I'm very much a beginner, when I lived with my parents if they were gone for more than a weekend they would get the neighbour instead of me to take care of all the plants.  They didn't trust me!

It depends, but lately on my back balcony which is hot and dry I have enjoyed growing tall ornamental grasses. It cools of the balcony and provides refuge for birds that my cat likes;-)

chemgal - it would be helpful to hear from you how much sun & shade each of your areas has ... that's a very important consideration in making selections. 

How big is your 'garden patch' - the one in the ground?  Is it next to a fence or a wall, or out in the open? 

Standing at my front door, looking out I would be facing south.  The garden is in the NE corner of the backyard, bordered by the fence on the 2 sides.  It gets a fair amount of sun though, looking out it has the widest area with no snow beside the fence.  It's about 10" by 15" although that's a really rough guess as it's still covered in snow.

I would put the planters on the driveway, on either side of the garage.

The herb pots would go somewhere in the backyard.  I haven't decided yet, so if a sunny spot or a shadier spot is better I could do either.

Where are all the gardeners?  Too much snow to plant right now, but we can at least think about it, right?  :)

What zone are you in chemgal?

Alex good idea re the grasses

Pinga, I don't know if that refers to something specific.  I'm in Edmonton.

A few more questions

Do you know if they had perennials planted?

I'm guessing no, it looked like weeds only when we moved it.

Chemgal, I'm in Edmonton myself. 

With herbs I have pretty good luck with sage, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, parsley, lavender and greek oregano. Actually I usually end up with more than I need.  If you want to try some more 'exotic' herbs soup celery, cilantro, salad burnet, hyssop and loveage all do well here.  I've also had good luck with pineapple sage and apple-mint.  If you want to grow anything in the mint family (catnip, catmint, pennyroyal, peppermint, spearmint, etc) I strongly recommend you grow them in containers because they spread like mad.

Veggies that grow well here: tomatoes, peas, beans, chard, beets, carrots, radish, lettuce, potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, winter squashes (spaghetti, acorn, butternut, hubbard), onions.  You can do spinach but it tends to bolt to seed really rapidly.

I've never had much luck with cabbage, broccoli, kale or cauliflower but that's more a pest issue than a climate issue. 

strawberries and raspberry bushes both grow well as do crab-apples, chokecherry, nanking cherry and evans cherry trees

My grandfather used to grow watermelon and muskmelon but I've never had any real luck with either.

Rowan, what a gift you gave chemgal.

Chemgal, come to think of it tabitha also may have ideas

Fabulous Rowan - nothing better than info from a 'local' :-) 

chemgal - the zones pinga refers to to are plant hardiness zones  -  really helpful to know your zone when looking for plants - here's an article that explains and has links to maps.  It looks like Edmonton is probably zone 3 - is that right Rowan?   http://www.canadiangardening.com/how-to/gardening-resources/hardiness-zones-and-frost-dates/a/1781

And yes - good advice about the mint!!  It's a crazy spreader if put directly into the garden.  At the cottage we had a big wild patch of it - and when the dog came out of the lake he used to love to go roll in it - which gave him a lovely perfume!  Much better than 'eau de wet dog' !

I love lemon balm but it also needs to be contained

ps....when i first saw this post title...my answer was "a moustache?"....good thing that i read the body of the post!

Thanks Rowan!  I hadn't even considered squash, but it's something we both enjoy so I will be adding at least one of those for sure!

I'd like to put in an apple or cherry tree at some point, but no trees this year.  We're taking our time both inside and out :)

lol About the moustache and mint.

Mint will definitely take over. Not a pretty sight. 

Edmonton is about zone 3, you can get away with some zone 4 stuff, even zone 5 if you have nice sheltered areas and a good micro-climate.

It's the Final Frost date that can really get you here.  I've had years when I can put in my first planting of peas toward the end of April and other years you can't even work the ground until the end of May or even early June.

Re: the question about growing peppers in Edmonton.  Theoretically they should grow around here, I've run across on a number of varieties that are supposed to be zone 3 hardy, but I've never gotten a pepper much bigger than a large strawberry. Neither has my Mom. 

Thanks Rowan!  I will happily forgo the peppers and focus on the squash instead, at least this year.

A tip for squash - vine type squash need a great deal of room to meander so if you have limited space look for bush varieties. I've included a link to an article with some good info on a number of bush and semi-bush winter squash varieties.

http://www.finegardening.com/plants/articles/winter-squash-for-tight-qua...

Another wonderful magazine for prairie gardening is Gardens West - Prairie and Northern BC edition.  I subscribe but I know you can pick it up off the rack in stores.

Wow - I learn new things all the time on WC!  Now I know Edmonton is almost in the Banana Belt compared to me.  Our Hardiness Zone is 1a.

We have quite a long list of edible plants in our garden.  Apples, crabapples, plums (that rarely produce) sour cherries, pincherries, chokecherries, saskatoons, raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants and Haskaps (also called Siberian Blueberry and Edible Honeysuckle),  

Vegetables we grow include carrots, parsnips, turnips, tomatoes, peppers (that sometimes produce before frost), peas, beans, cabbage (but hard to beat the bugs).  Lettuce and spinach are possible too but we don't grow them.  Various Chinese cabbage types also work here, but with the same problems with bugs.    Almost forgot - potatoes which are good 'first' crop if you are making a new vegetable or flower garden patch..

Every year is different as spring arrives earlier or later and frost arrives earlier than later.  Things that naturally grow in your area are the easiet and a good thing to try - especially as a beginner.

Our flowers are mostly hardy perrenials interspersed with a scattering of flower seed to fill in the gaps.  The whole thing is very casual.

Wishing you joy with your growing.

just an aside - I'm reading a novel "The Snow Child" by Eowyn Ivey - centred on homesteading in Alaska - and they're planting potatoes kay!  Excellent book - beautifully written.  This is what I do when I can't garden I suppose! 

Pot.

So far I am excellent at growing weeds!  We planted 2 types of potatoes, butternut squash and spaghetti squash.  The squash needs lots of room so it took up the garden pretty quickly.  We still want to get some potted tomato plants and some herbs.  All the grass alongside our house is dead.  Chemguy wants to put in rocks, I'm thinking maybe we could have a patch of rhubarb there too.  Need to look up the sun requirements, as there's a reason the grass is all dead, but rhubarb's like a weed, it grows anywhere, right?

Rhubard has never grown well for me. Put some tomatoes and cukes and lettuce in pots. This works really good. Big pots.

I know some people who can't manage to kill their rhubarb off.

I didn't know cukes could grow in pots, my grandparents always grew it in the garden.

I also want to get something done with flowers in 2 planters for the front, I finally found 2 I at least liked that were a decent price but now they have nothing in them.

I think that will be it for this year.  I'm pretty sure painting the deck was my trigger for the attack that I had that I went to the ER for, and I was doing the easy stuff, using a broom handle on a roller, standing on the grass while touching up the edges, etc.  Got to take it easy-ish.

We're also good at growing dandilions, they seem to be taking over our grass.  I had fun for a few hours with one of those weed pullers, but I should be more careful, I overdid it a bit and am a bit surprise I didn't have an attack.  You can't even tell the time I spent :(  They are everywhere!  Chemguy went around with a spot spray, but I wouldn't let him use it close to the garden.  The bottle is already empty!

Our place had 5 rhubarb plants growing on the north side of a 6 foot fence in a zone covered with landscape fabric and gravel when we arrived.  it is still doing well --emerging quickly right now.  Several friends and neighbours as well as ourselves enjoy the yield of these plants every year.  Just make sure they have close to a foot of decent soil in which to grow.

I have real potato shoots showing now, and not just from the one I dug up!  I'm glad I exposed the one though, it helped confirm what the others were.  There's about 5 right now showing.  I think we planted about 32 potatoes.  One row of each type, and one mixed.  So far they all appear to be of one type, although one is in the mixed row.  The seed potatoes of one type was better.  Still no squash :(

In Edmonton I grew Russian Blue Potatoes, yukon gold potatoes, zucchini, rhubarb, mint, chives, tomatoes.

We planted apple and sour cherry trees as well as Saskatoon berry bushes.

Thanks Tabitha!  I want trees someday, but it's not going to happen this year.  I want fruit ones, not sure what yet.  Cherry, apple, and maybe something a bit unusual.  I've seen some citrus, I think they were all intended for indoor though, it's something I will have to look into more in a year or 2.

The potatoes are yukon gold and I think the others were red russet.  I didn't see any blue ones being sold, I'd be interested in doing those in the future though.  I've cooked with them, they turn things in the slow cooker interesting colours :)

Chemguy was laughing at how excited I was over a few potato shoots.  I was getting concerned as everything said I should see thing somewhere in the period of 7-14 days.  I took some pictures, but they didn't turn out well at all - it was super bright so i couldn't see the screen.  Chemguy said, oh they are for your expert gardening blog?  lol He was happy I was happy though.  With all of the health stress my joyful moments have been a bit limited.

This is the first year I grew my own seedling in my new greenhouse. It was pretty exciting though I have learned some tricks for next year.

Re potatoes. You need to hill them up all the time. S when you get six inches of leaves and shoots, cover them with dirt or even peat moss. You can buy one of those big peat moss bags and keep it by the beds. Keep doing that each time they are six inches high for at least a month. Otherwise you won't get many potatoes.

And never let the potatoes sit above ground, they go green and nasty.

Rhubarb doesn't need a lot of sun but it does best with good soil.
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If you use pots, make sure they are big, good earth, fertilizer.....

Herbs are good in pots, use a really large pot and put a variety of herbs together. Sometimes I make a "pasta" pot. Basil, oregano, thyme, parsley. And then it is easy to run out cut it all down and add it to the pot.

Something I find easy and prolific , which is important in veggie garden, are snow peas and beans on a frame. In a pot you could use stakes. Good climbers, grow from seeds which are easy to get and if you pick them you keep getting more

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The issue with pots is water and fertilizer. You can bury your compost stuff in the pot though if you leave yourself some room which makes good fertilizer

I have a hedge at the back of a flower bed. One year I planted ornamental gourds. They all grew different. Beautiful, different shapes,different colours. But they climbed the hedge and in the fall I was picking gourds out of the hedge. They loved to climb. Folk kept asking me wha kind of hedge it was to grow such pretty things. lol. (from seed btw)

So many green thumbs here!

I found 2 more potato plants.  I think they are all the same type, so if this keeps up, we won't have much variety, but I'm just happy that something is working.

My herb pots are similar to this kind of idea, so each herb will have it's own space:

I need to get around to filling those up!

good thread!

fer the urban peasant, there are easy ways to grow some of yer own foodstuffs

(also a way to save money...)

from kitchen scraps

personally looking forward to the time when i can economically grow my own meat

Most of the green that can be seen is unfortunately weeds.

These 2 squash plants finally were out today.  So far I have 2 spots with squash, out of 12 total.  Both are the same type, I forget which we put where - oops.

hey, that looks similar to 'my' backyard

*looks outside*

nice deck, chemgal.

big garden!

IW, post a picture if you like.

Thanks Pinga!  If we had carved out the garden ourselves we would have not made it that big.  Now that I know how much room squah takes up, I don't mind the size.

Chemguy has been taking about tiering it in the future, making the back part a bit higher up.  Once we have something other than the rubber that the grass had grown over we also need to get more soil.  Chemguy turned it over for me and there's a fair amount of clay in there, but it doesn't seem to be stopping the weeds!

Congrats on a nice big garden.
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With an open garden like that you really need to be careful with the squash. They will spread quickly and choke out everything else.
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I would transplant the seedling to the fence. So you can keep it there. A good thing is to put nails in, tie the branches and fruit up. Use old pieces of t shirts and make little hammocks for the fruit. Keeps it away from everything else.

A row of tomatoes along the other fence maybe.

Put wood plants or stones down to walk on. Otherwise you will keep crushing the dirt under your feet. So make paths that are more or less permanent.

Two paths would give you three long beds, then you can group like veggies together and rotate them to help with soil.

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I group roots like carrots and potatoes, fruits like peppers and tomatoes, legumes like beans peas... And fill in spaces with lettuces or make a forth row. ( I am lucky that I have individual beds which makes ). But it is thrilling to go out to the garden and pick supper.
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Oh, and in the fall plant garlic Shortly I will have garlic scapes ready to pick and then in the fall you dig out the garlic. Wonderful and keeps all winter.

I have 3 rows of potatoes along the back everything else is the squash.  I don't trust myself to transplant them, especially with the chunks of clay I keep hitting.  We have a bit of wood around, so I'll look into something so they don't move back to where the potatoes are.

I've never heard about crushing the dirt.  My grandparents always had a full garden, about half the size and I don't think they ever did that.  I'm not concerned about it this year, although it might just be nicer for walking on.  I'll have to check what we have around.  When we get more top soil, I'll care more!

I'll check into the garlic.  I know there's some good stuff that isn't found at the grocery store.  I'll have to see what's at the farmer's market or the farms.

This year is a big experiment, I have no idea how much I'll actually yield or if both squash are even going to grow!

There's an ant hill in the garden.  I only see one hole where they are coming in and out.  Do you think the ants will be a problem?  As long as they don't eat/kill my veggies and stay away from the house I don't mind them.

I don't worry too much about ants. Therapy aerate the ground at least.

I often get them near my oregano for some odd reason.

But if you go to a pool supply store you can buy DE earth. It is something used in pool filters but is great to sprinkle around plants. It is like very fine and but is actually quite sharp for bugs and they won't crawl over it.

Picked my asparagus for supper and going to go get rhubarb for desert

Enjoy your garden

Thanks lastpointe!  You're quick too :)

I was outside in a long sleeved shirt because the tv said it was 14 out there.  I don't believe that now.  I am not ready for the 30s!

like the yard & deck pics chemgal!

lastpointe - you are a treasury of urban farming info!  I didn't know that about mounding up the potatoes.

here in newfoundland we're seeing lots of randomly located garden patches on the side of roads - people just find a spot, dig it up & plant mostly root veg - turnips, potatoes, carrots, beets - so the moose don't eat it!  Some gardens are fenced, have scarecrows etc. but most are just there! 

Thanks Carolla!

Sounds like unorganized community garden.  I have some friends who has used a community garden for years, and another friend just started one in another city.  My community is currently discussing one, if it goes through I don't know if I would want the hassle of going elsewhere when I have my own backyard.  I might just hang out from time to time for tips and maybe some trades though!

The second type of potato has a few plants barely peaking through the soil now.  Next year I'm going to look at the seed potatoes better, these ones were quite big with few sprouts.

I have 8 squash plants showing now, 6 spots.  All one type.  I'm a little confused why the others aren't showing yet or if we're going to get any.

chemgal suggested, here it is, 1/2 of 'my' backyard

(when i moved here in 2008, very shortly after the original land lord had bought the place, the whole place except for my suite was stripped clean of plumbing & wiring. no eavestroughs. the ductwork was filled with all manner of sawdust, toys, nails. the front yard had bits of safety glass in the dirt; the overgrown dirt plot in one corner of the backyard was festooned with bits of metal, wire, glass, all of which pleasured my archeologist gene. i swear the furnace is circa Korean War surplus ;3 the back yard has since been fenced into two equal areas, two sheds placed in the back yard, the rear paleolithic chain-link 3 foot high fence replaced with a real fence...and a garden is being planned...)