[greeneyes]

Greetings from Missouri. Totally rained off and on today and most of the week. Really getting to be too much. We had almost zero use for the pool water this year.

Apologies for not posting the weed killer recipe sooner- finally found it today:

1 gallon vinegar 2 cups Epsom Salts 1/4 cup Dawn or other DW liquid.

Very quick killer - kills every thing. May need to respray, if there are seed that haven't sprouted.

Still getting a few tomatoes and squash. All else is pretty much done. Not a very good year from a production stand point.

Hubby managed to get the gravel shoveled in to the landscape feature this week between showers. Hoping for weather to allow to finish the final set up and pour in the next 2 weeks.

Hope all is going well for you and yours. Prayers up for all. God Bless.

[greeneyes]

Pinging the List. Hard to believe that August is almost gone, and summer nearly done for too. Time has passed quickly this year.

[MtnClimber]

Here at 8500 ft elevation in the Colorado Rockies it gets cold at night which hurts certain things I try to grow. Potatoes did well again this year. Turnips and collard greens did well. Have many immature delecta squash, hope they mature. Tomatoes are slow and pole beans are slow. Low night time temperatures vary, mainly 50’s and 60’s, but have had many nights in the 40’s and one night last week it got down to 35F. I have two pots with tomatoes so that I can bring them indoors.

[raiderboy]

We had such heat here. My beans were late but now they are here. My squash is unreal, I am throwing it away!! I can’t even give it away.! My tomatoes are small but coming on!! I love my garden.

[Paul R.]

I was away for a couple days and returned to find tomato hornworms had decimated my 2 best plants. (Somehow they seem to know which plants to go for.) I’d never seen this before: They attacked the green tomatoes almost as vigorously as the leafs! These things are so voracious — I put several in a cricket cage, thinking I’d try ‘em as fishing bait, and a couple hours later returned to find most of them had eaten holes in each other!

[tob2]

Caladiums and coleus have produced lush growth, rose bush produced more blooms than ever. After an initial spurt of flowers and fruit, the tomato plants stopped producing. Probably partly because it was way too hot and humid for them. Same with the cucumber. Sowed seeds of two different lettuce, romaine and bibb. Planning how I will plant spring bulbs and pansies. Looking forward to cooler weather and less humidity. Hopefully will be feeling better and this blasted sinus infection will clear up.

[left that other site]

Thanks for the weed killer recipe.

It is SO MUCH nicer than Dioxin! LOL!

[GBA]

Thanks for the weed killer recipe! I’m tired of pulling weeds.

I want to kill all the weeds near the house and kill the insanely invasive Bermuda grass that’s rapidly taking over my formerly all fescue yard.

However, I’d rather not resort to Roundup or any other similar form of chemical warfare.

So far, straight vinegar is okay, vinegar and oil slightly better, with vinegar, oil and table salt the best of the three, but only for an area where I don’t want anything to grow, ever.

Hmmm...but epsom salt instead of table salt? I like it. That sounds like the best recipe of all.

And we now have a few days of dry weather to give it a test.

Thanks again!

[CoconutBob]

I agree with the Vinegar (acid) and the dish detergent (a wetting agent to help the acid dry out the leaves) but not sure about the Epsom Salts.

I use Epsom Salts on all my plants. It's not a "salt" but Sulphur and Magnesium which the plants need to germinate, grow and otherwise, have fun as plants.

https://www.epsomsaltcouncil.org/uses-benefits/gardening/

Just add a tablespoon to a gallon of water and pour over the plants. Works great and turns the pale green plants to a dark green, healthy color.

So, I'm not sure how the Epsom Salts would help kill weeds. Might make them happy for a while as they shrivel up and die, but otherwise, I'd use it on the healthy plants instead.

PS: We have a lot of silica in the dirt down here in mid-Gulf Western Florida so irrigation water doesn't soak very far down. By holding a cheap dish detergent bottle over a spray of hose water, the detergent breaks down the surface tension of the dirt so that the water from the hose will go deeper into the dirt. Works great...

[Augie]

We got a nice soaking inch of rain here in Central Missouri a few nights ago. Not a drop of it ran off. Yesterday the heat came back. It was sick outside.

I'm probably going to start harvesting pumpkins next weekend. They're supposed to take 100 days from emergence to harvest and at 83 days from planting most of them have already turned orange. Not good, but it is what is.

I got after the sweet corn yesterday. Harvested the whole patch - ~400 row/ft. Filled five bushel tubs. Got that all shucked and cleaned and into the refrigerator. My task for this week will be cutting, packing and freezing all of it. I still need to dig up the potatoes, just haven't been able to muster the will to do it.

I'm continuing to gain on closing up the pond. I've packed about four feet of dirt into the cut so far, and have about that much left to go. I'm taking clay out of the basin for that. Nasty, tight, hard, clay that hasn't seen the light of day since forever. It's tough to dig, but it packs good and turns to concrete when it dries out. Should make for a good re-core job.

I got a little too deep into the seep hole with Nanner a few days ago and needed a tow to get out. It was a minor aggravation, and there was no damage done aside from snapping the tow strap in two.

[Ellendra]

Harvest season is starting! I just picked the first pods from one of the beans I’m being paid to grow. Corn is fattening up, and sunflowers are getting less green and more brown by the day. My other bean patches are absolutely covered in green pods. I’m converting my greenhouse to a drying shed just so I have room for everything!