new gardener

[emily]

i am brand new in all respects...and looking for any and all advice! i have planted several forms of squash, peppers, green beans, strawberries, cucumbers, and sugar snap peas. if you have any experience with these veggies and want to throw me a bone, i feel in over my head here. i know i have good soil, and all my plants look perky and green but beyond that i have no idea what i am doing...i also know i need to water them, but i don't know how much...help?

[msmeg]

have fun

keep ahead of the weeds

tour your garden each evening that will point out problems early so they do not get ahead of you

and ask any questions you have as they arise.

talk to other gardener see a lovely garden .. stop and talk gardeners are usually glad to share their knowlege and often extras

[Chris]

cucumbers and squash needs lots of water, and if they don't have enough they will tell you with their leaves drooping.

Peppers need lots of sun, lots of sun.

Strawberries are annoying to me because they get nabbed by bugs and critters so often, raspberries are better, higher off the ground.

[cliffhokie]

i am brand new in all respects...and looking for any and all advice! i have planted several forms of squash, peppers, green beans, strawberries, cucumbers, and sugar snap peas. if you have any experience with these veggies and want to throw me a bone, i feel in over my head here. i know i have good soil, and all my plants look perky and green but beyond that i have no idea what i am doing...i also know i need to water them, but i don't know how much...help?

now, advice will be limited as I grew up with a lot of these vegetables in our garden and many of them thrived with little work (in Virginia), but here goes...
green beans: they were very hearty growers, which was bad for me b/c I hated (and still do) them.
cucumbers: grow very well, make sure to water, don't wait till too late to pick them, makes them taste bad and a little bitter.
strawberries: these were my father's project, but he always grew them in the shaded side of our house separate from rest of garden. Bad problem with slugs, fungus? and ants. Ants, he solved with spray (sorry, hope no one jumps on it not being "organically" grown) and the slugs, he swore by placing a can of beer into the soil so only about two inches popped up above the ground. Said the slugs would be attracted to that, and then pretty much, you would have a can of slug beer after a while. anyways, these will probably be the one that you will wish you didn't grow. That being said, my dad grew really good at it, and eventually, he yielded some very nice strawberries.
squash (zuchinni): very easy to grow, end up with more than you know what to do with
peppers: like chris said, peppers need lots of light. we had a separate garden for them in a part of the yard that recieved lots of light. Bell peppers were very hearty and produced quite a few. We also had various asian peppers in the garden. Problem with hot peppers are that very few people can find that many uses for them. My mother did everything from using them fresh, making pepper paste (for asian dishes), salsas, and drying them for future use. I wouldn't do too many hot peppers, stick with ones that are more readily used for food as is, like bell peppers.

[Chris]

the beer thing is definitely a tried and true method.

http://www.gardeningblog.net/2008/06/16/beer-beans-and-slugs/