[MattinNJ]

I am the last guy you would think would have his own garden and would can food. I live in Joisey for God's sake. However, I am very fortunate to live in a rural part of the state and have over an acre of very fertile land on a ridgeline that gets a ton of precipitation and slow snow melt.

I will plant my first garden next year to start to learn how to do it-figure there is a learning curve. I guess I will need to stock up on fertilizer and some sort of chemicals to preserve the crop. It would be the ultimate in irony for me to plant a garden, have a crisis happen, and then have the harvest wiped out by a disease or insects.

[MtnClimber]

I grew my first garden last year, trying to learn too. I live in the Colorado Rockies so have very rocky and poor soil. I have been composting leaves, pine needles and kitchen scraps to build up the soil in the garden areas. Your state agricultural extension office can probably recommend crops that will do well in your area and let you know about common pests to be prepared for.

[Misterioso]

. . . and then have the harvest wiped out by a disease or insects.

Or starving marauders.

[MtnClimber]

There is a weekly gardening thread here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2428924/posts?page=38#38

Just ask to be added to the ping list if you like. This is where I got lots of good advise for my garden.

[SatinDoll]

Matt - New Jersey is the Garden State. Good luck with your gardening adventure but don’t do what I did with my first garden: I like zucchini so much I planted 40 plants. Big mistake!

We had zucchini still hanging around in the freezer twelve years later! If I never see or taste another piece of zucchini bread it will be too soon.

[nina0113]

I guess I will need to stock up on fertilizer and some sort of chemicals to preserve the crop.

You need a hot-water-bath canner for fruit and a pressure canner for vegetables and meat. Get a copy of the Ball Blue Book and plenty of jars.

Start a compost heap NOW - I don't throw so much as a cherry stem in the trash any more, it all goes in the bin. I got a really nice one at Lowe's for $50.

Raised beds (Lowe's again for landscape timbers, drill holes in the corners and hammer spikes or rebar through) will protect your garden from flooding.

I live on a third of an acre and bought almost no produce last summer, though I was a slacker about putting any up for the winter.

[texas_mrs]

Although I had tinkered with a vegetable garden before, I got intense about it last year when "The One" was elected and did very well with it. There's something not right about not knowing how to grow your own food.

This year we are finishing a greenhouse to add to the growing time available to us. We have acreage behind our house with plenty of beef on it should there be a crisis and though we are on city water we recently drilled a very good well in the back yard.

If we are overly prepared, oh well, I love the taste of the homegrown veggies & don't plan on going back to getting everything from the grocer.

[FreeStateYank]

FYI: When I was a kid, our neighbors were from Kansas and knew how to work a farm. They always grew their own veg and used egg shells and coffee grounds as fertilizer.

[Woebama]

Some of the best gardens in the country are in Jersey. Great tomatoes.