abhege said: now Rick, don't scare her off with too much information! She's already overwhelmed!
newbiemomgardener said:
Thanks Skiekitty, but that's what i am scared of.., if the plant dies on me.. But like most of what i've read so far, plants dying on you is a part of learning to be a gardener..And thanks for the link,, and the welcome
CarolineScott said:Welcome to ATP.
We all learn by doing, and of course we all made mistakes, and some of us still do make mistakes.
Just go ahead, and try some things, and learn as you go.
There are lots of good ideas here on ATP to help you.
Skiekitty said:
Liza - I can't tell you just how many roses I've killed in my quest to have a rose garden in zone 5! But I can tell you this, if it was illegal to kill plants, I'd been in prison for a very very VERY long time.
Yes, my name is Toni & I'm a plant murderer.
I'm gonna take a wild guess, but I've probably killed... oh.. 25? trees, probably about .. 400? roses, and ungodly amount of shrubs & perennials. And I've been doing this seriously only since '09. So don't be afraid to kill a plant. It's not like the plant's family is going to rise up & take revenge.. unless you're killing Triffids.. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...)
Newyorkrita said:That is true. Plants die and in a garden bugs happen. Don't worry so much. You will do fine. Yes, probably make some mistakes and learn and go on.
RickCorey said:Liza,
You're very welcome ... but I should have preceded each long post with something like: "here's something for you to read during the winter when there's nothing to do in the garden except plan and think".
I think the short form would be:
if you can get compost or soil amendments into your bed before planting, that's a very good thing.
You're probably smart to start with seedling plants - if someone is selling them now, it's probably a fairly good time to plant them, now. There's always next year to try a few rows of seeds and see what comes up (it's mainly an issue of keeping them moist, and keeping them from being eaten until they're big enough to survive a few bites).
If your soil is already fairly fertile, you might want to consider running a narrow walking path down the middle of your 8x8 bed, and treat the two halves as two wide rows to be planted fairly thickly, but never walked on.
Newyorkrita said:And not to worry too much about the water. Lots of us just water with the hose. Also a soaker hose would be easy to lay and can just stay put in location permanently.