How can I get rid of flowers to plant vegetables?

I have a flower garden approx 4' x 20'. We have previously planted zinnias and other various flowers. We would like to plant vegetables...but every year the flowers come back. They don't do great and look ugly. How can we get rid of them and enrich the soil to grow some vegetables.





Also what is wrong when tomato plants grow really large and have fruit, but the fruit stays green and never ripens?

How can I get rid of flowers to plant vegetables?
Cover the whole bed with black plastic for 2 weeks and let it bake in the sun. The heat and lack of sun will kill every kind of seed, root, stems, etc. and it will also "sterilize" the soil of pests. If the sun does not get that hot (depends on where you live), you just need to leave it on longer. How long would depend on how hot it gets there.





For the tomatoes, I believe you just need the let them "fruit" much longer. I have never had tomatoes that stayed green. However, different types of tomatoes have different lengths of fruiting period.
Reply:the type of tomatoes are probably the cause of the coloring of them.





in your big friggin' flower garden, you may need to change the soil in it to new soil. or just plant your veggies and keep pullin' the "zinnias."
Reply:Cover the whole garden with newspaper. Hold it down with rocks and wet it. Put enough down so it will help keep your soil moist and keep the various flowers from coming up. If the flowers are perennials, dig them up and put the on Craig's list. Cut holes in paper where you want to plant the veggies. Good luck!
Reply:Round-up, then wait two weeks, this will kill all vegetation . Mix manure in with soil for rich soil 50/50. Sounds like your tomatoes were lacking nutrition, not this year if you do what I said.
Reply:try pullng out the flowers after they start growin this year and make sure to get the roots out good. sorry but idk about the tomato question.
Reply:tomatoes are technically vegetables by the way, what you do is you pull out all the flowers, get one of those metal rake things thats like a metal claw and soften all the soil, pull out the weeds so its just nice rich soil, water the soil later that night, claw it up again the next day, insert the seeds, water it, and it should work. Also dont forget about throwing fertilizer on the soil once theyre planted. Once the tomato plants start growing big, you might want to make some kind of metal rod support system and tie the stem to the metal rod to support it so that it doesnt just fall over and break
Reply:Probably not enough sun or bad soil for the green tomatoes. If you stick them in a brown paper bag they will ripen. Google square foot garden in regard to your flower problem.





You may want to read this article-BTW Flowers attract pollinating insects increasing vegetable production:





http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1...





http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/vegetabl...
Reply:take off 2 or four inches and put on new soil and plant vegetables. i think
Reply:Just dig them up and make sure you get all of the bulbs or roots. They won't grow back if their foundations are gone.
Reply:Dig in as much compost as you can get to improve the soil structure. Vegetables mostly require at least 6 hours of sun (so do zinnias), so if this is a shady spot, plant shade tolerant flowers there and move the veggie garden elsewhere.





As far as any stray seedlings coming up -- just hand weed. Easy and simple.





Tomatoes with green fruit at the end of the season sounds like either the cultivars chosen had too long a growing season for the area (check the "days" on the tags -- cherry tomatoes are generally short season, Romas and similar very long season).


or you gave them a lot of nitrogen at the beginning of the season and the plants didn't flower until late.





A good soils test before you put a veggie garden in an area that previously had problems with "easy flowers" is definitely in order.
Reply:Earls hole. When I start a new garden spot I start whith my own version of this.





Then start with deep mulch. Look up ruth stout. Basicily find about everything you can to make a thick layer of mulch. Your mulch compost from the bottom up. You may have to dig the holes fir the first few seasons dependind on your soil.But after a few it should be smooth sailing with very few weeds to pull.





Go organic in the end it is less work. I love no till gardening.





We all hope that you have hours of sun.
Reply:The only thing you can do is dig it up and find the roots. They're in the ground and you need to find them. You're going to have to dig the ground up to plant vegetables, after all. Find the roots/bulbs/whatever and take them out.

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