Late June Gardening

After work yesterday I stopped by the garden to check on the tomatoes, squash, peppers, and beans that I planted a couple of weeks ago.  Nanny - bless her! - had chopped out the rows, and they were clean for 6" on both sides of the plants, but the middles (which I'd made wide enough for a pushmower ) were calf-high with grass.  I dragged out the mower and mowed the middles for the first time.  My plowing and planting and Nanny's chopping had left ridges of dirt on both sides of the rows that hindered my progress like speed bumps in a parking lot.  The mower blades raised up a veritable dust storm around me as they sheared off the humps.  Thank goodness for the nice breeze that blew the dust away enough for me to see what I was doing.

In my last post, I think I mentioned the furrow attachment I'd put on the big tiller on planting day.  When I used it for the first time, I didn't know whether to plant in the furrow or in the dirt that piled up along the trench.  Ultimately, I raked most of the dirt back into the trenches and planted in the furrow.  Now that the dirt has settled a bit, the rows are slightly sunken, but the dirt is still loose enough to pull up the grass and morning glories by the roots.

After I mowed, I watered the rows with the garden hose, aiming the stream directly into the trenches, avoiding the middles.  The water soaked right into the soil instead of running off  the way it used to do.  And, look here, BONUS: the mown-grass middles acted as sidewalks, and I didn't mar up ankle deep in mud as happens when I use the tiller to weed the middles.  This "mown middles" thing may actually work if we can keep the grass out of the rows.

In a couple of weeks, I am going to plant some green beans, and maybe a few more tomatoes.

The raised beds in the back yard . . . . . . .  Although the dirt with which we filled them was labeled "garden soil," it seems to be about half mulch, and it dries up an hour after it's watered, and it seems to contain no nutrients at all.  Even the zinnias and cosmos I planted in one of the beds are spindly and pale, and they'll just about grow on asphalt!  Last week, whatever bug/worm that eats cruciferous vegetables hatched out and have eaten my kale and brussels sprouts down to their spines.  I am going to leave them there and see if they put out again once the bugs go away.  Meanwhile, I've scattered more zinnia seeds and some basil seeds between the plant skeletons, to see if I can raise SOMETHING in those beds.  Very late in the summer, I'll try planting greens again.