2023 gardens

Found out I wasn’t watering my garden enough. I was watering the plants but not the surrounding area. It must suck the water away from the plants.I tilled last week and it was dusty. Started watering the whole garden and the growth kicked in right away. I had the old style lawn sprinkler and it put more water out of the garden than in it. Bought a Melnor MiniMax which is way more adjustable. It put 1/10″ more water in the garden (measured by a rain gauge) in 1 1/2 hours than the old style did in 2 hours.

picklerick wrote:

Thawed out peppers will be soft but definitely not moldy. Kind of like they’ve been softened in a skillet or blanched in hot water.

Freezing and then thawing tomatoes works too. I did this last year when I was overwhelmed w/ tomatoes and didn’t have time to make salsa. Worked great and removed the blanching process from salsa making, so I will be doing it again.

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>picklerick wrote:</div>

Freezing and then thawing tomatoes works too. I did this last year when I was overwhelmed w/ tomatoes and didn’t have time to make salsa. Worked great and removed the blanching process from salsa making, so I will be doing it again.

Frozen tomatoes are also great in the winter in chili, pasta sauce, pizza sauce and more.

I’m still not sure what I’m doing with them but I picked all my tomatoes at the end of last year and put them in the upright freezer. I have a gallon bag of the the ones that had just started ripening and two gallon bags of green ones. I was thinking salsa verde. Any other ideas?

Well my tomatoes started turning red last week and they’re so delicious to nibble on! But my garden is absolutely overrun with weeds this year… it’s terrible and I simply can’t keep up. The abundant weeds have choked out most of my carrots and some leaf lettuce too. So I did some Googling and according to Round Up’s website you can replant veggies and fruits after only THREE DAYS!! Yahhooo! I never thought of using Round Up on the veggie garden before but now I’m excited!

My plan will be to spray this fall after harvest and let everything die. Then pull out all the dead stuff and let it sit over winter. In the spring I’ll have my handy helper (my awesome Dad!) roto-till with me and this should help immensely with weed control.

Has anyone else tried this before?

you said after harvest…. had me worried there. Don’t use that stuff anywhere near a veggie garden when its growing. Even the minutest carryover on a vagrant breeze will kill tomatoes and beans dead.

Your best weed defense is on your knees with a weed fork where you can flip up the roots and all. I do my garden three times each season that way. The more thorough you are the less weeds you’ll see the following year. But like taxes and death, weeds each year are one of life’s most assured events.

If your garden isn’t too big, lay a tarp or cardboard over the weeds and leave it there until you’re ready to plant next year. Heavy mulching around your plants will keep weeds to a minimum. If you have trees, leaves and pine straw are free mulch. Just chop them up with the lawnmower first. Whole leaves will overlap and mat down creating a barrier so you can’t get water through.

Some weeds will spread all over if you till your garden. I have field horsetail and wild grapes and if you chop them up and leave them in the ground, every single piece of wood/root will make another plant. I don’t plan on tilling my garden ever again.

I’m a broken record here but tilling can also pull up weed seeds that were buried. I have yellow sweet clover popping up now from tilling a new plot. Their seeds can stay dormant in the soil for up to 30yrs. I let some get up to 5′ tall in the corner of the garden because the bees seemed to like them. Each plant can make 350,000 seeds, so I’ll be cutting them out before they go to seed.

Believe it or not, but I love pulling weeds. I think it’s good for my soul.

My wife loves pulling weeds, too. I don’t have a soul, so I let her do it.

Sharon wrote:

Well my tomatoes started turning red last week and they’re so delicious to nibble on! But my garden is absolutely overrun with weeds this year… it’s terrible and I simply can’t keep up. The abundant weeds have choked out most of my carrots and some leaf lettuce too. So I did some Googling and according to Round Up’s website you can replant veggies and fruits after only THREE DAYS!! Yahhooo! I never thought of using Round Up on the veggie garden before but now I’m excited!

My plan will be to spray this fall after harvest and let everything die. Then pull out all the dead stuff and let it sit over winter. In the spring I’ll have my handy helper (my awesome Dad!) roto-till with me and this should help immensely with weed control.

Has anyone else tried this before?

Roundup?
If I were eating anything out of that garden I would rather cover it with heavy mil black plastic and let it bake in the sun for a couple weeks to kill everything. Throw down a crap ton of black dirt with sand mixed in, then add my lawn mower clippings and re-till it. Great start to a new base and WAAAAY easier to pull weeds out of – You just need to keep up with weed pulling ( yes, that’s the sucky part) I don’t do vegetables anymore because of the deer and rabbits and living in town but I have tons of flowers that thrive on a bed like I described.

Sharon wrote:

Has anyone else tried this before?

I’d agree with the previous posts about avoiding Roundup. Next year just let the lawn grow until you can bag it and use the grass clippings. I either lay it down first and then plant or if using started plants put them in and the grass around them. Keeps out 97% of weeds and is good for the soil (as long as the lawn isn’t heavily fertilized).

I also put newspaper down and put the grass clippings on top of it. NOT THE COLOR pages only the black and white. Creates a barrier that makes it tougher for the weeds

Sharon was pretty excited about using Roundup. Think we talked her out of it yet or should we keep going?

Last week we got cherries, this week 30 lbs of blueberries and those maters are from the garden.

Then to top it off carrots and kalahrabi straight out of the garden.

picklerick wrote:

Glenn- Thawed out peppers will be soft but definitely not moldy. Kind of like they’ve been softened in a skillet or blanched in hot water. Still taste like fresh peppers and have the same level of spice. If you’re just using them to add some heat to the pickled green tomatoes you’ll be fine freezing them.

i vacumm packed them and then froze them…..we shall see how it works!!!!!!

picklerick wrote:

Sharon was pretty excited about using Roundup. Think we talked her out of it yet or should we keep going?

Wait, so you guys are saying you wouldn’t eat vegetables grown in a garden that had RoundUp sprayed on it a good 5-6 MONTHS earlier?

This can’t be harmful when the product says it’s safe to plant veggies after only 3 days.

You should be able to eat garden stuff easy when it’s been sprayed that long ago.

I know a big time farmer from the marshall area, he told me roundup is rendered pretty useless once it hits the ground. It will kill any plant it touches however.

I’m sure everything from the grocery store that isn’t marked organic came from a field that had Roundup sprayed on it and I’ll eat it. I just wouldn’t use it on my garden. I’d rather smother the weeds with something that breaks down and will add organic matter to the soil. My soil is super sandy here. Roundup will only kill soft green plants and leaves of woody stemmed plants. The woody plant might die without leaves but regardless all the weed seeds will survive to grow again next year. If you smother it with a dark colored tarp or black plastic it will likely get hot enough under there to kill the seeds too. Hot composting.

I use 30% vinegar to kill the weeds in my rocks and spot spray weeds in my front yard. I mix it with around 25% water and spray it on a calm sunny day.

It kills everything it touches within a couple of hours.

My dog gets into everything. I figure its safer than using Roundup.

Picklerick and I are on the same page – too much we “don’t know about roundup” that I would just rather smother mine with the black plastic and add organic matter. Better growth base and will lead to healthier plant – Just my humble opinion.
It’s also a little more environmentally friendly ( not an environment warrior but I can appreciate the benefits of a little more work on my end)

Koldfront – not sure how your math is working – love the vinegar idea –
Example 20 ounce container.
how much water to how much vinegar?

kraig is referring to 30% vinegar you can buy. It’s generally used as a cleaning solution. Vinegar for canning is 5% and “dressing” vinegar is 4% or less. For those who pickle veggies, please make sure you don’t use the 4% stuff.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Harris-128-oz-30-Vinegar-All-Purpose-Cleaner-Concentrate-VINE30-128/309463051

I had the same thought at Umy as I simply added 30% and 25% and did not know what to do with myself after that. Thanks for the clarification picklerick.

I’ll have to do some thinking about tilling after hearing about scattering all those seeds. It does add up when I think about how and why I’ve had random & weak looking pumpkin plants growing all over the place.

i dont know but the vinegar i use is the 4% stuff. and i can alot of pickles, green tomatoes, even use it for pickled fish with no issues.

and to be honest……when i buy my vinegar…….until this post i never really looked at that!!!!

i pulled my onions this morning……not even picture worthy!!!!

every year i wonder why i bother with what they cost in a store. if it wouldnt be for the idea that when i pickle and can most of the ingredients need to come out of my garden!!!!!!:???:

Sharon wrote:

Wait, so you guys are saying you wouldn’t eat vegetables grown in a garden that had RoundUp sprayed on it a good 5-6 MONTHS earlier?

This can’t be harmful when the product says it’s safe to plant veggies after only 3 days.

Actually, Round Up inerts itself within 3 days when it comes in contact with soil so you’re safe to replant or plant. My comments regarded standing veggies if there’ was any confusion in that regard. Spraying at the end of the veggie growing season is fine as weeds will hold on a lot longer in chilly weather than veggies will so the weeds will get dosed, then tilled in.

glenn57 wrote:

i pulled my onions this morning……not even picture worthy

Mine started out slow but since have taken off and most are between baseball and softball sized. Tops are still straight up so they’ll stay until they all drop. The garlic took off like wild fire but wind knocked the tops down flat and the bulbs stopped growing so I pulled it all. Next year I an running sone garden fence between the rows so wind can’t ruin things. I had 42 plants started and managed to harvest 41, but the bulbs are awful small: maybe five or six cloves each.

I took a pic a few weeks ago of my maders. I didn’t think they were doing so well then. I’ll evaluate in a week or so with the 90 degree heat that is coming this week.