Posted on 08/17/2018 9:37:26 PM PDT by greeneyes
Thanks very much, Tubebender.
The Roma tomatoes are a key part of the pasta putanesca pix I sent.
(Putanesca; pasta as prepared by ladies of he evening in Italy.)
Try dumping a bunch of salt around it and watering it in?
Here’s a good article that talks about Roundup & also gives homemade recipes for weed killers:
A couple of things ....
Find “cleaning vinegar” - it’s white vinegar at a higher concentration than the white vinegar you find in the vinegar section at the grocery. I have found “cleaning vinegar” in the household cleaner section.
I saw one comment where using Epsom salts can actually ‘help’ weeds, believe it or not ... “Epsom salt will likely not kill your weeds. It may even help the weeds grow stronger, as the salts contain magnesium and sulfur. Magnesium is an element many weeds are missing, and epsom salts might rejuvinate weeds that would have been weaker. Sulfur, found naturally in the soil, will activate elements that will help the weeds, or plants, get stronger.” I have no idea if this is true or not - some folks swear by Epsom salts. I do know for sure that regular old table salt is not plant friendly.
IF you use Roundup (I do, on very tough weeds), the guy who wrote the Square Foot Gardening book(s) used “The Glove of Death” to apply weed killer in his garden that is packed with plants in fairly close quarters. The Glove of Death approach keeps the Roundup confined to the plant you are targeting - no spray or foam goes anywhere else. You would use a plastic glove first, to protect your hand(s), then put on something like a cheap cotton glove & put the Roundup on the glove, then use the glove to administer the weed killer to the plant - just grab the plant & run it through your gloved hand. It doesn’t take much to kill plants since the Roundup is “systemic”.
My niece had a plant that showed up growing happily & blooming in her compost pile just a couple of weeks ago & she didn’t know what it was - she put out the question to a couple of relatives who garden, myself included. When I got to looking at pictures, it looked like Jimson weed so I sent her the links & she confirmed that’s what it was & promptly terminated the plant. She’ll probably have more popping up - since somehow, the seed got into her compost.
Our weather has been hellish to say the least! It’s August and should be hot and dry, maybe a little humid - but it has been raining a lot and hot as heck and high humidity. Cant get the hay in, in these conditions. Flooding both north and west of us. No fun for anyone, but at least we’re not on fire!
I got a new PC so I won’t have any photos for you until I figure out how to post them using Windows 10, now.
If anyone can help, I’d appreciate it! I used to be able to right-click on a photo I had posted to FB and copy and paste the URL then do the HTML needed to post on FR. They no longer show the URL, so I’m at a loss for now.
Suffice to say it’s a JUGNLE out there. I am heading out in a bit to harvest, then make more V-8 juice and salsa and Cowboy Candy, which is my NEW obsession. Recipe, here:
http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/canning/candied-jalapenos-cowboy-candy/
I’ve made the first batch with a pepper called, ‘Sweet Heat’ which is less hot than a Jalapeno. I have to wait 2 weeks to sample...which is making me sad, LOL!
Those are tomatoes, Celebrity &. Defiant
Hi Greeneyes!
Still hot and muggy in the NE. Wish we could even things out a bit across the country, but I can’t seem to find that “Weather Machine” they used to talk about back in 2005!
I’ve been missing in action for months, but I’m back. The garden is looking either fried or wet depending on the week we’ve been having. I hate August. I’ve been trying to clear a portion of my dad’s property on a hill. I use my son’s machete, an electric hedge trimmer, a weed whacker and today I got the lawn mower up there. There is so much to do. Last week I hauled 400 lbs of organic waste away to the landfill. There is 3x or better more than that to cut down and discard. It’s not much fun dressed from head to toe, covered with Cutter, and worried about ticks and snakes but slowly it is being tamed. I don’t for one instant worry about Mother Nature being subdued by mankind. She is wickedly efficient in expanding her weedy boundaries.
Do you have a recipe? I am having a boat load of San Marzano tomatoes getting ripe.
This has been my best garden so far. We’ve been here three years and have had a 40 x 80 to 100 foot garden each year.
I have had horrendous arm pain this year though. Tendinitis and nerve compression. I’ve done very little with the garden other than look at it and feel extremely frustrated. So perhaps it’s best if I just stay out of it! lol! I have sent hubby out to weed and to spray for blight quite a few times, and luckily he has been agreeable.
But what I think has really done the trick is the weather. We’ve had lots of rain alternating with lots of sunshine. The first year was very dry, and I had to drag the hose around often. We did get quite a bit of produce though. The second year was nonstop rain. Blight and weeds took out most of our crops.
So I think we were just lucky and the circumstances were just right. But I just don’t see how the human race has survived. Even if the weather is good, the bugs and the critters get much of what we have grown. This year the crows discovered the corn and they are too smart to fall for streamers apparently!
LOL, you could consider my weed killer. ONLY if the thing you want to destroy is not near any thing you want to keep - by like 6 -12 inches.
Dig down a bit around the stem of your target - to expose the top of the root system if possible, or even close should work. Then get a tea kettle of BOILING water - BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THIS STEP - I usually grab mine while it is actually boiling - and take it out and pour it around the base of the plant and/or any exposed roots. Best if you can get it close to/on the roots if it is a big mature plant. BE CAREFUL OF STEAM blowing back on you!
It is organic, and trust me, weeds HATE boiling water hehehhe. If it is a very large plant you may need to repeat after 48 hours and or do two kettles. It is satisfying.
1 gallon of white vinegar (20% if you can get it, but household white vinegar will work), 1/4 cup of table salt, and 1 tablespoon of dish soap as a sticker (Ivory liquid works best). Mix it up in a pump sprayer and spray it on the plants. It will kill the jimsyn weed and anything else it touches. Re-apply after rain or 60 days whichever comes first.
Been dry, except for two downpours in one night & following afternoon, to a toal of 1.3”.
Harbingers of a very early & cold winter include some chokecherry shrubs already turned red; mid August nights down into the low-mid 40s, with days in the 60s-low 80s; yellowjackets becoming busier & more aggressive 3-5 weeks earlier than normal.
Just about ready to start digging potatoes & carrots. Onions & shallots are nearly finished curing.
Chokecherry syrup is made, and passed it’s taste test this morning at breakfast.
Found a forgotten crabapple tree just in the nick of time to harvest them today, for jelly. Yes, real, 2” dull red, red-fleshed edible crabs; not the tiny ornamental type. Also harvested the first apples and wild plums today.
Won’t get any pears this year; I’d need a sky hook to harvest the ones on the tall trees, and the smaller trees didn’t set any this year.
IF I get netting up, I may get a decent harvest of elderberries this year. The two bushes are covered with set panicles, and more flowers still blooming.
Several nice winter squash developing; and still getting a few cocozelle.
Next year’s pea seeds are dried & stored.
I took the weed whacker to the kitchen garden Saturday morning and wiped out everything that wasn't food. Main chore out there for this week is to get the potatoes out. The okra is putting on now. Hopefully I'll have enough by the weekend to make a batch of pickles. Tomatoes are still going insane. Summer squash is hanging in there. Cukes are about finished. Pumpkins are turning orange a month ahead of schedule.
I picked a few green beans and some sweet corn yesterday.
Dove season opens on September 1st. Pops made a couple passes through the sunflower field on Saturday. We'll shred some more of it and get the blinds set up next weekend.
The pond is coming along nicely. I've gotten to the put-it-back-together stage of this project. I'm using dirt from inside the basin to re-slope the back side of the dam so it will be easier/safer to mow. As I work on that I'm gradually filling in the cut. I'm not sure if I'll be able to completely close the cut with Nanner, but I'm going to nibble away at that until I can't safely deal with the slope. Every yard of dirt I move is a yard of dirt that I don't have to pay dirt guy to move.
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