Potato. . .potato . . .potato. . . (NHDC) YUMMY UPDATE

[Lannis]

That's scary.  They're real numerous here - honeybees, bumblebees, sweat bees, and leafcutter bees which are a new one on me.

I think we'll be able to get the bees back, once we clean up our act and lay off the pesticides, but there will be some lean years.

The little black bees (they have a name but I can't remember it) are picking up the slack that the honey bees have left, at least around here ....

Lannis

[56Pan]

Crabgrass in the watermelon, cantaloupes, and pumpkins is my biggest weed problem.   Have to pull it by hand, can't get the tiller in there, and it takes tons of mulch (expensive) to fix it.

And it's hard not to plant "too many" tomatoes and squash.   You don't know how many will survive, and you don't want to be short.

But if they ALL survive, then you can't stand to throw away perfectly good vegetables .... and you can and freeze until you're tired of it ....

Lannis

I got fed up with tilling up/pulling weeds.  Put down the layers of newspaper and cover it with straw in the spring.  Yeah, it's a lot of work, but I'm done then with weeds.  The plants all seem to do much better in a dry year too with the soil covered.  Some early hard labor that pays off through the season.  At least for me.