So it has been quite some time since I last updated this thing. My apologies. I decided to go back to school for Nursing, and that has pretty much consumed my life. The unfortunate part about that is my yard and garden have started to slip a little bit. The heat and rain we get here in Florida makes the weeds grow... well, like weeds. I have not totally been slacking though! A few days ago I finally got some seedlings in the ground. At the end of last growing season I decided to try something I saw online. Since I would not be growing anything during the peak of summer when temperatures are too high for most plants, I decided to cover my garden to prevent weeds from taking over. Ironically, my garden is now the only part of my yard that has NOT been taken over by weeds.
To cover the garden, I put down a layer of newspaper. You want to get pages that are paper (not the glossy paper used for some of the advertisements and car dealerships) and you want to try and use the ones that do not have a ton of dye. After that, you just unfold the pages and lay them down, covering the entire area. The idea here is that the newspaper will prevent weeds from growing, since they cannot get sunlight under the paper. The nice thing is that you never have to pick the paper back up. In time, the paper will break down and become part of the soil. It has been my experience with the first round that the paper does not break down quickly. I just used my hand shovel to cut holes where I planted my seedlings. Now the seedlings will get water, but the remaining paper acts as a sort of mulch to help prevent water loss from the soil and to prevent weeds from growing around the plants.
As of right now I am growing Roma tomatoes, spaghetti squash, cantaloupe, cucumber, and bell peppers. I'm hoping to fill the remaining space with broccoli, but I seem to be having a hard time getting the seeds to germinate. I may not have stored the seeds properly. We shall see.
Anyway, I apologize again for the severe lack of updates. I'll have some time off around Thanksgiving. I'm hoping to use that time to get some pics of the garden up, and show how I make soap and laundry detergent. Stay tuned, and thank you to those of you who have commented on previous posts. Part of the reason I didn't bother to update for so long was that I didn't think anyone was actually reading. Now that I know people find this information useful, I will make more of an effort to stay on top of things. Thanks for reading!
- Sean
