Gardening Tips

Will it ever stop raining!  Rain has been a real problem this year for my gardens. Today I will show a few of my gardens and how I try to take care of weeds. The weeds have been a big problem with all this rain. First, you can’t get into your gardens without sinking up to your knees. My poor work boots are so full of mud.

Here are a few things that I use to keep down the weeds. I use cardboard boxes, cereal boxes, cracker boxes and I found some old drywall boards and cut them into long strips to put in between the rows. This helps keep down the weeds between the rows, so then all I have to do is weed around the plants

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My first garden I will show you is my main garden. This garden took a hit with all the rain. Some seeds washed away or just did not come up. As you can see I have my cardboard boxes and drywall board down in between my rows. I can walk on these very easily and not get my boots all mud. Now all I have to weed is by the plants. This works very well.

My second garden I will show you is my raspberry garden. My husband dug up a patch in our lawn and we put in a small patch of raspberries. Every year I cut out all dead branches and pull all the weeds. This patch spouts new raspberries each year so the patch keeps on growing and spreading.

My third garden I would like to show you is my grape vines. If you have an old dog coop this make a great climbing wall for you grape vines. A good trellis is another good wall for your vines to climb up. We have had these grape vines for 3 years now and they are producing a nice amount of grapes for jams, juices or just to eat.

My fourth garden I would like to show you is my strawberry garden. I had no set place for these, so I just planted then in my flower garden. They have a nice pretty flower, so they just fit right in. I am picking strawberries every other day lately. I throw straw down in between a little bit to keep down the weeds.

My last garden has tomatoes. To keep down the weeds around the plants I took an ice cream pail and cut a hole in the bottom to let the plant grow through it. This helps with the weeds around the bottom of the plant and also helps with too much rain.

Having gardens takes a lot of work. It is well worth it when you have fresh produce to can and eat. Weeds will always be a problem so I hope some of these things I do will help you with your weeding problems. Happy gardening from Suzie Homemaker.