If the weeds are really tall already, you'd have to use way too much chemical and it would probably get all over you, too - yuck. I'd mow on whatever the highest setting on your lawnmower is, then spray. Wait a couple of weeks for those to die and see if any new ones come up. If so, then spray those. Wait again and keep repeating if you have to. Till when no more perennial weeds are coming. As far as mulch for the annual weeds, there's really no point at this stage. With as long as you say this area has been neglected, you're probably in a situation much like ours where every time you stir the soil, there are going to be a bazillion new seeds exposed. You're going to be dealing with annual weeds for years to come, but at least they're easy to keep under control. Get yourself a good hoe and get out there before they get any true leaves or even sooner. I hoe once a week at least until mulching time. If you keep the soil loose - don't be walking all over it all the time - it's much easier to hoe. Once you've managed to take care of the perennials, another approach with the annual seeds is to rototill, let them germinate, rototill, let them germinate, and so on. You're getting rid of seeds this way instead of just cutting off their sunlight with mulch, in which case they're still there, lying dormant, waiting for their turn to cause trouble. This much tilling isn't always the best idea for soil tilth, though, depending on what kind of dirt you've got. First, though, I'd concentrate on the perennials and get them eradicated asap. Worry about the others later. P.S. Roundup tip from my (conventional) farmer neighbour... spraying in the fall is more effective than any other time of year. The plant is directing it's energy down into its roots instead of up into growth, which means you need less chemical to kill the plant at its root.

This year I started with containers, had tomatoes among several othere things. My containers had 10" deep dirt. Soon I found that it was not enough. The tomatoes get roots taht are 3-4 feet deep. Basil on the other hand has pretty shallow roots. Then I moved my plnats to true raised beds, 1 foot deep fill plus dirt ground below. They grew fine. Had good crop of veges that are heat tolerant but not others. See, the high heat this year was not a conventional garden year. I had lots of eggplants, okra, yard long beans, cucrbits (until temps went over 100), almost no tomatoes even though had flowers but no fruit set and my understanding is that temps over 95 are not good for setting tomatoes. Your one foot deep contianer will do fine for the leafy veges, beans, peas, herbs, short varieties of carrots and radishes, turnips, etc. If you search the net for "depth of plant roots" you will find plants that have very deep roots (3-4 feet), medium (1-2 feet) and shallow roots. Another problem with your container may be: plywood is resting on the concrete without spacers (feet). So, the plywood even though has holes, is not actually draining. Raise the whole container up on couple of 4X4s so the plywood is not resting on the concrete, like a container is supposed to have free draining hole in the bottom. Giid luck.

First, before I forget to mention it, a Vidalia onion is not one specific variety of onion. Rather, Vidalia onions are any approved onion variety grown in the 13 approved counties and parts of 7 other counties that are designated as the Vidalia Onion growing region. Most (and probably all) varieties grown in the Vidalia program area are hybrid yellow granex types, or have one or more yellow granex onion varieties in their breeding line. In fact, in the Yellow Granex description page of the Dixondale catalog, it says "This is the onion grown in Vidalia, Georgia." Vidalia is just a region with sandy soil low in sulphur which makes yellow granex especially sweet when grown there. I cannot think of a single vegetable that will not grow somewere in Oklahoma, although I'm sure there are some obscure ones that won't. Also, some veggies that will grow well in NE OK might not do so well in SW OK. Celery is a good example of "one that doesn't grow here", except Jay and several other people on this forum have grown it. I think it likely is all about having the microclimate it needs. Some vegetables are more challenging than others. Carol's example of Rhubarb is a good one. I can grow it as an annual, but no matter how much I shade it in summer and water it, it dies and is not perennial for me. So, I start seed in January and harvest stalks until the plant dies. That is not the ideal way to do it, but at least Tim gets some fresh Rhubarb that way. Another challenging veggie in many parts of Oklahoma is cauliflower. Cauliflower is a very finicky crop because it can bolt from late cold spells or early hot spells or dry weather......so while you may get a good crop some years, in other years it will bolt and you'll get nothing. Broccoli is easy if the weather cooperates. However, even when you plant it in a timely manner, it can form tiny button heads instead of big, full-sized heads if it is exposed to too much cold early in its growing process. For most people in Oklahoma, Brussels Sprouts are almost impossible to grow in spring because the weather gets too hot too early. However, in most years, you can get a good fall crop if you plant at mid-summer. Onions, in general, are very easy. However, they do tend to bolt very easily and that has given them a reputation for being "hard to grow". Sometimes it is not so much a specific type of vegetable that will not produce well here, but rather a certain sub-type. For example, tomatoes in general grow and produce well here in Oklahoma, but Oxheart types do not. I've never gotten more than 2 or 3 tomatoes off any Oxheart plant. They just do not like our weather. Really big beefsteak types like Brandywine or Big Rainbow don't like our heat either. If you get early fruitset in May or early June, you can get some big beefsteak tomatoes but then heat will shut down pollination and/or fertilization and you won't have any more of those until conditions cool off in the fall. Then, if beefsteak plants set more fruit in September, they may not have time to ripen before the fall frost. That's why most varieties recommended for OK produce tomatoes that weigh less than a pound. Lettuce in general is easy to grow here as long as you plant it early enough that it matures before the heat gets it. However, iceberg types are harder to grow than leaf or butterhead types. Because lettuce bolts, a lot of people think you "can't" grow it here. Well, of course you can grow it here in the cool seasons, but not the hot ones. Also, some veggies that have a reputation for being difficult here really aren't difficult as long as you plant them at the right time. However, planting a vegetable weeks after its recommended planting date can give you little to no harvest. So much of the time, as with cool-season crops, we are racing to get the harvest before temperatures get too hot. Conversely, some warm-season vegetables don't like cold soil and, if exposed to very cold soil, they can stunt and stall and fail to produce well even weeks or months down the line. Peppers are like that. If they endure too much cold shortly after being transplanted, they may not produce until fall. Most beans grow here, but most runner beans do not produce well in the heat. They tend to do fine in the fall if you can keep them alive through the summer heat. Filet type beans grow fine for me and so do most other beans, but most yellow wax varieties do not produce as heavily here as they do in areas with cooler summers. One secret to success with beans is to plant them early so they can flower and set beans before it gets so hot that blossoms start dropping. Shallots grow fine here. The best time to plant shallots is in the fall when you plant garlic. Pearl onions can be grown from seed but it is not necessarily easy to find. I usually see pearl onions at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (read the scallion descriptions to see which ones can be harvested as pearl onions) and at Territorial Seed. Most commercially-grown pearl onions are short-day types grown in long-day areas. They also are planted densely so they can't enlarge too much. I plant just about everything here, although not all in the same year, and very seldom have a total crop failure. Of course, there are some things I don't try...like planting onions in the fall and overwintering them, or growing peas or radishes in the middle of summer or setting out new tomato or pepper plants in the ground in September. And, speaking of peas, both snow peas and sugar snap peas do really well here most years, but English shelling peas usually do not have time to produce a crop (or much of a crop) before the weather gets too hot for them. To sum it all up, almost everything can be grown here if you carefully time your plantings and choose varieties that do well here. Not everything will succeed every year though because, in addition to weather, we have to deal with a lot of diseases and pests. Finding the specific varieties that grow well in your conditions in your part of the state is the key to success, and it takes a lot of trial and error to do that. Dawn

Well my friend gave the suggestion of constructing a 3' x 3' box and then dividing that box up into smaller squares like you would a 4' x 4' box. I could give this box a height of 12" which would give the box a depth of 12". The reason I'm choosing to do a box with a depth of 12" (regardless of the length and width of whatever size box I choose to make) is because the rule of thumb with growing root veggies seems to be, based on what others have told me regarding growing root veggies "the deeper the depth of soil is for growing root veggies, the better". This makes sense to me because they ARE root veggies and they do grow underground. My question is if I choose to do a box of 3' x 3' then since it's a bigger box should I divide this box up into smaller squares like you would do for a 4' x 4' box. If so how many 1' x 1' squares should I divide a 3 'x 3' box into and how many "rows" should a 3' x 3' box consist of? How many squares should be in each "row" for a 3' x 3' box?