23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening


It's a function of time available. Keeping weeds under good control on an acre by hand is a lot of time. IME, if you let grassy weeds get established you will not control them with a hoe, you either have to let it remain grass and cut it by hand or power, or turn the root mass by shovel which is mad amounts of labor. I find this in light soil, in heavy soil it is much more the case and the labor will be much greater.
If you are serious, you must hoe every area at least once a week until the crops shade the ground. Otherwise various difficult weeds will get beyond hoeing and then on the scale of an acre you will be overwhelmed without machinery.

Also, from elsewhere on the site, it showed that a separate pack holding the seeds was inside the folded art pack. It looked like the art pack could be easily unfolded and framed.
"First, the factual. Each art pack unfolds to reveal a seed packet full of seeds. On the seed packet, you will find specific planting information.
The number of seeds allows you to plan your garden, the number of days helps you figure out when to plant. The short paragraph gives specific information for each variety--the type of soil they require, the amount of water and sunlight. There is also a description of how large the plant will grow and what to expect out of a single planting.
As far as fun goes, the information printed on the back of the art packs is the stuff of interesting dinner conversation. Each art pack has the variety name in English and Latin, as well as the artist's bio and a bio of the seed variety."
Here is a link that might be useful: Scroll to Art Packs: New and Improved



Last year there were by far more posts about cucumber problems on this forum that anything else.
They are obviously a bit trickier than most of the other vegetables. I certainly get more fungus/disease problems with mine than anything else I have tried to grow.
My first year with them was by far the best and I have been hoping to repeat that for the past 4 years.

Are you sure it's St. Augustine? Usually St. Augustine is pretty easily smothered for me, but it takes a lot to kill bermuda grass. If it really is St. Augustine coming up, the few times that's happened for me, it's been really really easy to pull up - just a patch here or there.
But I keep thinking maybe you have Bermuda coming up instead - that stuff sure is tenacious.

Your raised beds are really containers since they are not in contact with the ground. The combination of Miracle Gro garden soil and top soil is a very heavy and water retentive mix that really shouldn't be used in a container. Do the beds have good drainage? Is the soil drying out between waterings? If your plants haven't shown growth in a couple weeks, your problem is not going to be solved by adding fertilizer. If the soil is waterlogged, the plants are drowning and can't use fertilizer. If that's the case, you might want to pull the plants, replace part of the soil with a container potting mix and get new plants.


These are red potatoes. The two I started 5 weeks ago from last year's crop (two tiny potatoes) are as big as the one I started 2-3 weeks ago from seed potatoes purchased from the farmers market. It's possible that they are different, but they're both red. I'm surprised to see flowers so early too. Maybe it's the Arizona sun. A few days ago I found a little potato the size of a nickle.
I will take your advise and pile more dirt as they grow taller. How many inches of leaves should I leave above the soil?

Not long after we moved in, a few volunteers popped up near the house. Two tomatoes, some basil, a cantalope, and a few pumpkins. I had a quick chat with them. "Thanks for popping up, fellas, but here's how it is: I have two kids, a new baby, and a house to move into. I won't be out here weeding, staking, and watering, so youre on your own. Survival of the fittest...lets see what you can do."
Darned if it wasn't one of my most successful gardens in terms of high yield for low effort! :)

Mine do something like that when night temperatures drop below about 60F. I think it's showing stress. I planted too early this year, but now that the weather has been warmer for a week or more, a few flowers are blooming and I think they will be OK.



Well i added soil around the break and. Now we are getting one heck of a rain. I noticed that it had a bloom on it this morning should i remove it so it concentrates on rebuilding its roots?
So far so good