Weeds

Weeds

Q. I have sooo many weeds! I weeded the garden before I planted, (or so I thought) I am constantly weeding. Is that normal?? I just can't kill all of them. Round-up seems to be like fertilizer to them. I looked on past posts and someone recommended boiling water. I will have to try it. I also tried the mixture of vinegar, salt and dish soap; it didn't work either.

Q. Weeds are just about the most common problem that keep people from having great gardens.

"E & O" weeding is what I recommend strongly. Early and often, and by early I mean as soon as the seeds sprout you should take them out - either with the 2-way hoe (see Tools in the Store section of the website www.growfood.com) or with the garden rake.

Continue weeding as often as necessary. Jacob said many times that "1 years' weeds makes 7 years' seeds." That is the sad truth, and it means that unless you have been weeding your garden diligently for 7 years you probably still have weed seeds that will sprout when they are brought to the surface by the hoe, rake, shovel, or tiller.

Keep at it, and DON'T let Roundup or any other store-bought solution take the place of elbow-grease. Half the benefit of gardening is the fresh air and exercise we get taking care of it.

Don't be afraid to take your ridges down in the process of weeding. It only takes 2-3 MINUTES to pull down the ridges of a 30'-long soil-bed, and about 5 minutes to build them again with the rake. This simple process will eliminate the large majority of your weeds - especially if you do it a couple of times. And hoe in the aisles when necessary, also when the weeds are tiny.

Mittleider garden phase 1 clean the area

Squash Bugs Control

The best time to control squash bugs, along with almost all pests, is early by removing the eggs. Do this by rubbing them off the underside of the leaves, or cut out the section of the leaf they're on. The next best time to control them is when the nymphs are small. Adults are difficult to kill with pesticide, and pesticides are less effective in temperatures over 80 degrees.

Thoroughly destroy or remove all crop residues in the fall, and rotate your crops - in order to minimize the chance for re-introduction to next year's crop.

Planning Crop Rotation

Planning Crop Rotation
The Garden Designer portion of the Garden Wizard ($9.95) and the Garden Master ($29.95) CDs are the best thing I've seen for planning and creating your garden. And you can make your rotations just by renaming your file and entering in the new crops.

I've talked about crop rotation before, so I'll just mention briefly that there are three main reasons for rotating crops including
1) To replace certain nutrients because the planted variety uses more than the next variety to be planted.
2) To break the reproduction cycle of insect pests which feed on the planted variety. And
3) to stop a disease that has infected the crop.

The balanced natural mineral nutrients you feed your garden make rotation for #1 unnecessary. And a backyard garden is typically too small to accomplish #s 2 and 3, because the bugs and diseases can travel short distances.

Therefore, we recommend you work to avoid 2 & 3 by "cultural practices" such as:
1) Eliminating all weeds from garden and perimeter. This alone can do more to stop those things than anything - by making a hostile environment for your garden's enemies. And by the way, often the diseases are brought into your garden by bugs.
2) Water only the beds, and never use sprinkling.
3) Grow and transplant healthy, bug and disease-free plants into your garden, and then grow them fast by proper watering and feeding, so their immune systems can fight off any invasions.

Tomatoes with wilted stems

Are the tops - above the wilted stems - still green? How much of the stem is wilted?

It may be mechanical damage. You must be careful as you guide the stems around the string, that you do not twist the stems.

If the plant above the wilted stem is brown, you might have a salt problem - try watering very heavily two or three times without any fertilizer being applied.

Is there any evidence of cutting, chewing, or boring on the wilted stems? There is also the possibility of insect damage. The tomato horn-worm usually attacks the leaves, rather than the stem, so that doesn't sound like it.

Grow-Boxes - soil mixture and watering

Grow-Boxes - soil mixture and watering

We
always tell folks to use at least 2/3 peat or other organic material -
and as much as 75%. 50% sand allows the water to drain too
quickly. So the first thing I would do, if possible, is add more
peat, sawdust, or perlite.

The next thing to look at is the size of your holes in the PVC pipe.
Did you use a #57 drill bit? Sometimes people ignore the
instructions in this regard, thinking that a 1/16th inch bit is ok,
but it is not! A #57 bit is only .042" in diameter, as compared
to .0625" for a 1/16th. This allows far more water to come out, and
at greater force.

Either or both of those conditions could explain your perceived
problem. If neither of those are the reasons, write again and we'll
take another look at it.

how to double cover the greenhouse.

Group:

following question about building small greenhouses and growing in cold weather using information from the Mittleider Grow-Box Gardens book: "Since I am in zone 3 it would be very helpful if I could have the rest of the information the article referred to on "cold weather gardening" in chapter 12 if you think I need it. Is that the information that will tell me how to double-layer the greenhouse to have a 3-to-4 inch dead air space?"

Group:

Chapter 12 of Grow-Box Gardens does indeed show and tell you how to double cover the greenhouse. I am sorry that Grow-Box Gardens is currently out of print and unavailable. Hopefully we can figure out how to get it re-printed inexpensively enough to have it available again by next growing season. In the meantime, let me tell you a few things the book says about winter gardening in cold climates.

Seedlings should be started in warmer weather and transplanted into the greenhouse by early fall if possible, so that much of the vegetative growth takes place before it gets cold.

During the cold months plants can be maintained and harvested at lower temperatures. It is important, however, to maintain soil temperatures above 50 degrees as long as possible, otherwise the plants will go dormant.

A greenhouse is important, and it should be double-covered, with a dead-air space of 2-4". Building the greenhouse east to west, with the north-side wall built into a hillside or against an insulated wall, can reduce heating costs significantly, and even provide some heat from the mass of the north wall.

If you're really serious about growing in cold weather, hot water pipes buried 4-6" deep inside the greenhouse near the outside edges will provide some heat and ward off cold from the frozen ground outside.

If it is too cold to keep the entire greenhouse from freezing, consider a greenhouse within the greenhouse to protect valuable crops.

Arched PVC frames covered with 6 mil greenhouse plastic, with a small space heater inside, can keep a row or two of plants warm enough to save them even on very cold nights, if it is inside a greenhouse already.

If daytime outside temperatures rise above 65 degrees some ventilation should be provided in the greenhouse.

Jim Kennard

Weeding & Cultivating the Grow Beds

More on Weeding & Cultivating the Grow Beds –

E & O weeding gets almost all weeds when they first emerge, and we do it two or three times if necessary, so the beds are clean. After this, because the plants are close together, they shade the ground completely, and even hardy weeds can't grow in complete shade. Therefore, later in the season when your plants are large, weeds are not a problem.

The aisles may also need weeding, but if they are treated the same as the beds, with weeds eliminated as soon as they emerge, very quickly the aisles will be clear also. And since no water (or food!) is applied to the aisles the weeds will grow slowly, if at all.

On the other hand, traditional gardening methods will plant farther apart, thus leaving ample sunlight for weeds to prosper. And the problem is made much worse if watering is done by sprinkling or flooding! Both methods water the aisles, and flood irrigating most often also deposits new weed seeds everywhere, to grow in the newly watered soil.