Re: I DO NOT AGREE

From: Dana Brown <ddbro@llano.net>

>If you "don't have time" to pull weeds and cultivate, you have too much
>garden.
        I also do not agree with this comment.  My husband and I work an
average of 35 hours a week on our property in addition to working full
time jobs in town.  We plant, weed, fertilize, mow, prune, hybridize,
etc, etc, & so on.  Regardless of how ardent you are in the pursuit of
weeds there are times when they grow faster than you can pull them.  I
am a down on my hands and knees pull them out by the roots kind of
weeder and nothing looks better than a freshly weeded bed.  However, my
neighbors are not nearly so helpful.  Two of them only mow when they can
no longer find their animals in the pasture!!  Therefore, regardless of
how much I weed I still have weed seeds blowing in by the billions.  We
also have bind weed and rampant wild bermuda and if any of you
non-chemical types would like to come down and show me how to get rid of
either of these without chemicals I will be thrilled to use your methods
and put the hard earned money I spend on Round-up, Poast and Dachtal
back in my pocket.  I solarized 2 beds this year, keeping them under
plastic from April until August and withing 2 weeks the bind weed and
bermuda were both making their presence known in these 2 beds.  Other
weeds were cut down but not those two.
        Now, I want you to know that I admire anyone who can garden
organically and I am very careful in my use of chemicals and quite often
put up with aphids or such rather than damage the good bugs.  I also do
not go out helter skelter spraying my chemicals all over the place.  We
get up at the crack of dawn to spray when there is no wind, using a
properly measured dose of whatever (and as I forget how much to use of
what, I keep a notebook for it in my locked storage closet) I need to
fix a problem with a special nozzle on the spray heads to minimize drift
even further.  Most weeds are easily controlled by judicious weeding or
howing but as my driveway comprises more square footage than a lot of
peoples flower beds sometimes, other measures are called for.
        One final thought, most of the commercial nurseries that I have
visited have to use chemicals to maintain their iris properly.  Should
they get rid of their flowers because "they have too much garden"?
        Off my soapbox and back to lurking!!
          
-- 
d*@llano.net
Dana Brown, Lubbock, Texas  Zone 7 Usda, Zone 10 Sunset
Average:   rainfall of 17.76", wind speed of 12.5 mph, 164 days
of clear weather, 96 of which dip below freezing.


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