gardening | intro post

Hello gardeners! So glad to have found you!

I'm EmeraldEm, or you can call me Em. I live in Providence, Rhode Island in the U.S. I was my dad's gardening assistant as a child (I'm 53) but have never had a garden or space for it as an adult. Just house plants. But suddenly my wife and I moved to a new apartment where there's a raised garden bed at the back of the property. So I asked for and received permission from the landlord to use it.

I have yet to go and measure it to see what the square footage is, but that's on my list. I'd started to get some tools and stuff two months ago, then the pandemic hit and everything went to heck. Now the weather's good I really want to get going! Here are some things I want to plant:

* lavender, dill, mint (I know mint should be in a separate pot or plot). Maybe sage?

* lettuce, carrots, tomatoes

* some pretty flower-things that will nicely grow on and cover the rather ugly stone walls of the raised bed

I've got a trowel, a cultivator and something that looks like a trowel but is narrower and maybe longer. Not sure what it is. The soil has clearly not been worked in ages and has some trash and a lot of weeds in it. Also some rocks. I'd clear it first before cultivating and planting.

So, basically, I'm starting from scratch. Any advice, comments, etc. would be very welcome. Thank you! :)

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Hi Em and welcome :)

To start with, the most important thing when it comes to starting a new planting area is to get your soil in good order first - it will reduce problems down the line and help your plants grow well. There are different soil types that will affect how you handle your soil preparation but because you're working with a bed that has most likley been prepared before, even if it was years ago, it should be pretty straight forward in your case. You'll want to dig it over to a depth of roughly 12 inches and add compost and/or animal manure - whatever you can get your hands on. If it's a case of you sourcing stuff from a garden centre then I would suggest bagged compost and pelletalized chicken manure...damn, I can't give you approximate rates because I'm in Australia and don't know what sizes yours would come in. Eh, maybe someone else will chime in.

This is my beginning advice. I'm happy to give more (and I have plenty to give - gardeners always do) but I would need to know if you're wanting to grow things from seed or are intending to buy seedlings (the second is much easier for beginning gardeners so I would suggest seedlings if you can get them for your first time). Plus it would help to know the size of your bed, how much sun it gets and how you're planning to water it.

Hope this helps as a starter :)

Lavender is great! I just planted some a couple weeks ago and I can't wait for it to get big and bushy, and waft lavender scent around when the wind blows through it.

I've got nothing else, other than that weeding is a very therapeutic chore.

Nasturtiums might work well around the edge. They like underfed soil.

Very helpful! Thanks!

I'm planning to go with seedlings, at least at first (i.e. this year). I just measured it, and it's 24 feet long by 4 feet wide, so 96 square feet. (Do you use metric? Sorry, don't know how to convert.) It's on the west side of the property with pretty good sun. As to watering, I'm not sure yet--there's a hose tap on the side of the house but I don't know if it works or whether it's okay with landlords for me to use it. Have to find that out. Could be a damn nuisance if I have to do it by hand...

Definitely lavender. And regarding the therapeutic value of weeding, not to mention general grubbing around in dirt, heck yes! :)

And they're pretty, too.

Yep, you get to pick the color or colors you like best, and you can eat the leaves and the flowers both.

Your extra-thin trowel is useful for planting bulbs and digging out weeds with long taproots like dandelions!

If you can get hold of tomato plants, put them in the first bit of soil that's ready. They need a longer season than quicker-growing things like salads. Dill grows easily from seed and looks pretty. You could interplant with something like cosmos seeds for flowers. Calendula also grows easily and quickly from seed, as do agrostemma, nigella and eschscholzia. All good for beginners :)

Ooh, that sounds like a really good size and situation - you can grow a lot of veg in an area that size and handwatering it with a decent sized watering can is eminantly doable if necessary (especially if you don't have stupidly hot summers the way some of us do).

So, my other advice at this stage is to be aware of what plants are going to be permenant - like lavender and any of the woody herbs like sage and rosemary - and decide on their placement first because everything else you can move around from season to season if they don't work in a particular spot. I don't know if you have access on all sides or if one side is up against a wall. In the first case the general rule would be to plant the taller plants in the middle (like tomatoes) and the shorter ones around the outside, in the second case the same thing but taller at the back.

My last piece of advice for this morning is that as gardeners we kill a bunch of plants in learning how to garden so don't worry if some of the things you try don't work. Just plunk a different plant there and see what happens.

Looking forward to hearing how it goes; feel free to hit me up for more advice :)

Home Depot on Charles Street has some Bonnie Plants in stock, as well as soil amendments. We should be past our last frost (Farmer’s Almanac says it was May 15th or thereabouts) but be attentive in this cool weather. I would work some Black Kow brand (or similar)manure into the beds, myself, and although it is late Spring I’d consider a soil test (UConn) before the add (but not necessarily before you get the result).

Good luck!

Oh, that's what it's for! I did in fact use it for just that purpose yesterday while clearing my selected plot yesterday. No dandelions, but there were some things with damn long roots. *dig, grunt, yank, repeat*

My wife and I are going to the garden center this morning to buy plants and seed and some more things like gloves. Tomatoes high on the list. :)

I've narrowed it down to a plot of 22 square feet--I don't want to overestimate what I can physically do all at once. (Physical disabilities here, also just plain middle age.) Thanks for your advice about the permanent plants vs. others, I hadn't thought of that. I have access at the front of the plot plus less easily from the sides.

You're local? Cool! We need to get together when lockdown is over (meaning, when it's really over and safe; after the second wave, say). You could give me gardening advice in person! :)

Thanks for advice about the soil & the store. I got my first set of tools and some indoor plants from Home Depot. We're actually going to Jacavone Garden Center (in Johnston), today, on the principle of supporting locally owned, independent businesses. Another local friend recommended it to me. As to soil test... not in my budget, sadly. I'm just going to have to wing it. Maybe next year? I'm only going to use about a third of the available space this year. Maybe next year if I decide to use more space.

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