August 02, 2018
Welp I did it again. Rigged up my shade cloth and got a huge chunk of ground cleared. I was glad I had watered it the day before because it took only about 15 min. to complete. It felt like fun too. I started thinking how the entire garden can be weed free with just a minimul amount of daily weeding..
I went through the same list of options to cover the ground with since I had no plans to plant it. I decided that once every couple of weeks I could just run the hula hoe over it and it would stay looking good. The next morning as I walked past it I realized that's where my third planting of bush beans should go. Cleaning out patches of weeds seems to result in planting more crops, after I figure out what kind of mulch I don't want to use..
August 03, 2018
I brought some weed cloth into the garden yesterday, but not for what you might think. I draped it over tomato towers to shade my newly transplanted cauliflower. My shade cloth was already in use stretched across the greenhouse bed where the first of the transplants went. I find that I can save the heads from freezing if we get an early frost by just closing the door. All my boards were in use covering seed rows..
Each row of crucifers can yield two more rows when they are thinned and transplanted. Space is running out. I've even weeded a pathway in preparation for the broccoli transplants. I don't know yet where the cabbage and kale will go but melon mounds and corn patches are opening up..
August 04, 2018
I've started leaving my soapy water spray bottle in the pathway next to the zucchini. It doesn't make me look all the time, but when I see squash bugs I don't have to go all the way to the greenhouse to get my weapon of choice. It works great on the little huddles of babies. Sometimes I spray so vigorously that I jam the trigger plunger. I've had to WD 40 it. It's fun when you spray a group of them and they don't move because they are all dead from the last time..
The same soapy water works on aphids also, and aphids are on the newly forming artichokes, so the bottle takes a tour of the garden every now and then. The artichokes don't like this summer heat. They get beat down to the ground every day when we have tripple digit temps. The ground is moist but the leaves are turning yellow..
