Summer lull--time to build

As you've noticed, we rely heavily on mulch, whether it be plastic or hay.  Some things can't be mulched, such as sweetcorn (although I'm tempted to try that too), so you have to till in between the rows and then hand weed in between.  For much of our crops, though, we mulch.  We put plastic around the strawberries and melons.  We put hay over the potatoes, squash/pumpkins, and the grapes and berries.  It takes time to do this and do it right.  The plastic has to be laid out, and then you dig a trench all the way around the patch, bury the edge, then cover with dirt.  You then have to cut out around your plants, add rocks to hold the plastic down, and then poke holes with a fork.  If you cut corners on any of this, your plastic will not stay down in the wind and you've got a real mess.

Hay mulch is even more labor intensive.  First I cut the hay.  For now we don't have a tractor drawn mower, so I use my 3' sickle mower on the front of my BCS tractor.  It takes me about 3 hours per acre to mow.  We then let it dry for a couple days, and then go over the patch with the tractor and dump rake to make windrows, and finally go around with the tractor and our trailer, fork it on the trailer, then haul it to the beds and fork it off and spread it around.  It takes time, equipment, and multiple hands to make this process work.

But, by putting in the time on the front end (i.e May and June), you greatly reduce your labor in July and August, because weeds are no longer a real problem, and you don't need to water.  Plus, the crops will be more productive.  As an added benefit, we've found that having the mulch, particularly the black plastic, on a patch for a year or more all but kills the weeds underneath, even quack grass, so as we continue to rotate this method, we feel we're going to gradually notice less and less weeds in the garden.

Now it is the middle of June and 80% of the garden is in and mulched and can largely take care of itself until harvest.  But, this summer it doesn't mean we get a break.  Next week we start on our cabin, and while I'm hiring the bulk of the work done, there's still going to be a lot of running around getting it to come together, and I'm going to do a bunch of the finish work myself, so I don't see much break ahead for me until winter.  Then I'm going to curl up in front of my wood stove, fired with wood I cut on our own land, and take a nap.