Sorry to further hi-jack the subject-line of this thread. But the 'pissing contest' seems to have overtaken courtesy. When I do a google search on my REAL NAME [not forum moniker] I get 20,305 'hits'. I know from experience that many of the references to my name are duplicates and even bogus hits. I used to be very active ... my name is on a lawsuit against the CA Board of Ed, which went clear to the U.S. Sup.Ct.[we lost, which is not the same thing as being wrong] I only mention this to mitigate for the silly claim about 763 'hits' for kimmsr's name in connection with money. Which is apropos of nothing. What does it matter if this participant has a 'thing' about not wasting money. How is that different from your 'thing' about holding his views up to ridicule. If we search your name in connection with smarmy, sarcastic references to kimmsr, what will we find? Nice try, but no cigar.

Peter- Wow. Sounds like you're getting into my head. Had some questions a while back about whether people only tended/tilled their rows, or tended/tilled their entire garden. I was thinking that it could be more cost/labor effective if you only tended rows year after year and let the aisles kind of be... with some sort of cover crop. Sounds like it can be done. I'm very interested in that. Is the white clover you mention, "dutch white clover"? When it creeps, will I be able to bring it under control when I till as normal for my fall/winter garden, and my spring/summer garden, or will I need to do additional spading/ edging of some sort then, and throughout the growing season? Can I plant it now, along with my winter garden? The book sounds interesting. I'm going to pick up a copy. Thanks for the clarification on the fact that, yes, I can grow hairy vetch and cereal rye now and still have organic matter to till in, in the early spring. Great news for me. I'm being thick headed here, but I'm still not understanding how the cereal rye affects seeds/seedlings. You say "cereal rye will suppress small seeded vegetables, but will not kill healthy transplants". Do you mean that ANY healthy transplant will not be harmed, and that only small seeds sown in place may have issues? Or do you mean by "small seeded vegetables", even transplants that are grown from small seeds can be affected? No till eh? I might be interested and your experiment suggestion is certainly something I'd be interested in trying. Do you think that even with the poor soil conditions that I have currently, it would be worth experimenting with that right now? Or, as I'm thinking maybe better to bring up my organic matter by tilling in pine bark fines, bring up my potassium levels with sulfate of potash (currently very low), add alfalfa meal to supply nitrogen needs, plant the garden, mulch with either shredded leaves or straw or hay.... Then next season try the no till part of the equation? Frankly, I'm just a little unsure about how the whole no till thing is going to work for me. Don't know a whole lot about it, but kind of thinking it might be better to do "next phase" because my soil is so poor. Please feel free to argue this to me, offer suggestions for no till on poor soil conditions viability. Do you (or anyone reading this) have a good source for cover crop seed? I was going to purchase from Johnny's selected seeds, but they are out of some of the varieties I was interested in.

This is probably a stupid question but ... what advice do you experts have for when and how to deal with yellow clover as a cover crop? I planted yellow clover last fall and now I am not sure when I'm supposed to till it in. I'm in zone 5 (northern Ohio). I'll be starting to plant some of the early stuff on a few weeks. Should I wait until just before I plant or do I turn it over now? Also, HOW do I turn it over? Do I just use a hoe or do I need to run a tiller through it? Thanks for any feedback

Hi Donna - I'm not in zone 5, but I'll give these questions a go anyway - I think most of the "regulars" are busy in their gardens. I actually have a problem with butterfly bush, which is somewhat invasive here. I have a few of these, in various shades of purple; they are the offspring of a white hybrid and they're prolific self-seeders. I dead-head them, religiously, in late summer, to cut back on the number of seedlings. I cut mine back - almost to the ground - after they begin to leaf out in spring - this is standard treatment for a subshrub. I suppose butterfly bush is a bit tall to be treated as a sub-shrub, but with its annual die-back, that might be appropriate. Do you get a lot of branches dying back to the ground in zone 5? I don't pinch it back after that, because I like it to have an open form, but I don't see why you couldn't do that if you prefer a bushier look. Personally, I find the angular branching that results from cut branch ends is a little disfiguring to these plants. My advice is to try it on a few branches and see how it looks, as growth resumes on the cut ends. You should be able to plant *anything* outside in containers now. You can check the date of the last expected frost on the web; sorry, I don't have a link handy, but you can google "last frost" to find it. It is something like May 15 here, for plants that like warm soil and detest frost, this can still be a problem, but for container plants you should be fine. I assume that the soil in your barrel planter is nice and warm at this point. Regarding the fungicides, why do you need them? I have an occasional problem with fungus on tree peonies that are growing in cramped quarters, with inadequate air circulation, but your begonias in the barrel planter should not be having a problem. Someone recommended using hydrogen peroxide as an antifungal on those; it is probably cheaper, and probably a lot safer, than most agricultural anti-fungals. I'll add a link to a site that lists "home remedies" like this. Here is a link that might be useful: Home Remedies