Weekend Home Projects is a reader supported site. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. These commissions do not affect your purchase prices. Learn more about that here.
We wanted to start a small vegetable garden, but we only had a 5 foot strip of dirt along the side of the house. The previous owners must have had a garden there since the area was slightly raised using some old boards to keep the dirt off of the sidewalk. We added some pavers to reinforce the edge of this area and it became a great spot for our garden.
Pavers keep the dirt off of the cement
This is the second year that we have had this side garden. The jury is still out for this year since our plants haven’t all started producing yet, but we’ve had pretty good success in our first two years of growing here.
Preparation:
We were pretty lucky since the soil in this area was soft and easily workable. I went through the area once with a hand claw, and the area was ready to plant. For this size garden, the little hand tiller worked great and was all that was required. Amazon sells a similar product to mine from Garden Weasel. I also used a bag of chicken manure that included worm castings and worked that into the soil with the tiller.
Small hand tiller was perfect for our small garden
To irrigate the area, we decided to use a simple soaker hose. We used one by Miracle Grow but there are several that you can buy. Yes, a drip system would have been more efficient, but the area was so narrow that we decided that a single soaker hose to the end and then looped back around would cover two rows of vegetables which would work perfectly for our space. One thing to remember about soaker hoses is that they will crack if you have too much pressure in the line, shooting a spray out in areas, and not getting a drip in others. Either add a pressure regulator, or just do what we did and be careful to only open the faucet a half turn. This will produce a slow drip throughout the hose. We went through a few burst hoses learning this lesson the hard way.
Simple soaker hose irrigation system covers two rows of vegetables
Planting
We planted both years in mid-April. That’s about the time you’ll find vegetables available at your local nursery. In each year, we have grown squash, cucumbers, beans, snap peas, peppers and tomatoes.
The key to planting is in the spacing. We found this out our first year as we planted our squash about 3 feet away from each other. We also had cucumber about the same distance away. The good news is that one of the squash plants and one of the cucumbers ended up thriving. The bad news is that the squash plant basically took over the entire area, including the poor squash that didn’t do so well. The cucumber that survived did so by moving it’s limbs away from the squash toward the bean plants. Bottom line, if you have the room, then give your squash and cucumbers plenty of space. Alternatively, you can try to grow them vertically but that takes some thought before planting.
Second guessing our spacing as massive squash takes over area
We also found some Youtube videos on letting your squash grow up a trellis, thus lessening the need for space. This year, we tried putting together a trellis (a simple string trellis from Home Depot) but we didn’t do it until the squash had already established itself so it’s pretty much ignoring the trellis and moving off toward our cucumber. Oh well.
Trying a simple trellis for the squash in year 2
Taking less space are the vine vegetables like beans, peppers and snap peas. The key here is to either put them in cages, or stake them with enough string for them to climb. The pepper is pretty strong so it might not need as much support as the other two vegetables. Cucumbers can grow along the ground or up into a cage or trellis. We used a tomato cage and it’s doing fine there.
Tomato cages used for the cucumbers
Inexpensive string trellis along with wooden stakes used for the beans
Finally, the tomatoes need more space than the beans, but much less than the squash. We planted the vine and not the bush tomatoes so they tend to grow more vertically and less to the sides. As with the beans, it’s important to stake and string the tomatoes to keep them supported and upright. They will grow up to 4-5 feet so they will collapse without the support. We prefer staking them rather than to use the cages since it allows them to grow a bit more freely. Just put a stake on either side of your tomato plant(s) and then support them with a string on either side of the plant. I grew up on a farm and remember helping my parents string up two acres of tomatoes.
Use wooden stakes with string to hold up tomato plants
This year, we’ve taken a few of our beans and a cucumber and are trying to grow them in a pot on the other side of the house. We’re just doing an experiment to see if vegetables might thrive on that side of the house, which tends to get more afternoon and evening sun. So far those plants are not doing well. While our other plants have really taken off, these plants have hardly grown at all. Not sure why, but we’ll probably stick to our original spot for our vegetables.
Potted vegetables on other side of house are struggling
Water consistently, but don’t over water, especially when the plants are young. We used a soaker hose. You could also use a standard drip system with emitters. I would recommend not hand watering. You’ll get a more consistent, deep watering by using a soaker or drip. Besides, as you’ll read later, you don’t want to kick up dirt onto your plants when hose watering.
Problems:
We’ve definitely run across some problems as we try to grow and maintain our vegetable garden. Everything from insects and slugs, to disease and fungus.
Slugs
Slugs are the most harmful when your plants are small. We had just planted our cucumber and went out the next morning to find only a single leaf remaining on the plant. This happened a few times. We use Corry’s Slug & Snail Death brand of slug killer that we found on Amazon. That product contains Metaldehyde which could be poisonous to animals. From doing some research online, apparently that has been replaced by Slug & Snail Killer. A similar name, but I believe the active ingredient has been changed to sodium ferric. I’m not sure how well the new product works, but the original one definitely kept the snails out. If you really want to stay away from poisons, we have ordered but have not tried HARRIS Diatomaceous Earth Crawling Insect Killer. This apparently works by being abrasive to the slugs or insects that crawl over it, thus drying out the oils from the insect.
Corry’s snail bait worked well to keep out snails
Snail bait ring around each of the vegetable plants
White Flies
When your plants grow to a reasonable size, you’re still not out of the woods as far as pests are concerned. We noticed a ton of tiny white creatures flying mainly around the large leafs of our zucchini plants. We found out from Google that these were white flies who apparently enjoy sucking the juices out of the leaves of our vegetables. We found out from some Youtube videos that a mixture of plain dish soap (it needs to be plain without alot of additional de-greasing agents in it) and water should do the trick. The consensus on our Youtube videos was to use about 2 tablespoons of dish soap per half gallon of water. We used a half gallon as a measurement since that’s what our sprayer that we found on Amazon holds. You can use a larger hand pump sprayer for larger gardens, or just a small spray bottle for smaller gardens. We started with the smaller one, but found the large one on Amazon so we bought that one as well. The number of flies was noticeably reduced after the first application. Instructions were to apply once a week, but we tried it again in a few days. After a couple of applications, the flies were almost completely gone. Make sure to also spray the underside of the leafs, especially the big bulky zucchini leaves. Note also that this same mixture was recommended for aphids on our rose bushes. We tried it and it worked for them too. There are a number of solutions on Youtube, like baking soda, Neem oil, and just plain water so pick one that works for your plants. For us, the dish soap did the trick. Also, be sure to test your solution on a single leaf or a small part of your plant to make sure that it doesn’t damage your plants.
Sprayers used to apply dish soap solution to the plants
Our other strategy that we used to remove the white flies was to use some dual sided yellow sticky sheets. We bought the Faicuk 20-Pack dual-sided yellow sticky traps on Amazon and they seemed to do the job. In a few days, we had a sheet covered with white flies, and other tiny insects.
Sticky traps for the white flies
Powdery Mildew
We noticed that the leaves on our squash and cucumber plants were turning white so we checked it out on Youtube. Apparently, it was a common fungus that lives dormant in the soil and appears on your plants. Based on several videos, we found a number of solutions. One of the solutions we found was Neem Oil, which seemed to work best for us. There were several other remedies called out as well like baking soda, milk, and mouthwash… but we stuck to the neem oil. As per instructions, we also cut the affected leaves off of the plant, and so far, all of the new and unaffected leaves are free of the mildew. Be sure that you spray in the morning so you don’t burn your leaves. Also, as mentioned before, try this on a small part of the plant to make sure it doesn’t have a negative reaction.
Many of our plants suffered from powdery mildew
Ok, I guess I need to add one final pest to all of the others in this article. I went to the garden and found 2 half eaten tomatoes. I had already used my security camera to catch a squirrel rummaging around in my squash plant. I had found a few of those half eaten as well. Now I guess they’re after my tomatoes. Not sure of a good solution for this other than to pick them a bit earlier. Stupid squirrels.
Note that we just bought an ultrasound motion detection device that is supposed to keep pests away. The jury is still out since I found another eaten tomato after we installed the device. I won’t bother to link it unless I find that it’s working.
Squirrels have found our tomatoes
We had a great first crop last year, and so far, our second year looks good as well. Our garden has given us plenty of squash, cucumbers, beans and tomatoes in the past two years. Enough that we’ve had plenty for ourselves and even enough for friends and family.
So far, both years have produced a great harvest
Video References
Here are some really useful references that we used as we tried to grow our garden.
Good information on selecting a soap to use on the white flies
Some good general gardening tips along with solutions for getting rid of powdery mildew
