When planting bell pepper, drop about one-third book of book matches into the hole, add a little dirt, and then plant your pepper plant.  The peppers love the sulphur. And...with the bounty of peppers you will have, be aware that they require no blanching before freezing.  Either halve, slice or chop, and use all winter in "cooked" dishes.  I never buy grocery store peppers.


Sandy Keating

Rather than harvest all your carrots in the fall, if you cover them with a thick covering of leaves you can leave them in ground and pick them all winter.  In some parts of the country, as long as they are covered, the ground won't freeze, the carrots stay fresh and ready to eat, in fact they get even sweeter in taste.  I picked the last of my carrots March 6th and they taste as good as the ones I pick in the fall.

Joan Ashley

Sometimes it's impossible to kill every mound of FIRE ANTS that crop up in or near the garden, and we'd rather avoid using too much insecticide near our veggies.  I had a problem when these critters decided that they loved my okra.  They climbed up the stems, attacked the pods, and ambushed my tender fingers!  But, I found that coating the stem with solid shortening (aka Crisco) did the trick. A band about an inch wide, about a foot up the stem, deterred the ants and did not seem to bother the okra plant.  Safe picking, and no more damaged pods!

Nova Lene

With such dry summers in Florida over the recent years, it was getting harder and harder to keep plants from drying out.  I found a solution that seems to work pretty well.  Create mounds of dirt about 8-10" tall and 12-15" in diameter.  Into the center of each, put 1-2 pole bean seeds, one on each side; 1-2 squash or cucumber seeds; and in front or back 1-2 corn seeds.  The corn provides a "pole" for the beans to grow up, and the squash and cucumbers will help keep the base of the plant cooler.  After covering the holes with dirt, cover the entire mound with mulch.  You can plant a lot of vegetables in a very small space this way because you only need to leave walking space between the mounds.

Several years ago, I planted around twenty rows of English peas in the late winter.  In early spring, the peas were getting close to a foot high.  I decided it was time to mulch, as I was battling bindweed and behemoth dandelions, having recently bought the house.  I laid down slabs of wet newspaper several layers thick, topped with six or more inches of grass clippings.  I had mulched only half of the rows when my mother went into the hospital for a lung cancer operation.  I was working a split shift 20 miles from home, and would go to work, then to see my mother in the hospital, then back to work, and finally home.  On my days off, I would water the garden.  Three weeks later, when my mother came out of the hospital, the mulched peas literally were twice as tall as those that were not mulched.  All of them were healthy and bore a good crop, but the difference between those mulched and those not was dramatic, indeed.

   We live in the Northernmost part of Wisconsin and the springtime has a tendency to be cold at night and hot in the daytime. To protect newly planted tomato plants, I use brown grocery bags. After planting the tomato plant, I snip off the bottom of the bag and put the tomato cage through the bag and into the ground around the tomato. This protects the tomato from frost at night and the hot sun in the daytime, but still allows it to get the light it needs through the bag opening. After about 1-2 weeks, just rip the bag from the tomato cage. I work full time and do not have much time for gardening.  This seemed to be the easiest no care method I could come up with.

Julie Sigafus

To grow drought resistant tomato plants, purchase small plants and replant them into 10 gallon pots. When the plants are 3 1/2 feet tall, plant them into holes dug deep enough to accommodate the entire plant plus the pot depth LESS than 6 inches. Do not remove any of the plants leaves. Before backfilling with good gardening soil place a PVC pipe with a diameter of 6" at diagonal into the hole. The pipe should be a length to allow the pipe to reach weekly through the PVC pipe. The stem of the tomato plant will sprout roots. Get ready to stake this plant up to 8 feet. During last year's Texas drought and temperatures into the 110's, my tomato plants grew over 8 feet and produced tomatoes, showing no stress from the heat.

Carolyn Neff

I always get a couple of tomato plants in the ground 3 to 4 weeks before the normal planting time. I coddle these plants through the early season in order to get early tomatoes, before anyone else. A couple of weeks before planting, I lay plastic on the ground and bury the edges under the soil so it doesn't blow away. This helps warm the soil so the tomatoes will not sit and sulk when I plant them. When I go to plant, I just cut a hole in the plastic during the chilly nights. It would be a lot of work for many tomato plants, but it's worth doing for a couple of plants just to get early tomatoes.

Micheal Gravel