Gardening is a Cycle

Bob Bauer

June 14, 2016 (Last Updated: March 06, 2023) | Reading Time: 1 minutes

June 13, 2016

Success in the garden, as in life, is more about attitude than accomplishment. The harvesting is only a small part of the process, and is an indicator of how well you have been growing your soil. Everything picked is replaced by another planting, or a new handful of mulch, with the intent of adding more nutrients back into the soil than you take out..

As the soil gains tilth the weeds pop out with roots attached and you will enjoy those parts of the garden the most..

June 13, 2016

When you pull up your zucchini plants at the end of the season and find that the roots have followed the humus rich, dark soil along the ground right underneath your mulch, and not gone down into the ground, you will begin to realize how important a thick mulch is. The leaves of the plant track the sun to get all the photons they can for their photosynthesis, just as the roots grow toward the nutrients..

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June 14, 2016

Once my cauliflowers are harvested I have room for my second planting of bush beans. I just pull back the mulch, drag a furrow and drop them in. I don't put the mulch back yet because they like a warm soil to germinate in. After they are six inches tall they will get two inches of straw..

The bolted spinach gets pulled and I have a nice row for my second planting of beets. When the lettuce comes out, green onions go in. I don't like to waste garden soil, but I still enjoy my open spaces..

June 15, 2016

So, your broccoli will stay in the ground for another month while you harvest the florets after the main head is cut off, but after my cabbage plants came out I planted a row of cantaloupe. They don't really need a mound to grow from, we just do that in early Spring so that the soil heats up and hastens germination. If your soil is not soggy and has lots of air spaces because of lots of decomposition you can plant them in rows..

Can you ever have too much cantaloupe?..

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Im'a gonna get more exercise. I think we Grampa gardeners could all get on that bandwagon.