Addendum to garden progress

As an addendum to the blog post on our garden progress, here's a bit of an update: Mulch!

We had a good solid, steady rain yesterday, so everything got thoroughly watered. Since I couldn't work outdoors during that kind of weather, instead I went into town and purchased some bales of straw. (Not hay; straw. Hay, when used as mulch, can grow unwanted plants in the garden. The only thing straw mulch will grow is the occasional wheat plant.)

I laid down a sheet in the car and crammed in four bales of straw. Despite the protective sheet, they still made a mess. By the time I thought to take a photo, I'd already removed one of the bales (there's a bale in back, behind these two).

I loaded the rest into our Gorilla cart.

I transported one bale of straw at a time into the garden using a hay sled.

It didn't take long to spread straw on each potato bed.

All eight beds, mulched.

I had about two and a quarter bales of straw left for future mulching projects. I loaded the uncut bales onto the hay sled and crammed it under the porch, where the straw will stay dry.

Straw is nice as a mulch because we can use it for several years. I mulched four out of the five beds of garlic I planted last fall with the previous year's mulch. As we ramp up the garden, we'll get whatever additional straw we need to mulch the additional beds, then reuse it until it breaks down enough to just dig in as an addendum to the soil.