6/25/2022
Garden bed update:
I last reported on this bed left fallow from the previous year back in early May. Leaving a garage bed deliberately go fallow may be a mistake as I am finding now. One effect of letting the bed go fallow was an abundance of weeds so I am having to work around those this year to a degree that I have not done in some time. Some of the weeds—grasses mostly—I can pull easily enough. Others seem to spring eternally and have little thorns—Ouch! I certainly don’t have every weed, but between smothering, pulling, cutting (with hedge cutters!) and low moisture, most of the weeds are under control.
Now regarding the condition of the actual mushroom/fungus/compost part of the bed, I wish things were better. We are in the beginnings of a drought and I just got done watering this morning—the first time irrigating in 10 years! The compost is pretty dried up right now so it will take some time to get it moist to the point that it readily accept water—almost like a dry sponge. I will probably be doing twice-daily watering for the next few days just to get the moisture levels back up to acceptable levels.
In terms of crops, things are pretty simple this year. I am only growing yellow neck squash, cucumbers (which only just went in) and tomatoes. The tomatoes, sadly, are replants as the first were eaten down by deer before I could get a fence up. The tomatoes have struggled a little bit in the high heat and drought but should pull through. The cucumbers are the very last to go out and sadly got planted in the driest of conditions and wilted before getting a good watering and springing back. The squash does not care about heat or drought and maybe even seems to like it.
Under the squash leaves where some degree of moisture remains thanks to abundant shade, I have seen some occasional fungal fuzz. It will be interesting to see what comes of this fuzz, if anything.
So the short of it is that while the bed is finally up and planted it is extremely hot and dry. This year will be a good test to see how well the bed does during drought conditions.
Eric