Zone 3-5 Gardeners Early 2010

[Teenytoona]

Hey there! Wasn't there a zones 3-5 gardener thread? Want to start one up with me?

I'm in zone 5a, I believe. I'm beginning to start thinking about planning the garden again. I think I'm going to shoot for growing in the garden beds, only direct-sow plants. I don't know if I will be able to start the seedlings like I did last year, and I'm curious as to whether I can even do something like this. I might grow 2 tomato plants in a pot, I don't know. I didn't have a whole lot of success with the tomatoes last year, well, I didn't have success transplanting anything I started indoors last year.

Anyone ever try this?

Also, now that our gardening area has been through one garden season, I notice that much of it is shaded. Meh. Probably should pick a different spot, but it is what it is. I've read that certain cooler temp crops (lettuce, spinach and other greens) might do ok in that sort of area. Any feeedback on that.

One thing I've discovered is that carrots and radishes either really like us or are just easy to grow. Heh.

[AutumnW]

I'm in zone 5 too. Cool weather crops are great for shady areas. You want to make sure they still get some sun at some part of the day though. Carrots are super fun and easy to grow! The only plants I have to either start or buy as plants are tomatoes and peppers, everything else I direct sow. This includes corn, beans, greens, carrots, squash, peas, and melons. For onions you don't need plant starts, just buy the bag of bulb looking onions and not onion seeds and you can direct sow them. Garlic is a direct sow of a bulb, and potatoes are direct sow from a chunk of sprouted potato.

We added a strawberry bed last year and will be starting an asparagus bed as well as 5 fruit trees and 4 berry bushes. I'm pretty excited! Other experiments for this year are a possible bee hive and mushroom log, but I need to look into them more. Yay for garden planning in the middle of winter!!

[Owen'nZoe]

Zone 4 here, and we're a long way off from planting, so I'm trying not to even think about it. I don't start any seeds inside myself - I just am not very good at hardening things off, so it isn't worth it to me. I'll start direct sowing in mid-April hopefully, and buy tomato plants and peppers and such in June. My local nursery was selling tomato plugs for 50 cents each last year - they grew very well, and I was able to buy a dozen for $6 - can't beat that!

Two of my best tomato plants last year, though, were volunteers that I transplanted from my friend's garden. Since they did so well, I might try direct seeding a variety of tomato that I can only find in seed. It may not work, but it is worth a shot.

[Teenytoona]

MW, Oooh, berries! How fun! We have a very sour cherry tree just outside of our property that drops cherries all over the place (bird love it). I keep thinking I should get a ladder and pick some and just try my hand at somethign with them. I reckon enough sugar should make them ok. Other than that and the teeny wild strawberries that grow (wildly) all over the yard, we have no fruits. I'm considering doing blueberries in the front yard with the flower bed, but I'm not sure of the practicality of that.

Sigh, I missed the window for planting garlic. I was so not ready for that.

OnZ I'm not too good at hardening plants either. I did manage to find some shorter season tomatoes in the Bountiful Gardens magazine, I think I will direct sow those. Otherwise my tomatoes and peppers will be farmers market bought. All the tomato starts I bought last year blighted, so I'm trying to keep it to seed only. Plus I want to avoid the Monsanto.

I still haven't bought any seeds or supplies yet. At this stage I'm daydreamin'.

[Ceinwen]

I'm between a zone 4/5 and we have about 5 ft of snow right now and it's -30C

Definitely joining the thread though! It'll give me something to look forward to!

[Big D]

I'm zone 3 so gardening is a loooong way off for me still.
We just moved into this house last spring, but I had DS shortly after and DH had knee surgery after that so we've never planted here. We did get our raised garden beds built last fall, but that's it so far. I'm thinking I will do a "stew garden" (potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, etc), a salad garden (lettuces, spinach, radishes, etc.), an herb garden, and strawberries. I'd also like to put in some raspberry bushes this year.

[Aubergine68]

subbing

zone 3 and I can't even FIND my garden under all this snow right now.


We planted some siberian honeyberry bushes last year, which are supposed to flower and fruit very early here, so that is what I am looking forward to.

Also, this is the year I will successfully grow broccoli, darnit!!!

But that is as far as I have gotten.

Oh, I need to prune a few branches off our apple trees soon.

[yuribird]

If carrots and radishes do well you should try beets and swiss chard. They did really well here and we are zone 5 as well. Has anyone tried raised bed gardens at all? I am hoping to save a little wear and tear to my back. Plus I think it might be easier to keep the weeds at bay if the beds are isolated a bit. Does anyone have some good combinations for mini permaculture beds?

[Rhiannon Feimorgan]

I'm zone 2 (can I crash the party?) so gardening is still a long way off here. I am getting ready to put in an order from my seed catalog though.

Originally Posted by Aubergine68

We planted some siberian honeyberry bushes last year, which are supposed to flower and fruit very early here, so that is what I am looking forward to.

I put in a honeyberry bush last year too. I have a friend who put some in a few years ago and she does get a nice early crop. Even earlier than strawberries. The other nice thing about them is that the berries stay nice on the bush for a long time. It takes them a while to get over ripe so if you're not able to pick them right away they're not lost. I have a saskatoon bush that does well but there is a much smaller window of ripeness.

ETA, this will be the first season to harvest asparagus from the patch I planted when we moved in 3 years ago. I can't wait!

[zensven42]

1

[Owen'nZoe]

Originally Posted by yuribird

If carrots and radishes do well you should try beets and swiss chard. They did really well here and we are zone 5 as well. Has anyone tried raised bed gardens at all? I am hoping to save a little wear and tear to my back. Plus I think it might be easier to keep the weeds at bay if the beds are isolated a bit. Does anyone have some good combinations for mini permaculture beds?

Do you mean perennial beds, or polyculture annual beds that you integrate into a permacultured yard? Gaia's Garden has 2 different options for polyculture beds. From what I remember, they are both heavy on the mustards, though, so if you don't like mustard greens, they might not be very appealing.

[Rhiannon Feimorgan]

Originally Posted by yuribird

If carrots and radishes do well you should try beets and swiss chard. They did really well here and we are zone 5 as well. Has anyone tried raised bed gardens at all? I am hoping to save a little wear and tear to my back. Plus I think it might be easier to keep the weeds at bay if the beds are isolated a bit. Does anyone have some good combinations for mini permaculture beds?

You might want to look into keyhole gardens. This is a video about them being used in Africa. I'm going to try making one this year. They seem like a great idea.

[BedHead]

Zone 3 here. I haven't even thought about my garden yet - I've been concentrating on getting backyard hens this year if my place is chosen as a pilot project site. I do want to expand my tomato plot though, and we're thinking of building some type of stone enclosure to create a mini zone for peppers. We've had zero luck growing peppers so far.

[AutumnW]

Originally Posted by Rhiannon Feimorgan

You might want to look into keyhole gardens. This is a video about them being used in Africa. I'm going to try making one this year. They seem like a great idea.

Those are so super cool! I may have to try one.

[Michaels-Mommy]

Hi! I'm in Zone 3. I am hoping to add some raised beds and blueberry bushes this year. I try to start as many seeds as I can early in the house. I need to get some more lights and a better set up this year though. I canned 50 lbs of tomatoes into sauce this past fall and I just ran out this week. I hope to grow tons of tomatoes this year. I had to buy some last year.

[kdaisy]

Hi from zone 3/4! In the depth of sub-zero weather, I am thinking about my garden and flowers.

Has anyone ever had success (or heard of success) with pear trees?

[spring978]

New to zone 4 I will gardening in 2 zones this year our current zone 6 and the new place in zone 4.

I just ordered all my zone 4 seeds I will put in another order next month for green house items as well.

I ve been looking for old russian varieties but if anyone has recomandations I would love to hear them

[HeatherAtHome]

I'm in zone 4 and excited about starting our first real garden! The thing is, we moved in October 1st and I can hardly remember what the backyard looks like under all this snow! I remember a lot of weeds and a possible swampy area towards the back.

We'll need to put up a good fence because we have so many deer. I have big dreams. I want to enclose a good portion of the backyard, have raised beds towards the front and rows/areas of corn, squash, potatoes at the back. Nice, tall sunflowers along the back fence. In the middle, I want to have a small fire pit and eating/relaxing area. Front right of the garden I want to have a small henhouse (downwind ), front left a storage shed for garden tools (although I might combine the two in one small building with separate entrances.)

I'm hoping to get some of this started this year. We'll see how far I get!

[Owen'nZoe]

Originally Posted by spring978

New to zone 4 I will gardening in 2 zones this year our current zone 6 and the new place in zone 4.

I just ordered all my zone 4 seeds I will put in another order next month for green house items as well.

I ve been looking for old russian varieties but if anyone has recomandations I would love to hear them

What types of plants/seeds are you looking for? I usually figure that anything found/developed in Wisconsin or Minnesota are a good bet. I also really like Fedco for ordering seeds for our zone - it's a nice company, and they're located in the north, so tend to have varieties that do well here.

[rainbowmoon]

zone 5 here. We are getting our seed orders together and will start our seeds the first week in March!

we use fedco and rareseeds.com almost exclusively.