Melons and Mulch

Watermelon from last year.

We opened our first cantaloupe melon of the season yesterday. Absolutely delicious! That's one advantage of the excessive heat this summer...makes for LOTS of beautiful, ripe melons. We've counted as many as 12 on one plant (and we have over 50 plants of various varieties.)

We finally found a local source of wheat straw in 50-pound bales. It seems that most farmers are converting to baling equipment that produces half-ton bales. These aren't very practical for our purposes of mulching the gardens. Chris and I are going to bring some of the smaller bales to the gardens today so we'll be able to continue feeding our "micro-livestock" (worms and soil-organisms). Volunteer-times for the next few weeks will include lots of mulching in the paths.