FYI, NEVER buy Scotts Pro Landscape Fabric. It just makes a nice shady damp spot for weeds to flourish. It's bad enough that it's impossible to keep up (iow, given up) on pulling weeds in the beds but now I have to pull weeds that are sprouting out of the weed block material. Ok, it slows them down but that's all. It also rips in the winds too easily. My aching bones and joints just can't deal with it so my new philosophy is that weeds are also God's creatures so let them grow. Solid carpet of weeds as always. As for crowding out the veggies, I'll just sprinkle out more seed. As for shading the veggies, heck, they need shade in the Texas sun. As for weeds stealing all the water, that's horse hockey as all plants get equal amounts of water and I have a well so no worries until the pump breaks (knock on wood three times).
The Long Lasting (not!) Cilantro and India Florida Broad Leaf Mustard are both bolting and have only harvested one dinner batch of mustard. The broad leaf mustard is a new try this year thinking the leaves would be easier to clean. Ok, so they don't hold the sand like the curly leaf but when this package of seeds is empty, that's it with such an early bolt.
Happy, happy there are a few little nobby fruits starting on the new blackberry vines!
All the volunteer tomatoes I moved a couple weeks ago survived and there's more popping up here and there but they're staying wherever. However, one is smack dab in the middle of the garden gate so he must be moved. They haven't produced the past 2-3 years but here's to this year filling the freezer and jars.
There are a few volunteer bush beans popping up but they're smarter than the maters and know where they belong. The pole beans are vining and just starting to bud so we'll be eating green beans soon.
The garlic is blooming so will need to be dug soon.
There are still only a couple squash blossoms but I'm keeping an eye out for those evil svb. The nasturtiums planted with them are slow coming up so may bloom too late to deter the little monsters. We've had an outbreak of snails in them so having to “squash” that problem.
The NZ spinach and Chinese Celery never germinated. I'll try again in the fall for the celery but I'm out of the NZ spinach so will have to order more. It never went to seed last year before the freeze so it may not seed for me and I'll have to pay for seeds every year which wasn't what I'd wanted to do. But it is a good producer and didn't bolt last summer so that's a major plus.
The cukes, eggplant, peas, peppers and various others are just sitting there but guess they're happy and will take off when they're ready.
The feral cat still watches and talks to me from a safe distance when I'm in the garden and waits for her bowl of food.
Now, an update on the ghost dog who followed me in from the garden 2-3 weeks ago. I'd come in from the garden and hadn't let the dogs inside yet but I heard slurping at their water bowl. Well, a couple nights ago, hubby was letting the dogs outside when he heard a big sigh in the corner where current and previous dogs like to sleep. We've both noticed the big slobber bucket hasn't been sleeping there as much lately so who knows. Cue the spooky music...
I rarely have weeds in my raised beds. I do plant everything as close together as I can, and don’t get many. The ones that do manage to emerge are easy to pull. I used large amounts of Mel’s mix, and it makes everything easier to pull out.
Ghost dogs are okay as long as they don't bring in a bunch of ghost fleas. Next time you hear ghost dog, you should take a picture and see if anything shows up...