Sowing seeds to start your own flower garden

[Marti Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Marti]

April 22, 2010 - Planted two flower beds of Zinnias seeds

No flowers are easier to grow than zinnias - just plant, stand back and
watch them grow into cheerful, brilliantly colored blooms perfect for cutting.
The red and bright-pink varieties are especially attractive to butterflies.

Consider seeds for a head start on spring. Starting flowers, vegetables
and herbs can save you money, and give you a lot of satisfaction.

[Marti Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Marti]

Weed Preventers


What brand of Top Soil and Weed Preventers
Do you use in your gardens (Miracle Gro - Preen)

Just read were Miracle Gro had a product recall in 2008
so would like to use a product that is safe for veggies..

[PigsDad Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PigsDad]

My weed controller is called a hoe.

Kurt

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

Mine is more of a short stool and pair of gloves and my cell phone tuned to pandora.com. A de-stressing process after a day at work.

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

After several days in the 90's already this season, we hit a low below freezing last night. That is the pits. Luckily, many of my plants were in pots so I lugged them all in last night and out again this morning. I also weed by hand for the most part.

And I squish those red beetles that are on my lilies. I think I may be winning the battle this year after several years of skirmishes.

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

Weather has been weird this year. No snow in March and April, those months were in the top 1 or 2 for record warm. Then May comes around and we have cold and snow. I covered my apple trees but not the asparagus so that was all wilted the next day. Will plant my tomatoes on Saturday or Sunday and hope we are done with the cold. Next week has temp forcast in the 80s.

[Marti Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Marti]

Weeds


Make Your Own Weed Killer Recipe

Mix
1 gallon of distilled vinegar
1 cup of salt
1 tablespoon of liquid dish soap

Spray these directly on weeds in the garden or
pour directly into cracks of walks and driveways.

Do not spray on plants that you want to keep...

[PigsDad Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PigsDad]

Make Your Own Weed Killer Recipe

Mix
1 gallon of distilled vinegar
1 cup of salt
1 tablespoon of liquid dish soap

Spray these directly on weeds in the garden or
pour directly into cracks of walks and driveways.

Do not spray on plants that you want to keep...

This receipe will kill weeds, but it will also have a (mild) residual effect in the soil that may affect plans you want to grow there at a later time (such as is the case in a garden). Any salt-based weed killer (such as 2,4-D based weed killers) will have residual effects.

Round-up (which also kills everything) has little to no residuals, which is one of the main reasons it is so popular in the agricultural environments.

Kurt

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

Any idea what the shelf life of Roundup may be? I have some stuff that is a couple years old and it seems to be very slow on killing off grasses.

[PigsDad Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PigsDad]

In my experience, two years is still fine, although you may want to increase the mixture by 25% or so (assuming you have the concentrate). Storing in in a garage where it can freeze will do more damage to the potency than age.

Round-up always takes about a week before you start seeing some distress in a grass that you are trying to kill, but it always works, if applied properly. One of the reasons for that is that unlike may other types of weed killers that attack the above-ground portion of the plant (which looks like it is working faster), Round-up attacks the root first. It is slower, but does a very good job preventing those subborn weeds from coming back. Bindweed is about the only kind of weed I have come across that Round-up will not typically kill in a single application (but then again, that is one tough weed to kill in any situation).

Kurt