Thursday, April 20, 2017

Weather, Man Flu and Garden Update

I am a bit under the weather.  Nothing serious, just the man flu.  That's what I tell the wife anyway. But she is less than sympathetic and knows me too well.  Only took her a few seconds to diagnose the man flu.  Allergies I suspect.  Sore throat, pounding head and the dry air is not helping with the throat.  Then she proceeds to tell me how she suffered with her latest ailment and she didn't whine like I was.  The nerve.

We have a had a few pretty good showers over the last week or so.  That has really put my tomato plants in high gear.  They have more than doubled in size and we have a few small tomatoes already appearing.  This breed (Florida 91 hybrid) really set fruit fast compared to others I have used. Hopefully we will be harvesting by mid May.

I came across an organic weed killer on the book of faces.  Thought I would give it a try and see if it would handle a few problem areas for me.  It consists of vinegar, epsom salts and Dawn dish soap.  It worked beautifully on the weeds growing up in the granite walkway.  The garden has the accursed Bermuda grass.  Did I ever mention how I hate pulling weeds/grass?  Didn't work as well.  But I am trying a second round today and soaking it a bit deeper.

If you're interested in this solution here is the mixture.  All you need is a garden sprayer and they can be had for about 10$ for a small 1 gallon one at the depot of homes.

1 gallon vinegar
2 cups epsom salts
1/4 cup Dawn  ( I would guess most any dish soap might work)

That's it.  Just pour into your sprayer and have at it.  I did it in the morning and by evening I could see results.  Pretty impressive.  Not to mention you don't have the toxic chemicals to deal with and it's very cheap, especially if you already have the items at home.  I will keep some on hand all summer ready to go.

Happy Trails

4 comments:

Harry Flashman said...

I use Round UP to kill weeds and especially poison ivy. Are you using your natural mixture because you don't want to get Round Up on you? I've been pretty leery of that but almost nothing kills poison ivy except Round UP.

Randy said...

Harry Flashman-I try to use organic as much as I can I don't have poison ivy here so no idea if it works I'm sure my mixture has it's limitations. It has had an effect on the Bermuda and I have applied a 3rd round. It's cheap and easy to make

Old NFO said...

I'm going to try that... I've tried everything else on the damn weeds in the driveway, including Roundup... sigh

Randy said...

Old NFO-soak em good