Author: Bob Bauer

I realized today that I had a huge weed patch in the garden that was about a ten foot square, so I got an old tarp and covered it. It’s called occultation, and is an organic technique for weed suppression. Ideally I would have cut them down to the ground before covering them, but I’ve grown weary of my weed […]

I found more hay to mulch around my Early Girl tomatoes. It was behind the barn with the stall cleanings, but was clean and dry. My wife is using hay as bedding in the foaling stall and meticulously freshening it daily. It’s almost a sanitary area. The mare never had it so good. A whole stall full of food that […]

The 3″ thick layer of hay that I have surrounding my hills is keeping the soil under it cool and moist. Earthworm activity under it is right on top of the ground, eating the damp hay, and distributing their castings to fertilize the plant roots. You can’t do better for your garden soil than hay or straw mulch. The seeds […]

My cilantro is ready to start picking, but we are a long way from Salsaville yet. I haven’t even gotten a ripe tomato yet, and the peppers look like my dog’s been peeing on them. They are short, squat and yellowish and have a Dick Cheney snear to them. They don’t like my garden and want to be back in […]

I picked both zucchini and squash bugs today. I can’t believe the bugs are at it already. Having experienced first hand what they can do to a plant I didn’t hesitate to grab them with my fingers. No time to go get the spray bottle full of soapy water, they were all connected to each other by their butts. You […]

It looks like I’ve been growing my own mulch again. I used the old lettuce plants down one side of a corn patch where the Creeping Jenny was encroaching, and the bolted spinach stalks down the other. I used hollyhock stalks along the Brussels sprouts row. They will take forever to decompose but it seems to take Brussels sprouts all […]

We had the sweetest carrots for dinner tonight. They were Scarlet Nantes which are short and sweet. I thought they were Danvers Half Long so I picked them when their tops were only three quarters of an inch in diameter. It turns out that both varieties are short and best picked tender. You can plant all summer long for a […]