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To: Qiviut

I have done similar but leaving the cattle panel as one section along the length of the row and promise that my garden is full of weeds and grass unlike the one pictured.

I have also bent the panels in an arch planting the tomatoes on the inside and covering the arch with shade cloth.

Tying the plants is a pain so I opted for something simpler than that.

What I have done this year seems to work well. My cages are about 18” in diameter or so. Tomatoes seem to branch well enough.

I am planning raised beds for at least part of the garden next year hoping that helps with watering and weeds. I’ll plant Okra and beans on the ground though. I am conjuring a scheme for hot houses over the beds, maybe a cold frame but storage of those things is always a problem. Just the greenhouse may be best.


30 posted on 07/23/2022 7:49:27 AM PDT by Sequoyah101 (Politicians are only marginally good at one thing, being politicians. Otherwise they are fools.)
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To: Sequoyah101

My garden is all in raised beds. That will help some with the weeds.

Last year, I had the absolutely cleanest beds I’ve ever had! We have a lot of large, mature (80-90 yo) pine trees & in the fall, there are lots of pine needles on the ground. The last 2 years, I have started raking them up & putting them in large trash bags (30 gallon), then storing them in our pole barn out of the rain. I also dumped a couple of utility trailer loads in the walkways between my raised beds & just pitchforked them straight onto the beds as mulch in the spring.

So in some of the beds (tomato in particular), I work the soil, put in any fertilizer I’m using, plant my tomatoes, then put down cardboard from boxes I’ve saved & cover with a thick layer of pine needles. No weeds .... maybe a stray one right around the stems where the mulch (box/needles) doesn’t cover. When I remove the pine needles in the fall to clean up the bed, the cardboard is almost gone & there are plenty of earthworms under what cardboard is remaining.

If you don’t want to use cardboard, but still have access to pine needles, I found that mulching with them between my rows of zinnias kept the weeds down considerably - also used in my herb bed. Since the needles don’t decompose very much, I don’t seem to have a problem with them making the beds ‘acidic’ (which someone else was worried about).

In the fall, when I take the old pine mulch off the beds, I put it in the walkways between the beds .... those walkways are a lot more weed-free than where there are no needles.


32 posted on 07/23/2022 8:02:21 AM PDT by Qiviut (#standup "Don't let your children die on the hill you refuse to fight on.")
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