Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Silly Boys!

5 comments:

Dana Cheryl said...

Again I find myself laughing... :)

Now for a now so funny subject-weeds! Here's the answer to your question. I figured that you might not get back to my blog for a bit so here ya go. I posted it there too just in case anyone else had the same question.

Weeds are a scourge!! We plant the rows far enough apart to accomodate the tiller. We till the garden about every ten days. We also hoe the garden twice. Once when the plants start to grow & get established & then again about three weeks after that. The tiller does the rest. Not only does it kill out the budding weeds but it's a great way for us to mix in fresh compost. There's the secret of our weed free garden!

Renae said...

Thanks Dana! Unfortunately, the whole tiller thing won't do the job for me this year. I have tried to use it around my tomato & pepper cages, but I can't work the thing. There's something wrong with the fuel line. Our beans are too close together for that to work. I think I'm going to try to get it good and cleaned out one good time and get some straw or hay and mulch the poop out of it.

timpani76 said...

I use straw for my strawberries, and it works pretty well. Sawdust really kills the weeds, though. I had lots of sawdust left over from building a raised bed (with cut up log things), and I used that around my tomatoes. It worked really well, but the rain has washed most of it into the soil now :(

Dana Cheryl said...

Space isn't a real big problem for us it's true. However we have had much smaller gardens in the past. The year after my step dad broke his back we gardened less than 1/2 acre. We learned a lot from the experience.

Usually we can about 300 quarts of green beans. That's the average. During our year of small gardening we had far fewer plants but ended up putting away just about the same exact amount. We spaced the plants apart far enough for the tiller & then hung a wire fence for the beans to climb on. I'll take a picture to show it.

I know this may not work for you without a easy to maneuver tiller but it could be helpful in the future...

I think the fact that we compost is why our plants produce so well. We use the tiller to really get that stuff in there. Also we have a well at the edge of the garden so we never use city water. I mean we mostly depend on the typical big rainstorm every week but we've had a few droughts.

I really can't say enough about composting! It's amazing. We're also organic gardeners. Ladybugs, beneficial nematodes, milky spore, etc... Anyway I'll quite rambling on. I can talk about gardening all day long. Actually that pretty much all we talk about around here. lol.

Dana Cheryl said...

oh & we use straw too. especially with the blueberries, raspberries, & any new thing that we're trying to get started.