weed to girl ratio 1000000:1

I am just as excited as I was a few days ago about getting another, entire plot - quadrupling my gardening space - but I am now experiencing just how hard it is to undue someone else's neglect. I am also experiencing the irony of getting so much land but having to dig up stubborn taprooted weeds from every inch of it.

Here's the plot. You might be thinking "hey, at least there's no weeds under that black landscaping fabric" but you'd be wrong.

However, for my troubles, I've inherited some new plants that managed to grow amongst the voracious weeds. I'm not sure if it's ironic, but it's definitely more squash.

I now have: butternut squash, yellow squash(no!) and zucchini, lemon cucumber, cabbage, some fancy broccoli that may never flower, and a swarming mass of unsupported cherry tomato vines. Rumor has it there's a couple of pepper plants in there, but I haven't gotten to those beds yet.

I weeded 4 hours Saturday and 5 hours Sunday, and I'm not even done with 1/3 of the plot. I thought I'd rototill it, but realized that would just cut up the weed roots and multiply the weeds. So I have to go dig up as much of the roots as I can by hand, with a shovel. My hamstrings are so sore from bending and pulling!

However, I'm starting to acquire a taste for my new fresh insta-cherry tomatoes off the vine! Tonight I made a fabulous roasted tomato salad dressing with them.

Spent barley mulch +wall of water = vinegary plant death

Last year, I mulched with spent barley from a local brewery. It was great. It's free, natural, easy to spread, gives good cover, stays in place relatively well, and eventually breaks down to provide nitrogen, etc back to the soil. In fact, I still recommend it. However, I wouldn't recommend doing what I did this year:

I got the barley from bins outside the brewery early one morning (gotta get there before the flies do). The barley was still wet and stinky from brewing. I went straight to my community plot, removed the black plastic mulch (weather had definitely warmed up enough) and began spreading the barley around. I put a good 2in layer on top of the soil. This was all fine. The problem came when I a) spread thick wet layers around some of my smaller plants, all tomatoes; these were my 2nd round transplants that I planted where I realized there was room after the 1st round, then b) put the walls of water back around these small tomatoes.

I go back the next day to check on things, and what do I find? Brown, shriveled tomato seedlings. Completely gone. The walls of water around the wet barley had created a hot vinegar tomato-annihilation atmosphere as hospitable to plant life as the ammonia clouds of Jupiter. The tomatoes never had a chance. This pic is the Early Girl tomato, after 1 day in my unintentional death chamber. Look closely; the leaves are reduced to papery dead shreds. This was the largest of the condemned tomatoes. The stem of this one lived (the others were smaller so got totally boiled), but since I have so many plants at home, I pulled it out and replaced it with another fully-alive plant.

Didn't see this one coming!
Lessoned learned: it always pays to have 3x the plants you really need ;)

-jardinera de muerte

Inventory

It's quite ridiculous, considering the amount of space I have. But plants are like crack to me... just one more.... and I have a friend who's similar. She gave me 30-40 new seedlings a couple of weeks ago which were quite etoliated (spindly from not enough light) but I repotted and gave them more light, so they're making a nice recovery now.

Tomatoes

1. Stupice (early-season heirloom, for grafting purposes)
2. Better Boy (hybrid,which I divided into 3 pots)
3. Moon Glow (orange heirloom, planted in garden 5/18?)
4. Early Girl (hybrid, so I'd have at least a couple plants that are successful!)
5. Opalka (paste heirloom)
6. Black from Tula (heirloom) in upside-down pot
7. Yellow Boy (VFN) in upside-down pot
8. Cavern (heirloom) (2)
9. Brandywine (heirloom) (1 from work, 4 from Elizabeth)
10. San Marzano (for paste) (2?)
11. Bush Cherry (3)
12. Large Cherry (2)
13. Marvel Stripe (2)
14. Green Zebra (4)
15. Persimmon (1)
16. Black Krim (2)
17. Big Beef (4? from Elizabeth, more to be indeterminate grafting rootstock)
    
18. Costaluto (1)
19. Ace (lots)
20. Italian Roma (4?)
21. Blue Fruit
22. Black Ethiopian
23. Carbon
24. Vintage Wine
25. Big White pink stripe
26. Chocolate stripe
27. Indian moon (native american heirloom!)
    
28. Blondkopfchen (yellow cherry)
29. Tlacolula Ribbed (mexican heirloom!)
30. Pineapple
31. Zapotec pleated (mexican heirloom!)
32. Celebrity (hybrid determinate, to be grafting rootstock)

Eggplant

1. Fairy Tale
2. Rosa Bianca
3. Gistada de Liada

Peppers

1. Early Jalapeno (4)
2. senorita Jalapeno
   
3. regular jalapeno
   
4. Habanero (3)
5. Tomatillo (2 pairs)
6. Black bell (1)
7. Pasilla (1)
8. Serrano (few)
9. Poblano (1)
10. Hungarian wax (1)
11. Thai ornamental (1)
12. tabasco
13. red demon thai
14. piquin
15. santa fe
16. cayenne
17. fresno
18. jamaica hot
19. anaheim
20. marconi

Curcurbits

1. Delicata squash (winter, big)
2. patty pan squash
   
3. papaya squash
4. armenian yard-long cucumber
5. marketmore cucumber
   
6. noir des carmes, some fancy french heirloom melon

Herbs

1. fine verde basil
2. genovese basil
3. summer savory
4. rosemary
5. cilantro
6. oregano
7. lavender
8. thyme
9. chocolate mint
10. peppermint
11. catnip

Strawberries

1. Alpine 1
2. Alpine 2
3. Ozark Beauty (1)
4. Quinalt (4)
5. Sarian (1)
   

Other

1. okra
2. red onion
3. nasturtium
4. morning glory
5. moonflower
6. mexican marigold
7. Taiyo giant sunflower
8. Velvet Queen sunflower
9. Strawberry blonde sunflower