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Intheswamp said:Welcome to the forum!!! Very important...what vegetables do you eat?
If you're planting in the ground have a soil sample done...your county extension office or one of the universities probably offer this service for a small fee. You should be able to find the instructions and forms for submitting the sample online...naturally you'll have to mail the samples in unless one of these places are just down the road from you. The test will give you an idea if you need to adjust your soil's pH (very important). It will also give you information on any nutrients you need to add to the garden soil.
Basic soil testing info at OSU: https://ohioline.osu.edu/facts...
Ohio soil testing: https://franklin.osu.edu/progr...
Tomatoes and peppers are probably the most popular plants that people start early from seed. There are many more varieties available with seeds than you'll find on the racks at the nurseries. There are others, too. For a quick, instant(almost)gratification crop plant some radish seeds in the garden...easy and fast. I'm not sure what all you need to start early up there. Cucumbers and melons are all mostly started in the garden down here, being as we're in a warmer climate and can plant earlier outside. Okra, southern peas, watermelons and other melons, etc., are warm weather plants and do better when it's warmer.
Do you have a good area to grow seedlings for six to eight weeks? Grow-lights?
Pile leaves, woodchips, vegetable scraps (no meats), etc., on your garden area. Use your soil test results to scatter lime (or sulphur) over your garden. Fertilize according to test results. But, everybody's soil needs *more* organic matter...especially mine!!!
Will you be able to easily water your garden? Water source close by?
Critters? Do you have a high population of critters of any kind around your area? Critters love vegetable gardens!!!!...both four-legged *and* two-legged ones!!!
Not to throw a lot at you, it's really not that complicated once you see "the big picture". Of course, there's always stink bugs, cabbage worms, aphids, powdery-mildew, fungus, blight, etc.,. But...don't let that discourage you...you'll make it through it all.
The big thing is............HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!! If it isn't fun, it ain't worth it. Sometimes you'll be busting your chops getting things done. Sometimes things just don't work out. All your tomatoes rot. You're plagued with leaf-footed bugs.
Vine-borers decimate your beautiful squash plants...overnight. Sometimes the deer will mow your sweet potato vines to the ground or the pretty red birds will peck all of the delicious red tomatoes you were going to pick the next morning. Smile. Remember, it's gotta be fun! And, somewhere along the way....you're gonna get some mighty tasty homegrown vegetables to enjoy and brag about!!!! It's worth it!!!!!!
BlueRaccoon said:
Wow! I REALLY appreciate you taking the time to respond! This is all very helpful!
I have a few questions in response if you don't mind!
First, I don't think I do have an indoor space for seedlings. My cats would probably kill them, lol. I'm assuming tomatoes and cucumbers are things you should start inside?
You said I should collect organic matter for the garden. Does that need to break down before it is put on the garden or....? Do I just grind it into the soil....? Sorry, hopefully that doesn't sound stupid, lol.
We have rabbits in the area! And they like to nest in our yard! How should I plan to keep them away?
Thank you!
Don't tell him I said that, though, he and I have a water/rain-rights war going on between Georgia and Alabama and I can't let him see me being nice. 
RpR said:What is the size of your garden?
What vegetable do you really wish to grow?
Soil preparations is half the game to avoiding a miserable failure.
farmerdill said:Concur with ED: The biggest mistake beginners make is being overly ambitious. Get overwhelmed and you lose interest fast. Keep it simple until you get the hang of it. Local seed racks and plant vendors will be sufficient until you need more exotic varieties.
A fertile loose seedbed whether in ground or container is essential. Most vegetable plants are pretty self-sufficient if they get a good start.
Start with high yielding plants that require few plants like tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, broccoli. Beans and peas are easy to grow but require many plants for a harvest. Direct seeded plants like radish, spinach, lettuce, kale, turnip etc. can be grown in a small space.
Rabbits are somewhat selective in their diet so there are many vegetables they do not bother. For those they like, a light sprinkling of bloodmeal after each rain will keep them away. Deer are a different problem.
At least three ways to incorporate organic material.
1.Mulch. raw material like leaves, straw placed on the soil.
2. Compost. decomposed material incorporated into the seed bed.
3. Green manure. growing plants incorporated into the seed bed
Home gardening is a hobby not a job. Relax and enjoy the activity.
Intheswamp said:
No problem. Folks around here have put up with helped me for several years now and the least I can do is attempt to pass it on. Of course, if I say something a little off the wall you might want to get a second opinion!
Tomatoes and peppers are the most frequent things started inside...at least down here. Where the growing season is really short some people will start cucumbers and melons indoors but they don't transplant as well as the tomatoes and peppers so it's better to plant the cucumbers and melons directly in the ground. I think your growing season is long enough to plant cucumbers and melons directly in the garden soil (direct seeded). With your remarks about cats destroying seedlings and being as you're starting out I agree with Dillard that it would be good to simply buy tomato and pepper plants, along with others. Greens, peas, beans, and such will work well direct seeded. Btw, Dillard's advice is GOLD. Remember...Dillard=GOLD.
There are a couple of things you need to do. Look up a planting guide for your part of Ohio. It'll tell you your range of planting dates. You don't want to be too early or frost/freeze might kill tender seedlings coming up. Even if you don't have a frost, planting in cold soil can cause problems for some plants. Likewise, if you plant too late the warm season crops might not have enough time to mature. And conversely, some plants enjoy cool weather and don't fare well in hot weather. The planting date charts will give you a good guideline to follow. Here's a link to one here on garden.org: https://garden.org/apps/calend...
Just remember, don't plant too earlier...but don't plant to late, either.
Organic matter simply scattered over your garden is good. Right now I've got a layer of oak leaves spread over most of my garden. Later on I'll till them under. Coffee grounds, egg shells, shrimp tails, scrap raw vegetables (peelings, etc.), some people even had non-glossy shredded paper. Manures are good...rabbit is one of the best, cow and horse manure is usually good (herbicides are used on some grazing land so I tend to avoid cow and horse manure), chicken manure is good but use it sparingly as too much can harm your crops. The manures are better if they're composted/rotted before adding to the garden. Or, if the garden isn't growing for a while the fresh manure can be spread, maybe tilled in, and allowed to rot in place the garden. The manures will supply nitrogen...the leaves, woodchips, plant clippings, etc., will supply carbon. It's really hard to get too much organic matter in your garden. Naturally, the smaller the size of the organic matter the easier it will incorporate into the soil. Of course, for mulching you'd want larger items (that will eventually break down and become small pieces). Are you in an urban setting or a more rural area?
Like Dillard said, start out small. Don't bite off more than you can chew! Also, a really BIG tip. Go ahead and install your tomato cages over your tomato plants *very* soon after you plant your transplants....if you don't you will regret it. Of course I'd *never* do something like that....never!!!! Don't ask me how I know that!!!
Another tip is that I don't recommend those little ring cages like they sell at Home Depot). They're great for pepper plants and probably for small determinate tomato plants. But for BIG indeterminate tomato plants they're are simply too small. Homemade wire-mesh cages made from concrete-reinforcing wire-mesh is what I use...5' tall and 24" diameter....be careful if you decide to made these...those wires can stick you!!!
Dillard hit on the rabbits. They'll nibble here and there and completely wipe out some things. I've never had an issue with them around here so don't really know what to tell you. Deer and coyote I know...rabbits I don't. I would think a low, small-mesh fence (1" mesh maybe) surrounding plants attractive to rabbits (doesn't have to be the entire garden) would help thwart the rabbit's culinary escapades into your garden.
Ed
For peppers I plant them "straight up" in a vertical hole (a little fertilizer added in the bottom of the hole mixed with some of the dirt. I plant the peppers deep enough to just cover the junction of stem and roots...the soil will settle down some and the planting depth ends up being just about "right". For either of these a support needs to be added while the plant is still small. Those little tomato ring cages do work great for the peppers...and somewhat for the smaller determinate tomatoes.
They thought I had built them a luxury condo and they moved right on in. Working it was like digging into a giant fireant mound. After that experience I haven't tried to have a compost pile...just chunk stuff in the garden and let it rot, decompose, whatever as it will...and it works. I usually till my garden, so that turns everything under. Lots of people do not till, simply building deep layers of organic matter over their garden soil and planting into it. There are pros and cons to tilling and no-till. You'll figure out which works for you through the years...you'll find *your* style of gardening. 
) to open, but worth understanding at least a bit. Here's a pretty good article about it...there are plenty more articles talking about it, too. https://www.ecofarmingdaily.co... Don't get too hung up on it, but it's worth understanding. Dry plant matter usually provides carbon...green plant matter *and* animal manure (plant-eating animals) provides nitrogen...basically. I'm no expert, but remember...everything depends on those little critters...soil microbes. Take care of those little critters and they'll take care of the soil for you.
BlueRaccoon said:
Hello! It's going to be a pretty small garden this year. I'm thinking 10'x16' honestly. Something around that size.
I think tomatoes, peppers, lettuce....maybe broccoli would be on the list.
Thank you for mentioning the soil preparation. This didn't really cross my mind. Good to know!
sallyg said:My essential points'- before you get too crazy..
Is this area full sun, look and see if it is actually in the sun for at least six hours right now. (It may be more sun during true summer because the sun is higher)
What is there now- grass, weeds, previous flowerbed..?
IF you start laying kitchen waste there now in Ohio, it will still be there in couple months .. you are in a giant fridge/freezer there right now. Composting is a whole nother thing that takes a space and has its own attention. Though if you have coffee grounds, go ahead as they are already pretty much dirt.
Glad you have settled on buying plants/ not doing indoor seed... tomatos and peppers are popular because they are pretty easy when buying plants.
Take seriously the spacing and surround the plants with organic mulch after planting.
Do you like tomatoes? What do you do with them, do you slice them for sandwich, eat in salad, do you like cherry/grape tomatoes that you can just pick and eat whole?
What fresh produce do you actually buy and use right now? We'll tell you how easy it is to grow.
RpR said:
Listen to what Dillard said about spacing, especially tomatoes, get as tall and heavy duty tomato cages as you can find.
You can do it with a shovel but unless you are ready for misery, it would be best to buy, or rent , a front-tine roto-tiller, that will make prepping fresh soil far, far, far easier.
For Chile Peppers to do well plant centers should be a minimum of 16 in. but if they do well they will still crowd each other depending on variety.' broccoli can also , if it does well take up far more space than one expected.
Again , 16 inches between plants minimum.
What type of lettuce?
farmerdill said:Ok; you are planning to plant in the ground. !6 x 16 ft is not a large space, so be careful to allow adequate spacing for your plants. Tomato plants for example need at least a 3 x 3 space. I would spade it up to a dpth of 8-10 inches. If you have sod turn it completely over grass side down and hope you don't have Bermuda. I am 85 and I can still do a plot of that size so you should have no problem using a spade or a round pointed ( spoon) shovel. work the top with a hoe or garden rake until you have a smooth surface and incorporate whatever amendments you choose. One thing we have not mentioned SHADE. A few vegetables like lettuce will grow in semi shade, but most need full sunlight for most of the day.
Intheswamp said:A 10x16 garden is a great size!!! Lots and lots can be grown there!
Tomatoes and peppers sound great. Lettuce does, too, but I've no experience growing it. Many people do grow it with great success, though. Lettuce is a somewhat "easy" crop...but again, it is a cooler season plant...it wouldn't like mid-summer down here in "The Enchanted Land of Humidity" here south Alabama but it might do ok up in Dayton during the summer.
Starting with started plants sounds perfect! Look for healthy(naturally), stocky transplants. For tomatoes, preferably transplants without blooms or small fruit forming. If the plants look good, otherwise, I'd accept plants with a few small blooms on them. I'm not crazy about buying fruiting plants, though. Usually I'll strip all leaves off the stem up to the remaining four or five leaves, lay the plant down into a trench at a 45-degree upward angle (rootball in the deep bottom where I add a pinch of tomato fertilizer). When I'm finished planting there's a small tassel of green showing above the soil. Water well. The plant will sprout roots up and down the length of the buried stem which makes for a healthy root structure.
Have you already got the ground broke up for your garden? If you do, you could just scatter the stuff over the it. I'm not in a competition to have my garden as the pin-up in Better-Homes-and-Gardens so I just throw my stuff on top of the ground and let it "age". In the course of neating the garden in preparation for spring planting the organic matter gets disturbed, broken in pieces, smashed, tilled under, etc.,. Lots of folks build compost piles so they have some control over the decomposition process. They make some *great compost*...it's black gold. They add the compost strategically to their garden rows and planting holes. It really is good stuff. Simply piling it up will cause it to decompose, but it's kind of a slow process. You can speed it up by actively working the pile...turning it over occasionally, paying attention to the nitrogen/carbon ratios, keeping an eye on moisture levels, etc.,. I tried building a nice compost pile years ago. I had it cooking, too! It got up to 150F+ degrees steaming in the coolness of our southern winter. BUT...we have a little critter down here that can ruin any picnic...fireants!!!
You can walk out in my garden right now and there's a ton of leaves on it, but also eggshells, collard ribs, apple peelings, etc.,. The only problem with that is that there's not nearly enough of it out there!!!! I need MORE!!!!
One thing to be careful of is introducing weed seeds into your garden. Grass clippings for me is a big "NOPE" down here. I'm surrounded by bahiagrass hayfields and it has big, loaded seed heads to it. Same thing for other grasses. Some grass is ok, though. Wheat can work well, especially as mulch...we don't grow much wheat down here, though.
One caution, or thing to stick in the back of your head is this....the use of herbicides on food crops and grazing land by farms and growers can be transported in the manures and hay-crops and end up in the garden. Same thing with right-of-way trimmings where the brush was previously sprayed with herbicides of some kind. There have been noted cases of contamination even in retail packages of major brand potting soils. It's the world we're living in, sadly. I just thought I'd mention that, not trying to alarm you or anything, but wanted you to think about that in case you run into a weird situation where some plants just seem to struggle badly when they should be growing great. It not a frequent situation that happens but knowledge is power.
As I mentioned...I add my organic matter directly to my garden in the winter...mostly oak leaves. Other times I just find a empty spot and scatter my vegetable scraps there. Naturally chopping up large pieces will speed up the process...I don't really want big chunks of stuff in the garden but usually what I throw in there is fairly small, anyhow. I'll throw stuff in the garden every few days...it might be just a handful of "something" but I figure every little bit helps. The birds and critters can pick through it if they want to...and they might even find a bug or two while they're doing that...but, microbes, worms, ants, beetles, etc., will all start breaking the carbon down...it's the cycle of life...you might say the "recycle" of life.
If you happen to see somebody that was late getting there leaves up and have bags laid out beside the street for the city to pick up...don't be bashful, the leaves are probably fine. I would be wary of yards that are pristinely manicured, though, as they may have a yard service taking care of it that uses broadleaf herbicides to keep weeds from "spoiling" the grass. Leaves, though, should be fine.
Organic matter "feeds" the soil. Or, should I say, it feeds the *microbes* that live in the soil...and the microbes in turn enables the plant roots to access nutrients. The microbes feed on the carbon matter but they also need nitrogen, too.It is what is called the carbon-nitrogen-ratio. This another can of worms (did ya'll see how I did that!?
Btw, I'll tell you a secret that nobody else on the forum knows about...I tend to rattle on at times. Really. But...don't tell anybody, I don't want everybody knowing that!!!
to turn the gas valve off while the engine is still running at idle and let the engine die out...that will empty the carburetor of gas. Over winter you may want to empty the gas tank/run it dry. Also, if it's a new tiller (not used) I'd break the engine in by running it at half throttle for maybe 10 minutes, then raise it to 3/4 throttle for another 10 minutes, and finally full throttle for another ten. After that, drain the oil, and refill. If you really want to be OCD about it, do that twice. The first oil you empty out of it will probably be "sparkly and glittery" when held under strong light...it is tiny bits of metal from the machining of the engine. With each successive oil-change the "glitter" will get less and less. Removing the metal bits early on will help with the longivity of the engine. up your way so you don't have to worry about them! Did I mention that fire ants are really, really ______ (words evade me to describe them right now and this *is* a family-oriented forum! ). )
Intheswamp said:Lots of good advice coming from folks who live in a colder climate than I do. Though, I must say that this morning was the perfect "...early on one frosty morn..." in Dixie!!! A beautiful frost...the collards really seemed to have enjoyed it!!!
Get some Stabil or SeaFoam ethanol-treatment to add to your tiller's gas. It will help protect the rubber parts of your fuel system and for keeping the gas "good" for a longer period of time. For your 160 square feet of garden area you won't use much gas so much of it will just sit for periods of time. I always try to remember
You may want to research starting a compost pile. An active compost pile can be in freezing temperatures and be putting off steam because it's so warm/hot inside of it!!!! That takes *mass*, though. Most places state a minimum of a 4x4 foot pile to get the critical mass going. Study the carbon:nitrogen ratio I mentioned earlier...getting that about right will get things heating up really nicely!!! You will use lots and lots of organics to build the pile. I don't think you have fire ants
Feed the soil and the soil will feed the plants. (Btw, I'm still working on figuring that out!!!
