Another newbie here!

Cinderloowho

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I'm from eastern Montana, not the best gardening country. We have crappy soil, crappy weather and soft (salty) water, so everything is a challenge! So I'm here to learn any tricks I can! I've gardened off and on for years, but the way the world is now, I think it's as much a necessity as a hobby!
 

seedcorn

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Montana? Welcome. Why do you call your soil crappy? That can be helped. Weather, move or love it as nothing we can suggest will change that. Salty water-import from a good source-buy a bunch of plastic 55 gallon containers. Is eastern Montana dry?

Hope you enjoy friendly barbs to go along with good advice from others....
 

flowerbug

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hi, welcome to TEG! :) we're in mid-Michigan here. :)

do you like peas? they are among our favorites and enough variation to make them worth trying. also any short season beans you can find are worth trying. the drier climate may even work to your advantage there as you won't have as many fungal problems and be able to get some nice dry beans too towards the end of the season. :)

poor soil can be improved. water conditions can be much harder to work around. i'll second @seedcorn 's suggestion of having some rain barrels and collecting your rainwater to use in the garden. too much salt is very hard on a lot of vegetable gardens and in a semi-arid climate it will only keep building up in your garden soil.
 

ducks4you

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:welcome from Central IL!! Not so!! You have mountains, and, as a gardener Somebody near you raises cattle and horses. You must learn to amend with composted manure. I am a horse owners since 1985, and I use their recycling for My gardening.
 

baymule

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Welcome from Texas. There are short season plants and you can plant seed, keep in house or basement under lights to get a head start. Glad you joined.
 

Cinderloowho

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Montana? Welcome. Why do you call your soil crappy? That can be helped. Weather, move or love it as nothing we can suggest will change that. Salty water-import from a good source-buy a bunch of plastic 55 gallon containers. Is eastern Montana dry?

Hope you enjoy friendly barbs to go along with good advice from others....
See? Already I'm getting good advice! I should clarify, most of eastern MT has pretty good soil. It's just this area I'm in has what they call gumbo. I guess it would be considered clay. Best way I've found around it is raised beds, even amending the soil can only do so much because the gumbo will work it's way to the top again. The water is naturally soft, and has been made more saline by the injection of saltwater into the ground as part of the production of oil, which is (or was until recently) our main industry. It's normally pretty dry here, although last year it rained often enough that we never had to water anything at all. It was great! I actually do collect rain water, and it definitely helps!
 

Cinderloowho

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hi, welcome to TEG! :) we're in mid-Michigan here. :)

do you like peas? they are among our favorites and enough variation to make them worth trying. also any short season beans you can find are worth trying. the drier climate may even work to your advantage there as you won't have as many fungal problems and be able to get some nice dry beans too towards the end of the season. :)

poor soil can be improved. water conditions can be much harder to work around. i'll second @seedcorn 's suggestion of having some rain barrels and collecting your rainwater to use in the garden. too much salt is very hard on a lot of vegetable gardens and in a semi-arid climate it will only keep building up in your garden soil.
I love peas and plan on planting some, beans too. I haven't ever planted either one before, mostly I've just had tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini! I'm trying a lot of different things this year to see what works.
 

Cinderloowho

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:welcome from Central IL!! Not so!! You have mountains, and, as a gardener Somebody near you raises cattle and horses. You must learn to amend with composted manure. I am a horse owners since 1985, and I use their recycling for My gardening.
Hi! Well, I'm on the side of the state that has prairies instead of mountains, but yes, we do have friends with cattle and horses, and I raise chickens so...lol! We actually brought in a huge load of horse manure a few years back and dumped it on top of our septic system drain field. The idea was it would keep the field from freezing while it was still decomposing and producing heat. It worked, we had no issues with our system, and the following year our little subdivision was added onto the city sewer line so no more septic to worry about. Now it has turned into black gold for my garden beds, so I'm looking forward to planting in a couple of weeks to se how much it helps!
 

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