A DISCUSSION ABOUT SOLUTIONS TO GARDEN PROBLEMS

Nope, sigh.

My business partner sometime later - had a garden center after she left LA after a fire broke out next door to her studio in the LA riots. It was a small place far north. She bought from best sources in the new area. Fresh, and she knew what she was looking at.

Part of the reason her place was liked was that her stock was fresh.

Part of the problem was people didn't know all that and it was out of the way.

Im somewhat perplexed at the new "Growing zones" assigned to the areas of the US.
I was in a zone 6 until the new USDA zonemap came about. Now, according to the maps, I can safely grow things like kiwis and artichokes. lthough I somehow think not. we will have a killing frost in a most inconvenient time for an artichoke crop. (Im talking about those new varietals tht were bred for zone 7 gardens like ALBATURKEY)

A new problem has arisen . Its what to use to get rid of bamboo. Our County has declared bamboo as a noxious weed and since Ive got almost a half acre of it down near my stream bnks I need to get on board with some means to eradicate. anybody had any successes with any bamboo tricks?
I will harvest all the canes I can and I imagine that it will be enough to build a Chinese skyscraper

So, you have running or clumping bamboo?

I did work on a house once that had bamboo surface lengthily. I think that was the one on Sunset Blvd. Uh, before we got there.

I only know one person who knows bamboo extremely well, if she is still in business, and that is Hermine. She has the site Endangered Species.

She is probably our age, so I dunno. I trust her every word re bamboo.

the only solution I know is to dig it out and burn it...

it dies hard.

Its a lovely grove of bamboo but unlike other plants it is so full of silica that the damned sheep wont graze the new shoots.
Its a runner variety, damn things all over the place

Ill need a backhoe for that and its all along a stream bank .

yes, yes you will.

sounds like quite a project...

I have just a little bit of dwarf clumping bamboo by the pond, but it is boxed in where I want it to stay with buried steel plate.

Here's a possible solution (ugh, but interesting)

from http://voices.yahoo.com/how-kill-running-clumping-bamboo-rid-of-323461.html

quoting -
Kill bamboo by containment and starvation:

This is to kill large groves of bamboo. To kill bamboo this way you will need to spend some money. You will need a backhoe! Use the backhoe to dig out all of the bamboo. Go down about 16 inches. Now, create a trench at least 30 inches deep around the perimeter of the bamboo, and the width of the bucket. Fill the trench with concrete or gravel. This will contain the remaining rhizomes. Spread at least two inches of concrete or gravel on top of the pad. If you use gravel then place black plastic on the gravel. This will keep all of the rhizomes contained below the surface and they will eventually starve without reaching sunlight and die. Next fill soil to ground level and plant grass to cover the area where the bamboo used to be.

You can use these techniques to kill running bamboo or to kill clumping bamboo. If you do not want to kill all of the bamboo but simply want to contain it the dig the containment trench and fill it with concrete. Some types of bamboo have been know to grow through concrete but if it is wide enough this method should work well. To kill bamboo shoots that get through the barrier use the herbicide method.*


* that's explained in the link, involves putting the herbicide within 15 seconds on the cut shoots via a small brush, a few shoots at a time.

Yeh, a friend grew running bamboo in a long rectangular steel box she made (including bottom I'm assuming but I don't remember how it drained) .. and put in her driveway as a screen wall. It worked for several years (I haven't been there lately)

well, this aint going to happen. Im in a stream riparian zone

mr vw has a big patch that grows 25 foot tall every year. and slowly creeps outward. sometimes not so slowly...

we have brought a bobcat over twice to dig it and keep it contained. (he is almost ready to bury plates)

incredibly nasty hard deep-rooting stuff...

I had some Amish kids chain saw the patch down. We got a couple tens of yards of really good bean poles and stakes. Now Im thinking of using a flame weeder.

Now my next observation is about "companion planting" Ive purposely made two plant areas of a specific tomato variety (mountain Fresh).

I planted a series of companion plants near the tomatoes (we use 4X*' raised beds and in one, we planted several broccoli and broccoli raab plants. Brassicas are supposed to stunt tomatoes and , my wife was telling me today that there is apparently no difference between the tomatoes in each group. Sometimes companion planting is based upon no evidence(IMHO)

Ill be home tomorrow and Will have all next week to putz and measure like Thomas Jefferson and his grdens

Hey Farmerman,

Need some advice about my onion crop. The green tops have all died back already in the heat we're having (about a month earlier than usual). Will the onion bulbs keep expanding under the soil or is this as good as they'll get? If they'll keep expanding, should I keep watering occasionally or leave them to dry out like I would in later July/August?

They do keep growing a bit more but its like you've had a seasons growth already. Onions bulb out as the season approaches the solstice and then turns back to winter. (like now). Id give em a week or so and then dig your onions out of the soil. You could probably plant a second crop but they will be a bit smaller bulb. Onions love really wet soil, In commercial growing ops, they grow onions on poorly drained "muck" soils.

Ive been planting gourd plants from starter slips Ive had in a large greenhouse owned by a neighbor. I saw that if you plant them as slips AFTER the solstice, they will quickly begin setting gourds (or watermelons or pickles) since they are now going into a mode of fruiting.
There is still time for fruiting crops to be planted but from seed is iffy unless you live in zone 8 or higher.

Ive set the plants with a large pile of well composted manure as a "ring" of compot. Cucurbits, like tomatoes, will set roots from their tems and thi helps growth.
ALSO, I planted radish seeds around the gourds since radishes repel all cucurbit pests including the dreaded vine borers.

The only companion planting I've heard of with toms, is marigold. This supposedly keeps the aphids at bay, but for the past three years the dreaded blight has got the tomatoes before the aphids had even arrived, so I have no evidence to show one way or t'other at the moment.

Regarding blight, the frenchists in the family always poke a stiff piece of copper wire through the stem (once the plant is big enough to withstand it), about two inches above the soil line.
They assure me that it always works, but I suspect they have warm and dry enough weather to keep blight away in the first place.

I've tried it this year, and fingers crossed, so far.........