corn, but I haven't been successful yet. Any tips on growing locally?
Thanks

Check this out Hockeyfan, http://greenurbanliving-janet.blogspot.com/2009/11/im-growing-corn-like-north-american.html...I will do this method if we grow corn.

For dino's link just remove the ...I and it'll work.

We tried our first garden ever last year and had some success and some failures. Most of what we tried was from seed: tomatoes, broccoli, bush beans, sugar snap peas, and watermelon and baby carrots. We also bought just one zucchini plant and one cucumber plant. Successes were the sugar snaps, bush beans, carrots. The watermelon vines took over half of our small backyard, so if we plant them again we'll try to trellis them. We had about five good melons. We left the last two on until a cold evening in October and they were definitely the sweetest. (And pre-chilled!)

Our tomatoes were not successful. Next year, we'll start from plants. Also, I want to grow grape tomatoes and since they're hybrids, it's not recommended to try to start them from seed. We had a couple of good cucumbers and one zucchini before they just up and died. Our broccoli was attacked by cabbage moth and even though it seemed to recover, it took forever to grow so we ended up pulling it out.

If I can get my boyfriend to build the boxes, we're going to try the Square Foot Gardening method next year. We have a tiny yard, so I want to pack as much into it as I can!

Thnaks agin for the info..here are some of the great suggestions so far...Upso, I made two raised beds out of cedar and they worked great also. Mary that cooks alot, thanks for stressing compost...can you please inform me on the easiest way to compost, especially in this weather? valbee, thanks for the link. and also don't forget, growing a garden with different kinds of everything helps with pest control (not to mention the plants that can be grow to bring beneficial insects into a setting)...and what about introducing earth worms to your soil/compost? Anyone use rain barrels before?

You asked about compost. I just use a bin made of three stackable walls and a lid. It's open on the bottom. Put all your kitchen scrap in it: egg shells, coffe grounds, veg. scrapings,no meat (meat gets stinky and attracts animals). Keep a pile of leaves around and throw some of those in from time to time. Use a pitchfork to stir it up. I turn over the whole pile twice a year. We keep it up all winter. In the spring when the weather warms up, just turn it all over and maybe add some regular lawn fertilizer. In the fall, I take a bunch of lovely dirt out and spread it on the veg. garden, with a layer of leaves on top. Perfect soil in the spring. As a bonus, a compost pile REALLY reduces the amount of garbage you'll put out.