The Last Cantaloupe and Weeds Infesting My Broccoli Plants

One of the things I did this year for my fall crop especially broccoli was to place mulch (mainly grass clippings) all around the base of the plants.  This is a sure way not only to hold water during dry spells, but to help them with keeping weeds away from the roots.  I only had enough just to place around the plants, but not in between the rows.

This is where the bulks of the weeds appeared.  When it rains and there is a sunny day after the weeds just go crazy and start growing everywhere.  Wherever there is no mulch all the weeds began growing.  Removing them is what I did this week over a couple of days.  I would say it took about eight to nine hours total to remove every weed that I could see.

I think I did a pretty good job weeding and that is how it should look like all the time.  When I get another batch of grass clippings either tomorrow or during the weekend I will place them throughout and make sure that no weeds will grow up for the rest of the year.

No more cantaloupes growing anymore because I just picked the only one left from the summer season.  It had been pollinated later than the others, but it still grew to a good enough size.  I don't mind if my cantaloupes are small because they are not large fruit to begin with.

I had a few peppers that were ready today and plenty are on their way to becoming ripe.  I probably have at least ten more peppers that are growing on all my plants and many of them are continuing to flower.  I have had a good year for peppers and looking to collect many more.  Right now only five were ripe enough to pick.

Last, but not least nine pounds of beans were on the list for harvesting.  I didn't know I had nine pounds until I began picking them from my vines.  I still have plenty left to pick with new ones continuing to grow every day.

Started the Process of Weeding Garden and More Lettuce Harvested

This week has been quite busy especially with all the weeding that needs to be done throughout the entire garden.  The only thing that doesn't need to be weeded is the onions that are in totes because they are all covered with mulch which keeps the weeds out and less work for me.  Luckily with all the rain that we received this week means more weeds in the garden need to be plucked from the ground.

The good thing about getting all this rain is that now I can collect more grass clippings from mowing the lawn which I can then use on plants that cannot compete with many weeds.  Some of the plants that can use mulch would include the onions in the garden or even my corn which have a shallow root system.  I can even use it for my tomatoes that do not like uneven watering and having a mulch to retain water can help that.  It all depends what I will use these grass clippings for.

I also collected some more lettuce leaves that needed picking which came after the rain.  Picking them in the morning is supposed to allow the leaves to create a more crisp and firm leaf and supposed to last long.  I am not sure if this is true, but I did pick over 50 leaves this week.  All of them came from my iceberg lettuce plants.

Two containers full of these leaves was a good amount to collect from about a dozen iceberg plants.  I still have my ruby glow plants that are continuing to grow and I hope to start picking these leaves in the very near future.  I know I have been saying this for awhile, but I want to pick them when the time is right which is quickly approaching.

As usual I had to compare these leaves to my foot in order to show you the average size of these leaves.  They are quite large and at least they are all green as compared to what you can get from the store.

Along with the picking of lettuce weeding was done throughout the entire garden.  This included tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, melons, peppers, beans, and corn.

Here are a few pictures of the weeded plants.

Had Some Weeding To Accomplish Today

Today was just as busy with all my spinach plants that are starting to be taken over by thick thriving weeds.  Weeds come just about everywhere in any type of form.  They can damage and easily take over the garden if you don't stay on top of them.

That is what I did this afternoon and made sure that they will not come back for at least a couple of weeks.  They can easily come back as long as a good heavy rain came.  Since we haven't received much rain in the past couple of months they will not grow back as fast as usual.  It will probably take them an extra week in order for them to be a factor.

You can see from the two pictures above that weeding your plants can help them out and makes them look professional with not weeds or grass around them.

The Weather is Beginning to Heat Up

Now that spring weather is starting to appear and trees are beggining to show signs of budding along with grass starting to grow it is time to work in the garden.  My plants are still in containers from starting them inside and they will be placed outside to get used to the weather.  This is just something that the plants need to go through in order to be placed in the garden without getting a shock to their system.

Now that my plants are outside and it is warm enough to work with the soil and is beginning to dry I thought yesterday was a perfect time to work on my blueberries.  I didn't do much except for weeding them and removing many leaves that had collect during the fall months.  It was mostly maple leaves and trees around the area that happen to get collected here.

As you can see from the picture below of all the fall debris that had collect along with some grass that was beginning to grow as well.  I got rid of all of it in order to give them a good head start to the summer season.

Along with warmer weather comes transplanting of some plants mainly my spinach which has been growing quite well.  It is still too early to till the entire garden as well as placing any other plants in the soil so I will just focus on spinach for the time being.  Later on I will be working on my other plants.

They are beginning to grow their second set of leaves and the roots have almost reached the bottom and this is how you know when it is time to place them in the soil.

Harvested First Zucchini Today

I just harvested my first zucchini of the year only about 12 hours ago when I first woke up today.  I wasn't sure if it was going to be ready because I have never picked one of these vegetables this early in the season before.  I was a little leery on picking it, but once I felt how strong it was and the sound it made when I tapped on it I knew that it was time to pick it.

It ended up being a good choice because then I used it for dinner today and it was well worth the wait and all the work that I put into getting them.  I hope to pick many more this season, but this is just the beginning and I have more that are growing.  I just need to keep an eye on them and watch for any squash borers that might take up residence in the stems.

Other than picking this zucchini I have been weeding the entire garden for the past week.  This process is always a pain, but it is something that I have to do in order to get vegetables and fruit like the one I just picked today.  This is why weeding is very important for all plants. 

Just some pictures I took of the garden when I was finished weeding it for the most part.

Time to Remove all The Weeds in The Garden

Weeding is just one of those tasks that every gardener has to do in order to keep healthy plants throughout the season.  This is what I decided to take on yesterday.  I had only performed some weeding throughout the season, but I had not done the entire garden all at once.  Since most of the garden had plenty of weeds that needed to be removed I thought this would be a perfect time to do so.

Once you remove these weeds by hand you can then work on your plants rather than constantly picking grass and other plants in the garden.  You can also place down a layer of mulch at this time to prevent them from coming back.  I would only do this for the plants that have shallow roots and cannot compete with these weeds.  Corn is one of those that need it along with many others.

I decided to take some pictures of this task before and after to get a sense of what a garden is to look like after an appropriate weeding.

You might think that the above images don't look all that different and that is because this area of the garden did not have as much weeds to deal with as other parts did.  The carrots and beans had the most grass that needed to be removed right away.  You can find more images here.