The season of giving is upon us! And friends, do I have some giving for you. This week I’m doing a couple of great giveaways just in time for you to show some holiday love to your favorite gardener. If you win and decide your favorite gardener is you and you’re keeping the loot, no one will judge. Promise.
Today, I’m happy to be sharing Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard: A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Crops at Home. If you’ve been a reader for a while, you might remember the authors, Colin and Brad, from my original giveaway post of this same book last summer. They are the founders of the Seattle Urban Farm Company, and have written Food Grown Right, a really excellent beginner’s guide to backyard-scale edible gardening.
When Seattle Urban Farm Co. asked if I would be interested in doing a second giveaway of the book and I was like, “Do cabbageworms in my bok choy drive me crazy? Of course I would!”
That’s Colin and Brad.
Food Grown Right is optimum for new-ish veggie gardeners. If you already have a giant bookshelf full of gardening how-to, how-come and oh-now-what? books, you may find the info in Food Grown Right to be a little duplicative, but you might also appreciate having all the basics, from layout, planning and irrigation options to crop-specific growing information nicely laid-out and condensed into one easy to use reference.
Find a slightly more comprehensive review at my original post, or check out what other people think.
Year Round Vegetable Gardening Like The Pros
So, the season of giving is fine and all, but it’s also the season of garden planning, right? This is when the seed catalogs arrive, and the graph paper comes out and everything is all full of potential. So while I had Brad and Colin on email, I also asked how they manage their year-round gardening and came away with some great tips.
Year round planning for year round harvesting.
If you strive to eat from your garden year-round as a cold-season gardener, right now is the best time to take stock of your successes and challenges. Look around your garden and ask how you’d like things to be different this time next year. What are you already out of and what aren’t you loving enough to actually go pick in the rain? I can already tell I need to figure out a way to get more giant kohlrabi in my life.
It’s hard to imagine since nary a spring pea has been planted, but if you want to eat your own cabbage in December you have to be kinda aware of that goal…the prior December. Why? Well, in the Pacific Northwest at least, the fall and winter crops usually go into the same ground that held the earliest spring crops. So when you are thinking about how much space to give to peas and spring radishes vs. tomatoes and cucumbers, you should keep in mind that your fall garden will probably be bounded by the space you gave to spring. By the time the summer crops wrap up it will be too late for most fall and winter crops to go in.
If that kind of seasonal think-ahead seems daunting, don’t worry, it becomes much more normal after you’ve been through the rhythm a few times. It might also help to see how everything sort of fits together. My free Year Round Planting Guide spreadsheet may help with that. Just scroll down until you see it about half way down the Downloadables section.
In the meantime, incorporate these Pro Tips for Year-Round Gardening from Brad and Colin into your four-season planning.
How should a beginning gardener who wants to begin planning and planting for year-round growing in the maritime northwest get started?
Eliot Coleman’s book Four Season Harvest is a detailed introduction to the principles of year-round growing; I strongly recommend that anyone interested in growing fall and winter crops check out this book. Our book also gives you fall and winter planting suggestions in the Month-by-Month chapter, so is a good resource to have on hand.
What is the one thing beginning gardeners get wrong when growing crops for fall, winter and over-wintered harvest?
The biggest mistake we see with beginners growing fall and winter crops is that they assume that they’re actually growing the crops in the fall and winter. To have a successful winter harvest, you need to be growing your crops in mid-summer through early fall (mid-July- September). This way, they’re sized up and almost ready for harvest before the low light levels of October set in. Because of the cool weather, fall crops don’t bolt or lose eating quality through the winter. Winter gardening is kind of like turning your vegetable plot into a giant refrigerator. If you plan properly, you can be harvesting from the garden all through the cold season and into the early spring!
What can a gardener do to ensure a great cool-weather growing season next year?
Start planning early! Planting for your fall and winter crops starts in mid-July, with the bulk of the crops planted in late August and early September. As your spring crops mature and are ready to be removed from the garden, some space will open up for fall crops. Early June is a good time to talk to nurseries and find out if they carry fall vegetable starts, and a good time to buy or order seeds for your fall crops.
What are a few of your favorite cool weather varieties?
For spinach that grows well through the fall and winter and resists downy mildew, try “Lombardia”. Claytonia is an excellent green for winter gardening (similar in taste to lettuce, but will over-winter without protection in our climate). Purple Mizuna is a beautiful, mild-tasting mustard green that also grows well during the fall and winter. “Red Russian” kale is our favorite kale variety; it does well and tastes amazing spring, summer, and fall. “Cherriette” radishes size up quickly and uniformly for September and October harvest.
Thanks, Colin and Brad, for sharing your insights!
Enter To Win A Copy of Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard
Contest open until Tuesday, December 18th at 6 pm. Continental U.S. residents only, sorry international readers. Good luck!
Pssst…you know how I said a couple of great giveaways this week? Check out Thursday’s post. Free organic seeds! That’s all I can say right now.
Update: Contest now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered, and congrats to seed-hoarder Natalie M., the winner. Natalie, check your email for instructions on how to claim your prize!
How to keep the wild bunnies and my small flock of chickens out of my garden!
My biggest gardening challenge is the weather. My seedings and transplantings get so confused with the weather I plan on that rarely occurs. If nothing else, gardeners are flexible.
If I could, I would rototill (sp?) my entire backyard, but challenges would be 1) I have clay, major clay (like we used to have a brick factory a few blocks from my home) and 2) trying not to take up too much play area for the kids. Oh and the wildlife too ( I had never seen a groundhog climb chicken wire until this sumer)…Thanks!
I always over buy seeds, thinking I have more space to work with than I actually do!
My biggest gardening challenge is finding a neighbor that’s reliable and knowledgeable enough to keep things going while I’m on vacation.
Deer and rabbits….The book looks great!!
Wanting to plant more tomato plants than I actually have room for.
YES.
Our biggest challenge is probably getting a good rotation pattern established for our raised beds. I’m hoping that following your pattern in your garden planner will help solve that this year.
Also, our apparent inability to kill off any volunteers of anything. Via our compost, tomatoes sprout up anywhere and everywhere in our garden and by the end of season, we are overrun with them. I know, not really a bad “problem” to have, but it can be overwhelming at times.
The weather is so unpredictable! How do I start cool weather crops early enough to be almost ready in fall when it is too hot for them in July/August? If I start too late, they don’t mature in time; if I start too early they mature too early and bolt. And what’s worse – sometimes July/August/September are cool and rainy and other times hot and dry. How can I plan for that?
My biggist problem is the size of my lot, I try to fit as much as I can without overcrowding, into a very small space and use the patio for planter gardening. 12′ x 30′ is the size of my gardening space. There’s just me, but I love fresh produce.
My biggest challenge is that I do not know where I will be, come April. We know we’re moving from this place, in part to get more space to grow plants, but we don’t know what we’ll have & won’t until March or so. There’s some chance we’ll be moving across the country, so we don’t even know exactly what climate or microclimate we’ll be dealing with.
Sooooo…. Maybe someone else should win this book.
I have got to win this book! I checked it out from the library and it is awesome!! My biggest challenge has been and will be (until I become wise) soil fertility. Also one plant needs a different food than the other.. That has been difficult for me to figure out properly.
This was my problem for a number of years until I got over my cheap streak and started adding a few inches of Cedar Grove compost to my beds every year along with soil testing and adding supplements to correct deficiencies. That along with adding a handful of crab meal/blood meal when planting out starts has made a huge difference in productivity.
Keeping the aggressive deer out of the garden is my biggest challenge. I need a new deer fence!
My biggest thing is wanting to plant more than I have room for. I also don’t have as much sun in the spot where the garden is. I need to prepare more area that is currently turf. Ugh.
My biggest problem is planting in small quantities frequently so I am not overwhelmed with a specific crop.
Creeping grass is the bane of my gardening existence. We’re moving next year (not sure if I’ll get to garden at all!) so I’m not too worried about it, but our rental house now basically has a small dirt plot at the back of the yard. I fought all season against that damn grass, I can’t wait to move and do things properly!
Space. I have none, which means I have to be VERY selective about what gets planted where.
My biggest challenge when planning is managing my expectations, I don’t have room for much so I have to be selective!
I find it really challenging to keep fall seeds and seedlings evenly watered in the heat of mid summer!
Biggest challenge is my complete lack of spacial intelligence. It’s easy to come up with the list and timing of planting – but getting that list into my seven raised beds is always harder than I think it should be.
My biggest challenges are lack of backyard (I live in an apartment) and the upstairs neighbor’s cats attacking any plants I set out on the balcony.
Oh yeah… new challenge this year – new neighbors next door started putting out their cigarettes in my herb pots!
Many challenges. Terrible soil. Not enough room for what I want to grow. Things don’t germinate. Mostly poor crop yield, but one crop always does well. Having parents, brother and sister that are excellent gardeners.
My biggest challenge is just not knowing exactly what to plan when, or when to harvest it and what to do after the harvest! I need some basic guidance, to expand my garden from spring lettuce & spinach, summer container tomatoes, and fall kale.
Getting my tomato transplants to stay stubby instead of lanky while under my grow lights.
My biggest challenge is trying to agree with my co-gardener (aka husband) on what to grow. Do we really need another tomato plant, or can we put in some eggplants instead? Should we have one fruit tree or two in the front yard? So begins many morning conversations over coffee.
My biggest challenge when I plan my garden is… wait, what plan? I thought you just buy every seed under the sun and then cram way too many into too small of a space? :-p
My biggest challenge is myself. Physical limitations keep me from doing all that I KNOW is possible, yet, I still WANT to do those things. And I want to do it all.
My biggest challenge is trying to figure out when to get which seeds in the ground. This year I was late with some (and too early with others), so my harvest was really wimpy :(
My biggest gardening challenge was waiting 2 YEARS to clear the wait list at our community garden (which we finally cleared in March, YAY)!
My biggest challenge is a combination of ignorance and lack of dedication. I did get an apartment community garden going in the last place I lived and it was great because I could build on the enthusiasm of others. I’m about to move into my own house for the first time and don’t even know where to begin or how to see it through! Help me!
Garden is in the planning stage, looking forward to next year.
My biggest challenge is space. We have only a narrow deck and rock wall for a back yard but I still manage to grow small amounts of many of the plants/veggies I like by using a LOT of containers. This spring, I’m going to take over the very small front yard we have so I can, hopefully, grow a few squash since the sunlight is much better there.
We are completely a purchase of 8 acres in the PNW. So, my biggest challenge is to get my gardens planned and begun correctly.
My biggest challenge is that I live in coastal central Florida, and our seasons are totally unlike the rest of the country. We can rarely grow anything in the summer, and must plant things for fall and spring. I am just beginning to garden again after about 20 years, so the learning curve is definitely there!
My biggest challenge is knowing what to plant and when. I grew up in rural Minnesota, but now live in Georgia, so my internal clock never seems to be in sync with the growing season here. Month to month guides of what to do and when would be a tremendous help to me.
Of course we also have crummy clay soil here, but we have raised beds and are continually working to improve the garden soil through compost amendments and other hugelkultur techniques.
My biggest challenge is the grass and creeping buttercup that grows in my asparagus bed. It gets so thick that it becomes too difficult to remove by hand, and I think it takes over and kills the asparagus.
I am fairly new to gardening and would like to learn the best veggies to plant for success!
my biggest challenge is teaching an old farmer new tricks. My partner’s Dad is a farmer from Kansas. She learned the old ways of gardening and I admit with much success. We have had many bountiful harvests. But getting her to try new crops, new planting patterns and winter gardening (I even bought us a greenhouse) has been my biggest challenge. I’m looking for something to inspire this 60-something gardner to venture into new territory. I think this book just might be the key. Pretty please…pick me! :)
My challenges are space – I don’t think any gardener ever feels like they have enough garden space. I’m also always battling between what should I grow that is economical – it’s easy to buy organic onions and they’re affordable – so I don’t grow them. But I always grow herbs, leeks and kale. This is my first year trying a winter crop and its a hallenge to figure out the timing if you’re using a bed that had summer crops in it. Thanks for the opportunity to win!
Our biggest challenge is keeping our dogs out of the garden! We built fences around our raised beds, but they still manage to get in there to do some digging. We find veggies in places they weren’t planted.
My biggest gardening challenge is space. We have a huge shade tree in the backyard whose canopy claims the north 2/3 of the yard. That leaves me room for three 4′ x 6′ raised beds.
I have heard that “the gardeners shadow is the best fertilizer” My husband believes I may very well be shading out my veggies. I get out there and just won’t leave. I literally sit in my garden and watch it grow…not the most efficient use of time.
My biggest challenge is whatever I’m facing at the moment! :-)
Well, the biggest one is probably understanding how to get the correct yield and when to harvest it.
And the deer.
And tomatoes.
My biggest challenge is convincing whatever varmint that comes during the middle of the night to dig in the patch of dirt we left for him and not pull up our seedlings.
I love SUFC! They setup our veggie garden a few years back and now they come twice a year to get our garden ready for the growing season and again in the fall to clean everything up. Brad is a great guy who has a ton of patience with kids who want to “help”. :)
What is SUFC?
The Seattle Urban Farm Co. The company owned by the folks who wrote this book. :)
My biggest challenge is always the environment – I live in the midwest, and it’s always difficult to find enough sunlight, cultivate rich enough soil, and time those first and last frosts correctly.
my biggest challenge is wanting to do more than time and funding currently allow.
and a great dane that sees freshly turned dirt as an invitation.
My biggest challenge is time management. Working full time means that during the week I can’t actually see my garden in the daylight between November and February… If it can’t be done on the weekends my poor garden suffers.
My biggest garden challenge is me. All the things that should be done, I don’t do very consistently. And we end up with way more of some things and not enough other things for some reason.
Biggest challenges are choosing the right combo of seeds to start vs sow direct, keeping electricity bill down when starting said seeds, deer, cabbage worms, earwigs eating the corn, ant hills, cilantro bolting, prepping soil with ole lady body. oi
I started a small garden for the first time thus year. I need to learn to produce more.
My biggest challenge is knowing how to deal with pests and disease without resorting to chemical warfare or (as is usually the case), just letting the pests feast on MY food. For instance, right now something is eating holes in my swiss chard making it look more like swiss cheese than anything else. I am also terrible at starting anything from seed, so most years I buy starters which is not nearly as economical as I need to be right now. I try to use my garden as a means of cutting costs, so improving my efficiencies would go along way toward helping my budget.
I’ve successfully grown a solid summer garden for a few years running and I spend lots of time planning where to plant things for the first time around in my small plot. Everyone seems happy in my summer garden. However, I am still struggling with figuring out how to create space in my summer garden for all the fall plantings I want to do. I struggle with the transition from summer to fall and these past few years I have ended up with a few random plants struggling through the fall/winter. My tomatoes have done really well these past few years and I’m always so proud and hopeful for them that I leave them in the garden until October or whenever the Portland fall rain season really kicks in. That means there isn’t a lot of space to work with until I pull them out.
My biggest challenge is my Dog, no really my Mini Schnauzer is quite the little smart a$$ and hates, I repeat hates Garlic… he will get into the Gardens dig up the garlic and move them to the far corner of the yard where he never goes to be rid of them.
My biggest challenges are myself, and the climate – winter gardening, especially, in the upper Midwest is daunting (it’s so cold up here right now I can’t imagine anything making it – what can I do against 3 deg F without a bunch of expensive added heat??). But I know people do it, and I think eventually I’ll get over my aversion to maintenance tasks….
Thanks for the giveaway! (And everything else you do :))
Trying to fit it in to my life. The planning is easy, but the actual doing is hard. Thank goodness it stays light until 10 pm in Washington during the summer, or I’d never have time to actually “do”.
My biggest challenge is knowing that I’ll have to go out in the rain and the cold- and I obviously have to educate myself more on how to do it properly after reading this short column. I need this book.
i am on a waiting list for this book. like #23 or something!
My biggest challenge is space- I always try and pack as many plants as I can into a space and have a hard time visualizing their mature size! It’s so hard to cull the seedlings- I want them all to do well!
My mom and I struggle with finding the right crops to grow in our community garden plot.
I haven’t figured out how to keep my new little plants alive while I go on vacation. Especially when I am expecting rainy weather and then Seattle has a dry week instead.
Oh I’d LOVE this book! My husband and I just moved onto 4.3 acres with our 4 small kids. My biggest challenge is literally knowing what to do with it and WHEN to do it. Pretty basic. LOL (We do have chickens already, a good start!)
My biggest challenge is we are innkeepers. We live at work and there is currently no dedicated “us” space at our inn. The trick for growing a garden for us will be to make sure it’s a manageable size for me to care for (an unkept garden will not add to the quaintness) while still yielding the good stuff for our family of four.
The cost. I always wonder if its worth it or just to buy organic veggies from the store.
My biggest challenge is to just get started. This spring will be my first garden!!!! I need all I the help I can get. It is so exciting to have information geared to the Seattle, Puget Sound area.
Raises hand, pick me!! pick me!!
love your blog, so informative for us newbies
Marlys
My biggest problem is keeping the slugs away!! GRR!
Biggest challenge: Not enough space! I garden in a P-Patch in Seattle that’s about 100 square feet, and could easily use five times that. Fortunately, I have farmer friends who sell me great organic produce to can in the summer, but I would love to have a bigger patch of my own.
My biggest challenge is the crazy weather here in North Idaho! The winters are very long and harsh, and the Summer’s are extremely short. This past year I planted alot of Hungarian and Ukranian heirloom varieties and they did pretty well.
My biggest challenge is the garden space. I have a community garden plot that is much bigger than the container gardens I’ve had in the past, but still not big enough to fit everything I want to grow. It’s also a 15 minute bike ride from my house so I only get to the garden 1-3 times a week and I have to factor that into my planning.
I’ve got a big box of seeds, but that just doesn’t do me much good if I don’t get the little dears started on time. Then, once the garden is underway, Part II of that challenge is keeping the succession planting going.
Our biggest planning challenges have been two-fold, but both are related to relative knowledge:
1) Planning for when to do what. We are still baby gardeners – knowing which crops we should be doing seed starts for in January-February, versus when to set up for fall crops. For example, this year it was mid-September before we even asked what we should be doing for fall because we had no idea we should have been planning months earlier. Therefore, no fall garden this year :(
2) We are in a trailer park, doing almost entirely container gardening on 1/10th acre deck and patio space. I’m sure we could do so much more with the space, but we dont have a good enough understanding of which plants to mix with what in our containers, so we spread them our much further than they probably need to be.
Right now our biggest challenge is just getting started! This past summer my husband and I bought a house with a 1/4-acre backyard, and we’ve been planning on putting in some raised beds and a kitchen garden, but it’s just so overwhelming trying to figure out where to start! I’m hoping we can put in some boxes and start working the soil over the winter, so maybe by spring we can start some plantings!
I garden in two small community plot, so my space is fairly limited. I’m struggling with how best to maximize the space, and to limit myself to a respectable number of tomato plants (I am NOT growing the thirty varieties my seed-catalog-loving self desires).
Thanks so Much for asking what my Biggest Challenge for Garden Planning efforts are. Numero Uno: My backyard is what I call “A Winter Wonderland”. Surprisingly, I live in Southern California. The land of Sunshine and Blue (okay grey-blue skies)! But, my backyard is nightly inundated with pharaoh cats, stay dogs, possums – from baby size to Great Grandma variety. Raccoon’s about my height when standing and of course my ever so friendly baby and Mama skunks. Perfect setting for a backyard garden…smile. One last thing, I don’t live in the hills, I live in the city. I Thank GOD that my home has become a place of Refuge for non-human creatures. Funny, no rabbits have shown up this year! Millicent A.
My biggest challenge is getting things in the ground when I need to. I think I’ve got a plan and the weather or life changes my plan. I don’t end up getting everything I want in the ground in order to produce well :(
My biggest challenge is choosing what to grow…too many options out there!
My biggest challenge is a bad case of the black thumb, except for zucchini. I planted a mini 1.5 x 25 foot garden and it crashed and burned, except for two weird cukes and frankenzucchini. My whole family has green thumbs. My dad even grows all his own flowers from seeds every year in 8 greenhouses indoor/outdoor rigs. I killed everything. Tomatoes. Green peppers. Cherry tomatoes. The rabbits and squirrels loved me though. We fed all of them well on greens. I would like to redeem myself someday, especially as we are moving into a house with a small backyard in two weeks, and hopefully a few successes will be mine this year. Now, back to jam canning and caramels. :)
I’m new to gardening, and I live in Colorado. So right now my biggest problem is the timing of seed planting with late frosts at night and the hot sun during the day.
Deciding what NOT to plant, and then when I fail at that, finding room for everything!
Matt Jarvis
Eugene, Oregon
Thank you for all those tips! We’re arriving in the maritime PNW in January, and my biggest challenge will be dealing with the difference between that and our current location–near Houston, TX. Things grow in the winter here, heck it’s a lot easier than keeping stuff going through the summer, when nighttime lows are 75-ish for a couple months.
My biggest challenge is trying to realistically figure out how much I can actually do. I always think I can do about three times as much as I really can.
My biggest challenge is figuring out where my garden will get enough sun. The tiny trees are now full grown, so things have to move where the sun reaches.
My biggest issue is space allocation and trying to limit myself to existing garden space. I end up planting too much without enough room around it to grow to its potential!
I would love this book to help my darned chickens from eating all my crops.
No, for that you should check out Free-Range Chicken Gardens. Seriously, it’s great.
Added to the wishlist… thanks for the suggestion here, awesome.
Usually my biggest challenge is growing everything I want in a small space, but in the last few years it’s been getting the summer crops started during the cool, rainy early summers we’ve been experiencing. The first year I grew melons (30 miles east of Seattle), we were wildly successful. Since then, the turnout has been a few melons to an entire bed that produced nothing.
Planting way too much in too small a space . I plant close and interplant with flowers like marigolds nasturtiums and herbs but have to watch because mildew is a problem where I live.
My biggest problem is not overestimating – both how much and what I can plant and the actual amount of light/water/other necessities needed.
Definitely space! We live in a town house with a tiny patio/yard area, so getting the most out of containers and the few square feet we have available is my biggest challenge.
I have a hard time planning for winter crops, and knowing how much to plant for my family.
I inherited a garden that had been neglected for years, and is thus full of weed seeds. I can’t afford to replace the soil, so I’m just having to mulch and deal with tons of weeding, in my free time (which, as a PhD graduate student, isn’t very much!).
My biggest challenge is, well, myself. Every winter I stare out the window and envision the wonderful veggie garden that will be and every spring I wait too long to get things ready. So this is the year since I decided to make every available square foot of soil productive for us. This is it, but I can use every bit of help and advice I can get…
My new challenge is the darn squirrels digging up, eating, or just breaking everything. My constant issue is not getting enough sun. I’m looking for crops that can stand some shade.
My challenge is finding the space for my ever growing list of things I want to plant!
Time and energy!
My biggest challenge is my own procrastination. That and I never feel like planting winter crops at the correct time after the spring harvest (I’m in the PNW, too), well, because it’s just too summery! Oh, and also getting lazy about watering during the summer….we need to install drip irrigation and have yet to do it after almost 4 years of having a garden.
My biggest challenge right now is figuring out where to settle down :) Once I’ve found that perfect plot, I’ll be ready for the book!
My biggest challenge is figuring out where to start!
My biggest challenge is not having enough space for all the starts I end up with. But, if I had more space I would probably still have too many starts! I end up planting them all, because I can’t stand wasting a good plant. So far the cramped quarters haven’t caused any yield problems, and I always have plenty of people to eat my excess, so, maybe it’s not really a challenge after all – LOL!
I am currently trying to plan for a year round garden; starting with lettuce, and broccoli. Currently my biggest challenge is determining how many plants and how often to replant
Our biggest challenge this year will be maximizing our growing space by going vertical. We already have a well established growing space, so between now and the spring – I have a lot of structures to get built, gutter gardening to get on, and much much more to do. Finding the time to do all the needed projects is really the hardest part…
Biggest challenge? Jeez, I’m still running out to get the morning paper in my slippahs, like I was doing every day year-round in Maui – but we are just unpacking our household in our new home/ranch in the central coast area of Oregon (west of the Tunnel). I know so few of the local plants and pests, but I have way too ambitious plans for a big raised-bed garden here in the PNW, so I nwould really benefit from this excellent book’s help!
My challenge is my day job, and finding time to reap my harvest and process it when the plants decide to become ready. I suppose what I need is*time* more than advice, but I’ll take any good tips on crops that come out of the dirt quick, clean and edible, or crops that I can ignore with impunity (like good ole chard). Brad and Colin are adorable; they can drop by for a drink on the patio any time.
Not enough space for what I want to plant and not enough sunny spots for sun loving plants.
my biggest problem is money. I live in a rental and have to follow the “landscaping rules” and other such nonsense which means container gardening, to which I don’t really object but buying the supplies to seriously get started seems to be a large investment.
Budgeting (I want to try everything) and pest control. Keeping deer out without expensive deer fencing.
I’m still working on figuring out the whole year round gardening thing–which I really want to master.
My biggest challenge is making myself go outside and garden in July in the Southern California heat. By August, I’ve usually had it with the heat and don’t want to plant anything.
Space is my biggest challenge. We love on an urban lot and there isn’t much room so it’s hard to find space in the summer for fall/winter vegetables. Maybe it’s more of a planning challenge, but I’ll blame the urban lot.
This year, my biggest challenge was planting way more than I could keep up with in terms of weeding, watering, and even eating!
My biggest challenge in planning my garden is, well, planning…tends to be a bit willy-nilly.
Deer were my biggest problem — now it’s the dog we got to chase the deer. That and watering in the heat of summer. I had great dreams of a winter garden this year in my little front yard vegetable patch but only the swiss chard is still standing and a few lonely tufts of arugula. I covet your garden and now I covet Colin and Brad’s.
My biggest challenge is figuring out where the sun hits through the big trees and tall house in different seasons – it changes drastically through the year. This, and the slugs! And how to compensate for a North facing slope.
So far I have only been dreaming of year round gardening – I have had some kind of mental block in getting started. You have me all inspired now !
Our biggest challenge is our yard is nothing but clay! We may have to resort to raised beds.
Trying to figure out where to put everything to accommodate all of the pest and disease issues I’m having between my small backyard plot and community plot and still have some sort of crop rotation.
Keeping the edible front yard looking okay so the neighbors don’t report us. Fruit bushes, colorful lettuces? Still haven’t gotten it right.
Heat Heat Heat….and drought. I live in south Texas.
Critters everywhere!
My biggest problem is the space I have for gardening (not much), it’s proximity to the back alley (adjacent), and the fact that until I started my garden in 2011, this little dirt patch was mostly weeds and had never been cultivated. Also there was the problem this summer of days and days of 100+ temps, no rain, and beating sun (I live in western NE at 4000 feet).
My biggest hurdle in planning my garden is wanting to fill all the beds, but not being sure what will succeed or what will fail. Also, trying to plan for that moment between seasons when summer crops go out and fall crops go in, without waiting too long or having something that needs to be planted ASAP.
My biggest issue is follow through. I cant spend days and weeks preparing and planting then within a few weeks I get so busy I don’t make time to even water regularly. Last summer I had radishes no one I know could eat because they where too hot.
Buying more seeds than I can plant. Or not planting the seeds that I have! Oy. Also, finding the right spot for things – rotating plants on a three year /season schedule is confusing as heck when you only have two garden plots that get the best sun/water/love mixture necessary to grow plants and they always seem full with last season’s plants.
So let’s just take of the table that i just had major surgery on my right arm and hand, and that creates a whole mess of problems when I look at my graft paper!
Light, not enough sun is my evil enemy. Last winter i spent a ton of time stalking you, and got some great tips from you on how to get around that. With my new found knowledge I dove in, thinking ” how do I steal sun, and transfer it to the shade” Well what I learned is that yes you can grow cantaloup in a container ( thanks to you) but that doesn’t mean you then become an expert on how to grow stuff in the ground. I’m the ‘baby broccoli killer’ you helped talk of the ledge called ” I’m a veggie garden failure” In all seriousness, it’s about spacing, crop rotation and companion planting that I struggled with. Oh wait, isn’t that everything?
Just as the gentlemen say, I look around in late July and think how nice it would be to have fall and winter vegetables, and IT’S TOO LATE. Bummer.
My biggest fall garden challenge is keeping my energy going at the time it really needs to be planted. I end up pretty pooped by late July/August, and putting new baby plants in the ground can feel overwhelming.
Biggest challenge for me is planning on paper and sticking to the design. Just discovered your blog and enjoy reading past articles to catch up and look forward to future ones.
My biggest challenge is determining what seeds/starts to buy which we will actually harvest and eat. The catalogs make everything look so delish, but I have to be realistic. I try to expand my children’s (and partner’s) taste in veggies (and other healthier foods), but sometimes just don’t feel like dealing with the challenge of “I don’t like that”, “that AGAIN?”, etc. So far, we use a lot of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, tomatoes, onions, and sweet peppers – so, despite the gorgeous photos of more exotic veggies in the catalogs, this is what we grow. If I tried something new, like Bok Choy or cabbage or greens, it would just go to waste, which hurts worse when you spend time growing it than when you just buy it from the store!
planting in time…
& not enough winter sun….
My biggest challenge: seed hoarding. No. I really mean that. But, they’ll keep forever in my Ziploc-Tupperware-GE fridge fortress right? Second biggest challenge: not turning every square inch of my lot into edible gardens. I started with an herb /greens garden, added a a ‘regular’ garden with tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc. (which keeps growing larger), then an asparagus bed (that will produce our first harvest this spring!), and then a flower garden (that’s now pocked with broccoli, lettuce, and herbs). When I read your hugelkultur post, I got excited and added two modified hugelkultur beds (wider than normal and with a path up the middle for harvesting). The favas, garlic, grey shallots, multiplier onions, and who knows what else are going nuts. Can’t wait for spring, when the new hugelkultur beds become my curcurbit / roma / cilantro / whever-else-I-can-jam-in-there beds. This summer I tried potatoes too in towers up front amidst my bed of glads and cosmos–the towers were a great disguise and the potatoes were delicious, but the harvest was sad. I’ll modify the method next year and add more (shorter though) towers. So, you can imagine what my husband will say when I tell him the pumpkins need to move up front next year (into the only other bed available without edibles)….Nothing. He’ll say absolutely nothing and throw his hands in the air while laughing. But, I need more room for the broccoli that he loves so much, right? Perhaps a third hugelkultur is REALLY what I need.
How to grow in a north-facing basement apartment in DC… We just moved here! Excited but missing green space. There’s a big urban garden in the park near us, but they close for volunteers after Nov 1… No winter gardening for me :(
My biggest challenge is bugs. They will eat any leaf!
When I plan my garden, for any season, my biggest frustration is trying to approximate how much harvest I will have. From year to year, any number of factors can contribute to an abundant harvest, a mediocre harvest, or a minimal harvest. Some years I’ll plant something and have more than I can handle. Other years, I’ll over plant and barely get enough to consume, nonetheless preserve. It makes planning very difficult!
figuring out how and where to maximize what little sunlight we get so things actually grow. The only place reliably sunny is on my deck – so planter/pot space is premium.
My biggest challenge is figuring out the right time to plant (and sticking to it) with my spring and winter (or over-winter) veg.
Hmmm. I actually have several challenges that fight over the top spot!! First is finding time to get thing planted WHEN they should be planted! The second is how much to put into the garden beds for a family of three adults and enough to can. Then the bruiser: how do I make it all look picture perfect? I’m TERRIBLE when it comes to creating designs on my own!
I guess my biggest challenge is lack of experience. I read and plan like crazy, but only manage to get about one really good crop per season. This summer it was okra, last winter it was spinach, the summer before it was zucchini. I’d really like to work my way up and get TWO real winners per season. (Or more even? Dare to dream!)
My biggest challenge is time. I want very much to grow as much of my own food as possible, but find I never seem to have enough time to keep up. I need one more person than myself to collaborate with, build raised beds, water, weed, etc. Then I think I would be more successful.
Given we are fairly new at the whole garden thing (although my husband is only new to this climate) I’d say our biggest challenge is planning–knowing which vegetables to grown and when. We’d like to grow year-round in NC and we finally have an acre of land to work with (minus the land the house is on, of course). We’ve experimented the past two seasons and I think we’re ready to kick it up a few notches and learn how to plan the right way, and according to what we want to grow and when those things should be grown in our climate.
Right now, our biggest challenge is bug eggs on the kale under the row cover
Keeping sediment out of the creek fed irrigation system’s collection bucket
I have difficulty pulling out plants to make room for the next season’s crop when the plants are still producing. It feels so wasteful but then I grumble every November about not having planted for winter. With limited space, you just have to make room, I guess.
My biggest challenge is needing more sunlight. The best spot in the yard just isn’t enough for all the plants to get enough light.
Wow, RC, I really “felt” you. I’ve spent the past four years of my beginning gardening experience in a garden that just did not get enough sun, no matter what. I’ve moved now, currently renting, but hope to have at least a small patch of good sun when we finally find a place of our own. You know, you can overcome lots of problems in a garden (soil, wind, space, bugs) but you just can’t make sun.
My biggest challenges are being too optimistic and planting more than I can take care of with my schedule, and the bindweed/morning glory that is all over. I really wish I could make it go away.
My biggest challenge is keeping up with weeding. I can’t do it myself and rely on husband who is ho-hum when comes to weeding. I have been trying to convince him to do the newspaper overlayed with grass clippings. I have a friend who does that and they have a wonderful weedfree garden.
I’ve had near-weed-free beds by mulching with straw, about 6-8 inches deep as soon as plants are up. This really works!
I have a hard time staying on top of weeds (mostly buttercup, reed canary grass and other nasty grasses) because our highly rich and wet soil lets them go crazy.
Brad’s a cool guy! Just participated in the WSU Cultivating Success class with him.
My biggest challenge is starting things from seed. I seem to have about a 50% success rate.
My challenge is no room! We have a condo and the back patio is shady, so I have to grow veg in pots out front. And then that causes problems with getting enough water into them during our hot summers.
My two biggest challenges are the climate and bugs.
Last year was our first year to do a large variety garden and greenhouse business (veggies only) right now, we want to get that down first. Anyway, our biggest challenge was finding the extra time to pick all of the tomatoes (especially cherry). We are going to concentrate next year on the outside garden in not so many varieties, and baby them like crazy. It was our first year to grow lots of different varieties of veggies and we fell in love with growing our own food and food for others.
Our biggest challenge is figuring out successional planting to get the most out of our garden seasons.
Moles, Voles and bugs!
My biggest challenge in planning my garden is a lack of lots of space to plan a 3 yr rotation schedule amongst all the plots and veggies so I don’t encourage diseases that are shared by crops in the same family (stuff that would overwinter in the soil). Case here from the community garden I belong to: we had planted tomatoes in part of it and the crop was wiped out by late blight. Next summer, they planted potatoes in the same space and that got the blight in mid summer… all plants were yellowed and died back before August.
My biggest challenge is the damp shady spots where it’s so dank that the occasional mushroom pops up.
Heartbreakingly deciding what NOT to plant because there is simply not enough room to grow everything I’d like to grow.
My biggest challenge is my procrastination. I keep thinking, “Hey, I have plenty of time to get those peas in but if I don’t finish this work today my boss will find out” or “Carrots are supposed to have successive plantings anyway…so I missed one…today was just not a good day for the kids” and before long I’m looking at fall planting opportunities for the peas and have missed every potential planting of carrots. This year will be different though…honesty is the first step.
My biggest problem is keeping track of when and what I have planted. I dont see two harvests deep. I plant something and wait for it to be ready then I think about the next thing. I wish i was wiser on what and when to plant to stay as productive as possible.
My biggest challenge is water or lack thereof. I catch rainwater off my roof but my current vegetable garden is ever so slightly uphill and water creeps through the hose to my plants. I’ve got a ‘lasagna’ cooking closer to the house, so hope to be able to plant in it next spring.
Where should I begin…space, the sun being blocked by big trees, chipmunks, chickens that jump the fence, squash vine borers, slugs…..
I have a hard time growing most anything these days. I have my best luck with jalapeños, and my worst with tomatoes and squash plants even zucchini (I know, everyone can grow zucchini ) but not me. I definitely need help.
My biggest ‘problem’ with gardening is that I get totally obsessive. I just want to get home and garden, ignoring my friends, family, and other obligations!
My biggest garden problem is me! I never get enough done.
My biggest challenge is spacing plants. They look so tiny when you set them out and I forget just how much room each plant needs.
I would say part of my challenge in planning is knowing how much time I will have available to do the garden work…things come in waves over here (like for everyone, I suppose). And I am still finding it hard to wrap my head around how to time things, so Ive ended up really only having one crop in each space. Need to work on planning for spring>fall crops and things like that.
My biggest challenge is planting my related plants far enough apart. I like to save seed, but my garden is small, and I have neighbors as well… which means that the odds of cross contamination are high! For some plants it doesn’t matter. But I always wonder when I’m going to end up planting some weird hybrid that I produced the previous season.
My garden consists of 9 4×4!raised beds and a large pot. Mybbiggest challenges are 1. Determining the planting dates to ensure a spring, summer, and fall/ winter garden in my small space 2. To create a crop rotation schedule for my small raised bed garden.
My biggest problem planning my garden is trying to figure out how to deer-proof my garden beds.
My biggest personal problem is the cool, foggy Southern California weather. We never know exactly how much May Gray and June Gloom we are going to get from year to year, which makes for slow to grow gardens and small produce.
My biggest professional problem is selling clients on the beauty and benefits of growing your own garden. We live in a very perfection driven Southern Orange County, California.
Growing zucchini. Easiest plant ever, right? Nope. Kill it every year. Tomatoes are always a boom crop though!
We get the first harvest off the vines but then it is a race with vine borers and hey always win.
My biggest challenge is probably figuring out what to grow where – companion planting and succession planting prove to be challenging to me. I’ve always got my nose on the web trying to figure it out!
I think my big challenge is just that I don’t have the space to grow everything I want, nor the time to manage all of it. I get overwhelmed and just start plunking things in the ground.
I’m going to say weed control and pest control are my greatest problems in my garden spaces. For the vegetable garden, it’s deeply disappointing to look forward to harvesting snap peas, for example, only to find that the deer have chomped every last one off of the vines.
My biggest problem is knowing how much to plant. I either plant too many of one thing and not enough of another :/ This book would be awesome as I’m a fairly new beginner to gardening in the northwest!
Our biggest problem is getting gnat infestations when starting our seeds.
After your seeds are up and germinated, try cutting down on watering or switching to bottom watering so that the top layer of your soil, even just a thin layer of it, stays more dry. That seems to help.
Having down-sized, my challenge is space. How to utilize small space for ground planting – about 10 x 10 and a slightly larger patio where I can use containers or handmade small beds. I’m reading, reading, reading, and have a lot of good information along with a few plans drawn out, but still so many questions as to what will produce the most in the small space – especially tomatoes – never can get my fill of tomatos before it’s too hot here in TX! So much to learn!
My biggest challenge of gardening is that I always want to grow more than I can use or can – especially tomatoes! I also grow things that I have never eaten – because they look so beautiful in the seed catalogs. Sometimes I end up liking them, sometimes not. But at least I try new things this way!
I struggle with timing things as well as keeping up with general care, how often to water, cutting back basil, etc.
When I begin planning my backyard garden (usually in December for the following year), I have to keep in mind finding neighbors and friends to water and harvest the garden in August. Due to my husband’s work schedule, we can only take vacation in August. Not wanting to attract animals to the ripe bounty of August, finding someone to watch the garden is important. Additionally, if no neighbors are available to water in case of drought, the fall harvest will be greatly reduced. Make friends with the neighbors; invite them to take whatever they want if they’ll watch the garden while we’re away. Good fences can make good neighbors. But good gardens make good friends.
Space!! There are so many things that I want to try growing; deciding what to plant is difficult! But I’m learning to start seeds at different times and re-plant when one veggie is done growing, and to use small spaces for certain things, and to just go with it when something doesn’t work out. Gardening is a learning experience and an adventure-every year.
The constant HOT wind at elevation 6800 high desert plains.
When the right time to plant is and making sure I have enough space in between plants so one doesn’t over power another.
My biggest challenges are poor soil, lack of rain and root-knot nematodes
my biggest challenge is the soil itself and the fact that I don’t know what I am doing.
My biggest challenge is timing the seeds right for my zone because of the strange weather we have been having, warm winters and then bazinga – late spring freezes.
My biggest challenge is just getting started. The planning itself is so overwhelming. What to plant, when, where, how….
Being newish at this, I buy way too many starts for the space I have and then end up planting too close together. I also don’t think about planning a fall winter garden until it’s too late to plant it.
Water! I live out in the country and get my water from a small community water system and it is very expensive! I save rain water but there isn’t much of that when the plants need it in the summer.
Biggest challenge when I Plan? I guess I fall into the beginners biggest mistake category. I don’t plan for anything. I just plant it and hope for the best. Which now that it has been brought to my attention, is probably why most of my stuff doesn’t work out. I also have very dry soil and have been using pots, which I am getting better at, so I keep trudging forward. If I can remember to water and put in the correct amount of sun, I am doing great!
Planning ways to minimize slug problems!!
My biggest challenge? I live in Hawaii and while great for going to the beach, warm humid weather is brutal on many vegetables. WE do have very good luck with our fruits, but I have a lot to learn about vegetable growing. Space is also an issue, as well.
But…I keep trying, and would love a good book for some real all-around guidance!
my biggest gardening challenge is knowing what to plan when and then when I plant leafy greens, knowing when to cut them.
biggest planning challenge: Succession planting. Last year, the snap peas needed three weeks longer in the ground than we planned, and the following okra didn’t have enough time to produce much.
My biggest challenge is planning! I am a “stand in front of my closet every morning and then decided what to wear” kinda girl. I pack everything when I travel so I always have options. I try to live simiply but my brain does not want to operate in a less is more kinda way. So my garden tends to have a little of everything and in the end not enough of what I really wanted. So this year I am doing a simple garden where less is more!
Deer! They like to mosy through the garden just as things are getting ripe then snip of the stems without even eating the goodies. That way I can’t enjoy them either.
What’s up friends, its wonderful piece of writing concerning teachingand entirely defined, keep it up all the time.
Heh…. started thinking grow my own garden. So happy to bump into this website when browsing on internet to look for a pectin free jam recipe. Will definitely follow you from now on!
Figuring out how to do what I want in pots! Hopefully that won’t be an issue for too much longer.