It’s June! How does your garden grow?
Here is (some of) ours (my husband’s, that is):
It is covered with deep mulch all over, which cuts down on weeding significantly and helps retain the moisture. We just use our last-year’s hay for this.
Cabbage, just planted.
Cukes, just planted.
Potatoes.
Eggplants. I love eggplants.
Chives.
Tomatoes. Tomatoes are a vine, and will climb and cling to the cages you put up for them. These homemade cages, while not the easiest way to go, are nevertheless sturdier and much taller than what our local stores carry. They are made of the metal mesh used to reinforce concrete before pouring (I believe), and are held up by fence posts.
We learned about them from Jacob’s sister, and they really do work great.
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I just found this on pinterest and I have those same tomato cages. My father in law built them for me to try this year and I LOVE them. I only have 4 though and used regular, store bouht cages for the rest of my tomatoes. They look so much worse and I will need to figure something else for the tops of them or they will be falling over soon
I love your blog!
Sorry, I’m a few days behind here – with the straw, do you then till it in next season or clear it out and start again next spring? I’ve considered the same thing, but haven’t found a cheap (free?) source of clean straw – the only stuff I can get my hands on at the moment is full of random seeds, etc.
This is actually hay, not straw. Yes, we always plow it in, and it is very much full of random seeds. This is our usual approach – but with this new lasagna gardening thing I am not sure. This is the first year he’s doing it. I’ll have to get back to you on that!
With lasagna gardening/deep mulch you do _not_ till it in. If all goes according to plan, after the season, we will take out the tomato cages, knock down all of the old plants and then cover over everything with about 12 – 24 inches of new mulch, preferably hay (more nitrogen than straw), or maybe with some compost or manure. Then, next spring, you plant right into the somewhat decayed mulch. No weeds, no tilling, and moisture way into a drought like the one we have going right now. Check out the website of Roger Reynolds, the guy who taught the Driftless Folk School class in which I learned about this: http://infiltratinglandscapes.blogspot.com/
And it doesn’t matter if your mulch source has a lot of weed seeds – put down a smother layer of cardboard first then mulch on top.