My wife and I decided to give this gardening thing a try, so I built a 4x8' raised bed in the back yard a few weeks ago. We waited until the last frost date in FL, early March, to start planting. Right now we are at about 2 weeks in, so here is the set-up and the results so far:

The raised bed, made from cedar with a short fence to keep the dogs out. Should this season go well, we are considering adding a second bed next year, perhaps along with a fruit tree. The soil is composed of about 25 bags of topsoil, 4 bags of cow manure/compost, and a large bag of peat moss.



We decided to try planting a little of everything. Corn is in a 3x3 block in the back, with 6 strawberry plants from Home Depot on the front right, and a few bean plants on the left. In the very front are some carrots.



We planted 3 kernels of corn per location in the grid and will thin when they get taller. Each planting location is 12" from the next.



I'm not sure how the strawberries are doing. Some seem to have gotten bigger, while others seem to stay the same. Two have some leaves turning yellow/red, and I'm not sure what that means yet. Probably not good, I am guessing.



We only planted one bean seed per location, which I am regretting as we had a 65% germination rate. We are going to replant the open spots this weekend. One of the beans lost its leaves somehow; I'm guessing an animal got to it. We will replant that one too, if it doesn't look like it will continue to grow.



The tiny carrot seeds were odd to plant. We just dropped a few pinches of seed on the surface and hoped for the best. Turns out they are growing well, but we will need to thin them.



We also set up a compost bin for future plots, if we decide we're good enough at this to continue.



Compost seems to be... composting?



I also moved an old trashcan to a gutter spout in order to act as a temporary rain barrel while we find some better options. I'm not interested in having a mosquito haven. Once the can is full, it seems to last for about 5-6 days of watering. Every day I have been rescuing 1 or 2 little skink lizards that get into the can but then can't get out, so I'd like to get a covered barrel to keep them out too.



Got any tips for me?

If you had a lid for the can and a little more gutter spout I would say run the spout through the lid.

Very cool OP. I started my first suburban garden in FL last fall. It was pretty good but I learned a whole lot of little things. I'm still far far from an expert. My spring garden this year is going like gang-busters. I have roughly about twice the garden area you have but still would consider it a very small garden.

First thing I found was that crops that come in all at once, really aren't that good for small gardens like ours. They spend most of the growing season producing nothing, then boom, you have more than you care to eat when they come in, but not enough to go to the trouble of breaking out the canner for. Things that I got the most usage out of where greens (spinach, leaf lettuce, arugula), pole beans, cucumbers and tomatoes. All those either produce over an extended time or you can pick from them continuously.

If you pick as you go, you can plant those greens pretty densly to make maximum use of your space. Pole beans grow vertically, so you can setup a trellis and they take up very little ground space. Just make sure to position it so it shades the rest of the garden as little as possible.

Also, consider doing some spices. Most are hardy and can be picked from continuously, and can save you a lot of money over buying nasty dried spices.

Looks good OP. here is a great site to tell you what's going on with your strawberries. Here

Also, with that few specimens of corn you will need to cross pollinate yourselves. So I would read up and watch a YouTube video on how to do that.

I dont know if it's the same in FL, but your local(ish) water reclamation plant might have surplus rain barrel for sale.

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'll look into getting a few goldfish for the rain barrel; it seems like a better alternative to adding chemicals. How do goldfish fare with temperature swings? The barrel is in direct sun for about 6 hours per day.

Livfreely, thanks for that link. It looks like the strawberries may be nitrogen or phosphorus deficient. I'll be off to Home Depot to learn about fertilizers. I have read that the corn will need nitrogen as well as soon as the silks start to show.

I had been thinking about doing the hand pollination with the corn when it comes time. I planted them in the best location so as they would not shade the other plants. If we decide to build another bed for next season, this will become the "corn" bed, as it is in the best spot for the sun and to not shade anything else.

I'm still on the fence with the fruit tree. We think we might go with a peach tree, but we don't want to invest too heavily yet if it turns out we aren't any good at this!

Looks great OP. Plant EVERYTHING you can think of just for shits and giggles. What works well in your neighbor's garden might not work well in yours. Experiment - you will figure it out. If you stick with it this will be you favorite hobby and in your case - Florida - you can plant something year round. Compost is a good idea. Gold fish in the rain barrel is a friggin OUTSTANDING idea. If you have to treat for bugs on your veggies try Sevin dust. I try to stay away from the insecticides with the picture of a skull and crossbones. Sevin will not harm your pets and it is great for getting rid of fleas.

Keep the pics coming OP.

Well, IMHO, ditch the corn altogether.  They have roots that run something in the range of 12 feet deep. That bed is not going to have enough nutrients for them.  I suspect the soil under that yard is probably pretty poor and construction fill.

If you do keep the corn, pull up the beans and replant them next to the corn so it can climb.  Add in a few yellow, green, or butternut squash in that same area (base of corn).  This will allow you to take advatnage of the corn for climibing and reduce the waste of square footage.

Carrots... they grow best in beds.  And they do fine if you pack them in.  Thin often and they will do fine.

You need to set up a 2'x2' area that you can plant in a mat of greens.  Thin them and re-use them all summer.

You can triple that output if you try.  You are too conservative on your planting in some areas (beans) and too liberal in others (corn).

I would recommend a book "The Joy of Gardening" by Dick Raymond.  Google it.  Lots of helpful things there for a small garden plot like yours.

Don't be afraid of density and use the crowding of some plants to help others.

TRG

Regarding your compost pile; I believe they should be in direct contact with the earth, that set up appears to be on a cement pad. The worms will have a bit of trouble getting to your material.

Rob

Well we've had some good success so far.

I applied some vegetable fertilizer to the strawberries, but we still lost one of the strawberry plants. The other five look much more healthy than they had been. Luckily, the plant we lost was next to our block of corn. While thinning the corn, I attempted to replant two good looking stalks, hoping they could fill in for the missing strawberry. For the first few days I didn't think the replant would take, as the two stalks were very wilted. Fortunately, after several days, they perked back up. Soon I will have to thin one of them, although I am not sure if either will produce.

This is a photo from last week. The replanted corn is in the very middle of the bed.



This week I also thinned the carrots. We had surface-planted them, and I was not convinced they would take, but wayyyy more actually sprouted than I thought. They are still looking good, but I may need to thin them again:



I laid out mulch under the remaining strawberry plants to keep the fruit off of the dirt. We got our first blossoms last week and we have at least 3 berries growing, with a few more blossoms out too:





The beans are growing like crazy! I think they might be a little too dense. That's what I get for following directions!



Finally, the corn is doing well. This is the crop that I want to succeed the most, even though I know we'll most likely get about 10-12 ears if we are lucky. I have seen corn planted much more dense than this that seemed to be doing well, so I think I might plant a few more seeds next time. We had a storm today that knocked over some of the corn stalks (much to my horror), but a firm push on the soil shored them back up nicely.



My city's public works/water treatment department reuses their 55-gallon barrels, so I am still looking for one or two. They did give me some tips on places to look, however. Craigslist wants about $50-60 for one. Still haven't decided on a fruit tree, but we are still thinking about it. I'd also like to build another bed, but I'm hesitant to do it until we get our first crop on the table.

Good start.

Just for grins get a couple of five gallon buckets and plant some tomatoes.
Cherry tomatoes are like crack and should do excellent.

I spy with my little eye...







I put a lattice in between the beans and strawberries/carrots, as the green beans had started to overrun everything around them. We made a note of this and will have a wider separation during the next planting.

Unfortunately the corn damage continues. I have dimmed my hopes from a freezer full of corn to just maybe one dinner

Looking really good OP.  I look forward to seeing how it goes.

Gordon's Garden Guard will help with that bug damage.  You can also apply a liquid Sevin.  

Anything that eats a leaf will be killed by either product.

From the pics, look at the blades on your corn.  They are rolling up in the heat.  This is not good.

The rolling blade means you need to get them deeper and more consistent watering.   Corn roots can go 12 feet deep.  You don't have the bottom of that bed sealed or blocked, do you?

TRG

Thanks for the tips. I'll look for the Sevin dust/liquid.



TRG, I do have a layer of landscape fabric beneath, so I guess the corn is only getting about a foot or so to grow root structure. I will adjust this for the next time we plant it.

On the bright side, the green beans will be ready this week, and we picked  our very first strawberries tonight!

That landscape fabric is going to cause your corn to not develop properly.  I would probably recommend that you remove the corn and find something else with a shallower roots system to plant them instead.

TRG

Thanks TRG. If I remove the landscape fabric and churn up the soil beneath, should that be good enough? I plan to turn this entire bed into a corn bed sometime over the winter.

Today we got our first harvest of green beans!

At a minimum you will need to remove the underlayer of landscape fabric.  Corn has very deep roots.  It is also a heavy feeder.

Depending upon where your housing edition is located, you may not be in the proper soil needed to allow corn to grow deeply enough to produce the ears you desire.

TRG

Thanks TRG, I'll remove the fabric at the end of the season and try again with the corn.

The garden continues to grow beyond my imagination.



We decided we do not have nearly enough strawberry plants. Only 2-3 berries are all ripe at the same time, so we can either increase the amount of plants next time, or just save and refrigerate/freeze everything until we have enough to be satisfied with eating a few.



The carrots are about 2 weeks away from being ready to pull.



The green beans have been very good to us. We can get enough to go with dinner about once every 2-3 days, and I see no sign of them stopping anytime soon. We are still getting blossoms and we have already picked them three times! I am impressed.



We also have a few rays of sunshine with the corn. Whatever was eating the plants seems to have stopped, which I am thankful for. It looks like there are at least 3 ears that are forming, with a little over 1 month before they should be ready. We also have a few tassles forming. There is still hope for a corn dinner or two!

Still a few days to go before the carrots are ready. The green beans have slowed down a bit, and we are getting a handful per day. We still have a bunch that we put away in the freezer, however.

The corn seems to be doing much better. I counted at least 11 ears that may turn into something edible, with a few more that are questionable. Some silks have started to show as well, so I will need to hand pollinate in the next day or two. I'm waiting for a few more anthers to be ready before I sprinkle them onto the silks.

Garden looks nice! You might want to try a different variety of strawberries that ripen all at once, like a June bearing plant as opposed to an ever bearing. You probably will not get fruit all season but would get a lot at one time which is convenient if you plan on canning or freezing a sizable quantity.

Thanks! We are going to try to diversify with the berries next season. One or two here and there isn't cutting it, although they make nice toppers to dessert or breakfast.

Here is yesterday's haul. We never picked carrots before, so we pulled one to see if it was good. We were not disappointed! They are Little Finger carrots.



We pulled a few more carrots tonight. They are going in the crockpot with the pot roast tomorrow

The pot roast and carrots were delicious

This is from Saturday night. We pulled up the rest of the carrots. I guess a 1' x 2' section for them wasn't nearly enough, but now we know for next time! The green bean plants are pretty thin these days. I think they are all done, as there are no more blossoms. We will pull them up this week and plant something else.



I need to get started building a second bed. My wife wants to plant some watermelons, although we will probably wait until August to do so. For now, we might replant beans and carrots.

The corn is really coming in! I counted 21 ears today, and hopefully a few of them will turn into good eatin'. Pics of them on the table soon.

Haven't posted up in a bit, but we ended up with 17 good ears of deliciousness. We had expected 2 ears per stalk with 11 plants, so 22 ears total. 17 out of 22 (77%) isn't bad!



The ears we couldn't keep either did not come in very well or had caterpillar/earworms attack.



We removed the corn stalks last week and started to replant. This time we are foregoing the corn and working on a larger crop of carrots and beans. Things are already sprouting!

Look in to Bacillus Thurgensis to kill those worms.

It was recommended to me by others in this forum as a way to control all caterpillars, including corn worms.

TRG

Nice, thanks TRG! Is it something that you apply preemptively or after you notice damage?

Some friends of ours have started raising rabbits for meat. Today I stopped by and traded some frozen corn for their rabbit poop. I think they may have gotten the better end of the deal

We now have a whole bunch of rabbit cocoa puffs for the compost. I'm going to let it age for a bit before adding it to a new bed that will be going in soon.

I go for chickens, I have a few.  You get eggs.  Chicken poop plus the shavings goes into the compost bin.  Then you can eat the chickens when they aren't producing.



 

Our second crop of green beans started coming in this week. Pretty soon the carrots will be ready too. Florida is in the rainy season now, so watering has been quite easy





The strawberries are spreading like crazy. I can't believe how dense they are now. The only problem? They are Junebearing... That's a lot of wasted space until next year.



I got the second bed in this weekend. We planted watermelon, broccoli, and iceberg lettuce.

Thanks for the update, I'm enjoying this thread.

Having some trouble with the green beans. We got a decent crop already, but I think we were only half-way through the growing cycle when this issue started to happen. What is it?

To me, it looks like maybe the plants were too tightly packed, and all the rain has caused the plants to rot in place. Either that or the heat is killing them. Any thoughts?





In other news, the watermelon and broccolli are coming in well! I'll have some pictures of them soon.

We decided to cut our losses with the green beans and pulled all the plants up. We did get a decent amount of carrots this time though.

Florida is finishing up the rainy season, but it is still very hot. I think the garden is hating life right now.

This weekend we planted tomatoes and banana peppers. We added some of the rabbit poo and other compost to the soil under the tomatoes and banana peppers, I was surprised at how heavy that compacted compost is!



The watermelon also started growing the fruits. The broccoli isn't doing as well as we  hoped, but there is still a chance that some will produce.

Ooooo water melons!  Interested to see how this turns out.

The tomatoes started to come up! No luck with the banana peppers though. They are planted so close to the surface that I wonder if they are just drying out during the sunny days while we are at work. I replanted the banana peppers today and we will see if they take this time around.



My wife is very excited that it is fall...



This weekend I also finally put together a rain barrel from a 55-gallon container. I found a guy on craigslist that works in the restaurant supply industry and sells the barrels for $20 each. They all contained food items prior. I installed a spigot and 2" overflow spout, and arranged my gutter downspout with a 90 degree elbow that feeds in just below the lid. All of this was done yesterday and this morning.

This afternoon, we had a pretty fierce rain storm, so I got to watch and make sure that the system works the way I intended. There was so much water coming down that the 2" PVC downspout had flow completely filling the tube! Maybe I need a bigger overflow?

Here is the new set-up (blue barrel) with the old set-up to the left of it (just a trashcan...). The trashcan had a hole halfway down so it never filled all the way. This new barrel is sure to increase our ability to water the garden when the rainy season starts to slow.

We got a TON of rain here over the past few days. Wednesday morning our street flooded, so I felt like I was fording the river on the Oregon Trail when I drove into work. I was a little worried about the garden getting flooded too, but here's where those raised beds really shine. They drained very well and we didn't have any crop loss from the deluge.

Our lettuce never sprouted, but I guess that's just as well; There would be no room for it! There is one SINGLE watermelon plant and it is taking up the yard! The broccoli is doing OK, but I realized that I've never seen broccoli grow before, so I have no idea what it should look like at this stage.





Tomato plants are doing OK. I'm going to pick the best ones this week or next and trim out the other plants.



Banana peppers take forever to grow! These plants are at about 4 weeks since planting....

We harvested our first watermelon on Friday, and yesterday my wife tried canning for the first time. She made watermelon jelly for us. We ended up with 7 of the small Ball jars' worth of watermelon jelly, using just half of the watermelon we picked. It is pretty good! We still have three more melons in the patch and a few little fruits growing too.





Also yesterday, we gave some new life to our old shed by adding some new trim and painting it up a bit. It was a fun project and really adds to the back yard. Here is a picture of breakfast this morning (watermelon chunks with some toast and watermelon jelly!)



The tomato plants are doing pretty well, but the banana peppers might be a lost cause. The plants just are not growing. The broccoli also has me a little disappointed. The plants are huge and healthy, but I don't see any heads coming out yet. I'm not sure how long it takes for broccoli heads to sprout, but it has me a bit concerned.

Give the peppers a little more time.  My jalapenos and bell peppers didn't do anything except drop leaves and look pathetic for the first several months.  Recently they have really started producing lots of peppers.

Grove

What's wrong with your pepper plants? Are they being crowded or don't have enough sun? Rooting can be an issue with them if they are overwatered. If they look good but not blossoming, you can always work in some phosphorus product for blossoms.

Well, you guys were right! One of the pepper plants began flowering last week. The other still looks quite pathetic, but I still have hope for it.



The tomatoes have started flowering and are showing fruit.



A few of the broccoli plants have started to bud. This one has the best head on it so far.



Finally, our watermelons are doing pretty well. We have harvested two so far for jelly, sorbet, and ol' fashioned eatin' and seed spittin'. There are a bunch of little secondary fruits that are almost ready. This one is the largest of the first crop, ready to be harvested tomorrow.

The biggest watermelon weighed in at 22 pounds. My wife did a bit of canning and it looks like we can get about 14-20 jars of jelly from each large melon. The jelly is really good and great for storing, or to give away as gifts.

It has stayed pretty cool for the last few weeks and the broccoli is loving it. We brought in three heads so far. Not all of the plants produced heads, but I think I was not able to keep the soil cool enough during the hot weather.



We also have some banana peppers coming in. Just one out of the two plants actually flowered, but we have 3 or 4 peppers starting to grow. This is a plant that I'll really need to work on if I want to get better yields.



The tomatoes are coming in well. There are a bunch of flowers on the plants and a good handful of tomatoes on the vine.



Now that the watermelon is just about done, we are going to put in some lettuce for the cool season. Lettuce should be easier to cover up if we get frost.

Haven't updated in a while, but some stuff has been going on here and there.

Every single broccoli plant has produced a head. Some sprouted weeks after the first ones had already been cut and eaten. The cooler weather definitely helped out. I am still getting the smaller florets here and there, and there is one more plant that I'm still letting the head grow.

Here is last week's harvest:



I guess I didn't anticipate how large tomato plants get. So.... they are overgrown. I'll have to build some sort of larger structure to contain the plants next time we grow them. However, the first tomatoes are starting to ripen, so we should be picking some off the vine soon.



I also replaced the compost bin with a dual chamber compost pile made from pallets. This will allow me to let one side age while we start to fill the other side. I also made another run over to my buddy's for some more rabbit cocoa puffs.

We just planted some lettuce and carrots in place of the watermelon. They are coming in pretty well. We decided that carrots will probably like the cooler weather.

Tomatoes come in 2 types, determinate and indeterminate.  Indeterminate will keep growing as long as the weather permits.  Determinate will usually stop growing once the first flowers come in.  Read here for full info.

I would go with a determinate variety if space is at a premium or increase spacing/have fewer plants.

Those may be determinate ones anyway as they can get pretty big (4 feet according to the above article).  Do you know the variety and if it's determinate or not?

Interesting. I learned something today. Thanks C-4!

The tomatoes are Beefsteak/Ponderosa Red, and they are indeterminate. I think I'll try some determinate ones next time (or maybe build a tomato tree like in my Disney thread).

Tomatoes have been coming in pretty heavily the last few weeks. Too many...



I tried to make sauce and ended up with about 7 quarts of it using 8 pounds of tomatoes. Unfortunately I made a few missteps during the process.

1) I didn't cook down the sauce so it was pretty watery.

2) I didn't measure out any ingredients and just did a "dash of this, dash of that" and ended up making it wayyyyy too salty....

So I guess I'll try again with the sauce at a later date.

However, we also made salsa, which came out fantastic!



The banana peppers are still the same size they have been for the past few weeks. No idea when they might turn yellow, but they are looking a lot like jalapenos.

I think next we are going to plant peas and also some more corn. The corn has been my favorite crop so far!

Well, it's been one year with the garden! I'm having a lot of fun with it and hope to continue to build it up larger this year. I just added a Florida Crest peach tree to our plot. The tree is quite young, but was engineered specifically to live in the central Florida climate and requires a low number of chill hours. I read that peaches like very well drained soil, so I built a raised bed for it and planted the tree in sandy soil, with mulch as ground cover.



One of the "banana peppers" started to turn a slight red, and they were already well past their harvest time. I think they really were jalapenos.... Must have gotten a mislabeled package! Oh well, at least these three were great on pizza!





The carrots and lettuce are coming in very well. I also planted some more green beans and corn, and we are trying out some sugar snap peas.

Lettuce and carrots look like they are coming in great. I am getting lumber tomorrow to build my first raised bed. Looking forward to learning and growing some things in the back yard. I think it will be a fun process. Enjoyed scrolling through your thread and pics. Looks like you have got the hang of it. Nice work!

Thanks! I still have a lot to learn about gardening, and I hope to continue expanding the garden.

The peach tree has its first buds forming. It isn't dead!



Also, I saved a few strawberry plants, and the first is starting to blossom.