Vegetable Garden Update 5-13-2014

I got to plant some more vegetables the past two weekends.  On May 4th, I put hay down around my tomatoes and put the rest of the tomato cages in. 

 

May 4th: onions

 

 

May 4th: peas

 

May 4th: tomatoes 

 

I have 10 tomato cages that I made from remesh and I thought I would never need more than 10, so when we moved, we left the extra rebar behind.  We only had enough to make 6 more.  I planted 24 tomatoes this year.  I bought the $4 little 54" metal ones that will probably only make it 1-2 years before they are too broken.  Two welds broke while I was putting them in.  $60 is a lot to spend on tomato cages that break so fast.  Husband and I decided to see how well these hold up.  If they make it 5 years, then we'll probably just buy more when they break.  If they make them 1-2 years, then we will make some more remesh ones.  We can make 9 more out a 50' roll ($40) and then we add some metal supports ($3 or less) and they will cost $7.50 or less for each tomato cage.  Total cost would be less than $70 before tax.  We would have to assemble it though, which is why Husband wants to try the pre made ones.

On May 11th, I checked to see if anything had popped up and weeded the garden.  A lot of clover invaded the garden.  Dandelions and thistle are so much easier to weed out since they have one main root.  Clover is just a tangle of roots.  I felt like I was just taking out all the top soil.  I spent almost 2 hours weeding and only planted one row of green beans instead of two like I had planned.

Here's what I planted:
2 groups of Straight Eight Cucumbers
2 groups of Muncher (Burpless) Cucumbers - I don't know what kind I prefer, I typically go with Straight Eight
4 groups of Black Beauty Squash (what I call zucchini)
2 groups of Green Gourmet Hybrid Summer Squash (again, zucchini and not the kind I usually get, but it's what the store had)
2 groups of Early Prolific Straightneck Summer Squash (what I just call yellow squash)
A group of Crimson Sweet Watermelon
A group of Sugar Pie Pumpkin
A 15' row of Kentucky Wonder green bean
Two 5' row of Scarlet Nantes Carrot
A Black Krim tomato
A Rosemary plant

This upcoming weekend I plan on planting a 15' row of Blue Lake green beans.  I also need to purchase another bale or two of hay so I have enough to put down around everything else.  I'm not sure if I will put hay down where my onions are.  I never have before, but I might try because they are a pain to weed.  Well, isn't everything a pain to weed?  I was told by one person 5 years ago that mulching, even with straw, around onions will choke them out and they won't grow as well.  This has caused me to never mulch them, even though I hear of lots of people using straw around them with great success.  I will keep you posted on how the onions turn out.