I've been reading up on Gardening, and trying to figure out my design and vegetable placement. My garden overall can be up to 14 feet deep and 32 feet wide. It butts up against a sheep pasture to the north.

I would welcome any thoughts or recommendations you more experienced gardeners have that can help me get things off to a good start. Im planning to can/freeze as much as I can- make pickles, salsa, and harvest sunflower seeds and popcorn. I'd also like a couple of hills for raising some jack-o-lanters and watermelons.

Please help this rookie gardener. My Husband says I am "Farm Impaired."

Im also computer impared and do not know how to put a link to my garden in this message... anyone???

You don't say the direction of your garden, but considering your wide range of plant ideas (sounds great) I would hope the 32 feet side is parallel to a E-W line on your map. This will give you the best sun coverage for all sides of the plants. Put your tallest along the most northern side, then proceed to the south, getting shorter as you go.

If you have a shared garden you should be able to post your zip and have people find it. I'm new here so I don't have a better answer. My garden is still private until I figure out how to bring in all the hardscapes. I'll bet someone pops in here to explain how to view it from a link in this forum.

Congrats!
Tina

First, a link to your garden is automatically included if you have a shared garden. It is the link on the left side that says "View Garden" so we take care of that for you.

Can you add a line to your garden pointing north. If possible, you don't want to put vegetables that like sun and are short to be in the shade of corn.

As for putting tomatoes and garlic next to each other. You may have heard this is good companion planting, but garlic does like room and won't be as big if its roots have to complete with tomatoes. Tomatoes branch out a bit and have extensive roots particularly if and indeterminate type. (Just my suggestions.)

I would move the garlic next to the lettuce and plant soon as ground is not frozen. Garlic can handle code and it many places survive and thrive if planted in the fall. They are slightly bigger if planted in fall and have more time to develop.

Im still tinkering with the overall design every day I seem to change itbased on converstaions I've had with other gardeners and the owners of the property (my in-laws) I DID hear that garlic and tomatos go well together in companion gardening. I was thinking I would move them too because it just looks too squished.

Another problem I am having is knowing how much to actually plant of each vegetable. Im hoping to can some- but not so that I have to do it all summer long!

Thanks for the input given thus far! I sincerely appreciate it.

Once again I will let a surprise slip out from the Plangaden forum.
We are finishing up a really cool tool that will help you decide how much to plant.
It should be released some time this week as a first release.
Keep your eye on the site and watch for emails announcing what we are up to.

I think I am getting my design down because I haven't changed it for a full 24 hours. I am planning on adding a few flowers in the center of my garden-but right now, just concentrating on the veggies.

One question I have is the proximity between cucumber and pumpkins. Is there any reason you know of why I shouldn't put these so closely to one another? I had cucumber, watermelon and pumpkin all lined up in the north section of my garden, but took the watermelon out because my grandpa said it may make the watermelon taste a bit like pumpkin. Plus, he said he was growing watermelon in his garden, so I could have some if his produce.

Thanks for having a look!

The link below gives a good list for companion planting, hope it helps.

http://www.plangarden.com/forum/posting.php?mode=reply&t=495

Also, below is a link for - What to grow for a family of four. Hope you can get to these sites.

http://www.humeseeds.com/seedneed.htm