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ltilton...This should answer your question

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Thread

Thanks, shax.

This is the first year I have ever had a garden so I am trying to learn as fast as I can.

My garden is 14' x 28', we just bought the house last year and the garden was already there. Last fall I poured about 5-6 bags of grass clippings into it and tilled everything together this spring. After tilling my neighbor mentioned I should use landscape fabric to handle the weeds which sounded like a good idea. Now I am not sure as I am learning more and more.

I used scotts 4' x 200' landscape fabric and covered the entire garden. I then cut holes out to plant all of my vegetables. I have corn, tomatoes, eggplant, squash, jalepenos, Strawberries, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, and spinach.

Everything is growing very well but I don't know if the fabric is the best way to handle weeds. Do you think I should take it out and lay down a layer of Compost or mulch instead? Would this help the plants grow even better?

I didn't want to add mulch on top of the fabric because I don't want to have to deal with pulling it up when I want to till next year. Please let me know your thoughts, thank you in advance.

I went from using landscaping fabric from the local garden center to something called Lumite from Shaw Fabrics (via a tip from Gardenweb) and I couldn't be happier.

The Lumite is woven strips of some kind of plastic and lasts for years. I plant my tomatoes between two 3-foot strips of Lumite and run a soaker hose between them.

I can only access my garden on the weekends so it saved me huge amounts of time (not) weeding.

This year, I'm using a 4-foot wide strip to plant my peppers and eggplants and basil in/under. I have 2 rows of holes about 14 inches in from the outside edge, again with soaker hoses underneath.

The best way to cut it is using a torch so it melts the ends so it doesn't unravel.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lumite

Sluggo Plus it is. Thanks much!

Edie

After the discussion of roly bugs here, I went to the garden yesterday and put more yeast in the bowl. It rained last night, but the bowl did not overflow. There were a wide variety of insects already floating in the bowl, including roly poly and - bellieve it or not - a squash bug. It was the first I had seen of the season, so I took it out for closer inspection. Yup, squash bug. I inspected the squash plants and found a nest of eggs under one leaf. Its gone now! I checked all squash and found one more bug far away on a trombocini squash plant. I squashed him and found no eggs on those plants.

Just thinking that by eliminating the first generation of squash bugs, what a difference that could possibly make on the season. I'll be on close watch now and will likely add more bowls of yeast in all areas where there are squash plants.

I've read that growing pepper plants close together can be beneficial because it can help keep the plants cooler and provide a canopy for the fruits (which are prone to sun scald). You'd think that a plant should be able to provide its own canopy, so that seemed a little dubious to me. Thoughts?

Annew21:

I've had colored bells that have gotten burnt on their shoulders and maybe an Anaheim or 3. It's the larger, thicker fleshed varieties that may get burned. Usually when you're waiting for them to change color. All my other varieties -- never.

Kevin

Catherinet, if you want to post, take Dave's suggestion. But I have faith in you, that if you concentrate, you can win over Miracle Gro, whenever you are in the mood for a challenge.

Firefox + Adblock Plus = I haven't seen an ad here for 8 or more years.

Hi-ChicagoDeli...I have seen your postings over the last week or so and I felt compelled to tell you how much I admire how hard you are working to get your garden going. I hope you get some sunny weather over there soon. Your set up is amazing. :) Jude

Thanks very much I really appreciate it.
I'm also the chef at my restaurant so from 6am till 3pm I'm cooking , but thoughts of grilled cheese are not going through my head, only thoughts of how to make the garden better. I'm obsessed !

But I really wanted to get them off to the best start possible so I'm trying my hardest to do so. I definitely bit of work than I can chew but I'm going to try to make the best of it and work hard to get everything growing.

Ill keep posting pictures throughout the season
Goodluck with your garden hope you have bountiful harvests.

chitting, in the UK, does not involve cutting, merely leaving the potatoes in a cool light place for the incipient sprouting eyes to develop into mini stems. I have never bothered to cut my seed potatoes, or even rub out eye shoots - one way or another, potatoes will grow, chitted or not, cut or not, given decent soil and a modicum of water.

This year I purchased egg-sized seed potatoes. It was cold for so long, I just left them in their brown bags until I was ready to plant. They had some sprouts on them and I just dug a hole in the raised bed and put the whole thing in and covered with soil. They are coming up just fine. In the past, I have cut and dried and not problem that way either.
Keski

Wow that's so cool.
I only use a couple raised beds so I don't think Garden Mats would be efficient for me to buy and use.

uscjusto - you can buy that fabric by the metre (foot for you) off a roll and cut your own holes. You don't need circular holes. A cross will do.

And here I thought I was getting some free veggies from my compost bin!
Oh well, I'll yank it all out tomorrow.

Yank it and then add it back to the compost bin. No waste.

Those look like bush types to me. Like insteng, I've never trimmed squash plants except when they've caught a disease and I've had to remove a stalk or something. Try putting some type of physical barrier between them and the other plants.

For future reference, I usually give each summer squash plant (zucchini, crookneck) about 3 square feet since they get so huge.

Thanks for the feedback. I will try to maybe put a chicken wire fence around the peppers to keep the leaves out of its area. I had a lot of lessons learned this year, next year will have to be a bit more space for those crooknecks.

Thanks again.

That's exactly what I did!

Thanks for the advice! I will do that next time. I have a second loose leaf lettuce plant doing very well, in fact I hope I didn't put it into shock this morning oops!

This was very helpful!! I was doing it properly over winter when they were in greenhouse pots, picking the outer leaves. Never a problem. For some reason had a brain lapse and took a knife to part of a plant in the garden. Pretty much instakilled it. Now I know better.

Thank you!

Well I suppose we could all be wrong. We can't see the bug like you can. All we have to go on is the picture you posted and no other details. But it sure looks like lots of other firefly pics on the web - hundreds of them.

Even if it isn't a firefly it obviously isn't hurting anything so why worry about it.

Dave

Even if it isn't a firefly it obviously isn't hurting anything so why worry about it.

Dave

I second the motion. In all fairness, it is only American to say: Innocent until proven guilty.

I hereby also declare the pill bugs clear of all charges. LOL.
The reason the were working on that yellow squash leave was that they though it was dead and tried to returned it back to the nature.
Now take a salt shaker and go after slugs..haha