Going Cheap is Not Always Best

Our family plague has been eradicated and its back to business time. I spent yesterday morning mowing...and I'm talking about serious mowing, son. Two and half tanks of gas worth of mowing. I prefer to use my little reel mower as often as I can, but yesterday's job called for a little more power. So I broke out the mulching push mower. The grass growing on the back of the property was over knee-deep and out of control. It took 3-4 passes over every patch of grass to knock that junk down. It was like mowing over a small forest of trees filled with sticky vines. Rough.

A significant amount of time was also spent weeding my stupid raised beds. And by stupid I mean me not the beds. In an effort for frugality, I decided not to buy weed cloth to lay in the bottom of my beds before filling them with dirt a couple of months ago. Instead, like a ridiculous Dr. Seuss book I said,

"Oh, these leaves laid thick
------------------will do the trick!"
They did not, not at all!
-----Those weeds grew thick! Those weeds grew tall!

So, I pulled up a million weeds yesterday just so I can water it all and watch them grow right back in a few days at a rate 20x faster than the plants whose space they are invading. The never ending battle. In the fall, I will dig it all up and remedy the problem.

The good news is there are a ton of little and a couple of big green tomatoes plumping up on the vines. The beans are starting to put on little baby bean buds, and all of the squash, zucchini, cucumbers and watermelon I planted last week have sprouted. The corn is slow going but is still green and growing. Now I just keep weeding, watering and waiting.