Time to mulch...

So...plants are pretty well established, I think it's time to start mulching. My trouble is finding the right mulch. I plan to put down newspaper first (at least between the rows). My hope is to find hay at a reasonable price that does not have any pesticides or herbicides sprayed on it. I'm not confident that I'll have a lot of luck. The city I live near offers free mulch, but it's made from grass clippings that I can only assume have herbicides on them. Another possibility for me is to raid the woods by my house for leaves, but I think it will be a lot of work to get enough of them, and I think I will need to shred them so they decompose better and don't blow around. Figuring this out is one of my jobs for the day.

Another task for today may be to harvest the first strawberries! They weren't quite ready last night when I looked, but I think today is the day. I took this photo a few days ago.

Yesterday I planted some marigolds around the garden--they keep a lot of garden pests away.

Lettuce garden

Here's my lettuce garden (actually, this section of the garden belongs to my eight-year-old daughter, Annabelle). I have a mesclun mix in the back, then a row of bibb lettuce, some lovely spinach, and some arugula that we've already sampled. I like to let my salad greens grow a little more before I thin them--then I can eat the ones I thin out as baby greens--yum!

This romaine head is a volunteer in the location where I planted it last year. I didn't plant any this year and now I'm regretting it because this one looks so lovely (and lonely). Oh well, it's almost never too late to plant more lettuce...