What Did You Do In The Garden?

[flowerbug]

Weeded second planting of green beans. Had to replant okra for 3rd time-thanks to moles..

Vicious circle. Mulch with straw & leaves, worms thrive, moles come....

Every rain brings a new flush of grasses. Can’t stay ahead.....

got rocks? got cardboard? smother it before it goes to seed. then you only have to weed what is left uncovered. pick a new area each season to smother if you can't do it all at once. mulch over the cardboard is just to make it look nicer and eventually it all breaks down. from then on either repeat as some weeds will try to return and the cardboard breaks down, but after several years it should be much better.

certain kinds of grasses you may want to dig up to remove as much of the root system as possible. tilling just chops things up and mixes seeds around. i do some digging here by hand to remove weeds/grasses and it is tedious work, but at least i'm not chopping things into so many pieces. if you can till and rake through an area to get the roots out that you can that will help some, but then you want to cover an area right away.

the other approach in weed suppression is cover cropping, buckwheat is really good for that, and in the fall after your garden is done and you till it then you can plant winter wheat or winter rye (the grains) with plans to turn them under the next spring about four weeks before planting. there are other cover crops (cow peas, soybeans, turnips, radishes, etc.). a growing plant you want is one less weed you don't.

moles won't bother plant roots and should not kill a plant even if it is disturbed as they don't like their tunnels open to the air any more than a plant likes roots exposed. if you gently step on the plant to firm it back down and water it the plant shouldn't die from a mole run. voles are a different story...

if you have really sandy soil that dries out easily that can be a problem, but then likely not too many worms/moles... so, hmm...

 

[flowerbug]

I remember the greenhouse head grower where I worked mixing fertilizer for outdoor gardens and including quite a lot of sulfur.

I had imagined that Mt St Helens should have taken care of deficiencies.

Steve

out west aren't the soils tending to be more alkaline? around here they are somewhat acidic already. sulfur here would only be for trace nutrient.

 

[digitS']

Yes, @flowerbug .

I once had reason to regularly test well water pH. By late summer even the water was over 8!

Organic matter. I don't know if there is much of a reasonable substitute. Combine the water-holding quality with the acidity and buffering of decomposition, plus the release of plant nutrients, there is a great benefit! At the least, something organic each season ...

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

Yes, @flowerbug .

I once had reason to regularly test well water pH. By late summer even the water was over 8!

Organic matter. I don't know if there is much of a reasonable substitute. Combine the water-holding quality with the acidity and buffering of decomposition, plus the release of plant nutrients, there is a great benefit! At the least, something organic each season ...

Steve

yes, life likes to make conditions suitable to itself if possible. organic matter should help shift pH to neutral to slightly acidic (DNA/RNA are acids after all ).

worms excrete a lot of calcium, but they also grind soil particles together to help extract other minerals. they're such great garden/soil creatures, except in some places where they aren't wanted (terrace walls in rice paddies... forests with leaf litter adapted plants... etc.).

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

where would I get sulphur for my garden?

Also my winter onions didn't bulb. Learned that they were low in phosphorus and potassium when I planted them. I now have red onions growing and wonder what I need to make them bulb?

 

[Beekissed]

where would I get sulphur for my garden?

Also my winter onions didn't bulb. Learned that they were low in phosphorus and potassium when I planted them. I now have red onions growing and wonder what I need to make them bulb?

You can get a round can of sulfur dust at any garden center...no more than you'd need for the typical garden, a couple of those may suffice.

 

[flowerbug]

if you were local i could give you most of what i have here. i bought it thinking i was going to use it to cure a grape vine of fungal disease and have hardly touched it in 10yrs (ended up removing the grape vine as it had a split trunk and wasn't resistant enough to disease instead of having to baby it all the time).

yes, a garden center should have it. i think i paid about $6 for the lb can of powdered sulfur.

another inexpensive way to get sulfur is via gypsum and is helpful in clay soils. and yet another common form is epsom salts.

 

[digitS']

Gypsum is something that can be used instead of lime in western soils.

Looks like gypsum could help with both calcium and sulphur deficiencies.

Steve

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Sheetrock? We've got lots of that laying around.

I have epsom salts somewhere in my soap making supplies....

 

[Beekissed]

Planted some spaghetti squash, yellow crook neck squash, turnips, rainbow carrots, and sunflowers today.