I spent a few days on the east coast this past weekend and let me tell you Bob, I nearly fainted when I went out to check on the garden. Before I left 5 weeks ago I mulched the garden heavily with 2 bales of hay and one bale of straw {even after 80% of you said not to} and when I did my walk around there were only 6 blades of grass/hay/straw to pull.
Wowie was I surprised. And then I wasn’t because all the locals were using hay to mulch their garden beds. Moral of the story… When in doubt ask your neighbors. They’ll know what works for the area.
Did I mention we don’t have a sprinkler set up at the house?
And amazingly everything is growing beautifully.
Squash babies.
Sun gold tomatoes.
Watermelon!!!
How cute is that melon baby?
Even the sweet potatoes are growing like mad.
And the onions? A few of them were ready to pull.
Not a shabby little harvest if you ask me.
~Mavis
P.S. HH if you are reading this… If this doesn’t convince you I could grow 75% of our yearly food on the EAST coast… I don’t know what will. Seriously. I’ve got this. 😉 What are you waiting for?
Amy Schmelzer says
Are you sure that’s a watermelon? I have six varieties of melon growing in my garden this year. The four orange colored melons(“muskmelon”) have leaves like your picture. The two watermelons have a completely different shape leaf. Not that I am an expert in melons, so maybe yours is a different type than mine.
Susan from Dallas says
Great job with your East Coast harvest. I’m always amazed when I see the “Old-timers” in Texas have a good yield in triple digit heat.
Carrie says
I mulch with straw but I do have plenty of weeds to pull but I hardly ever water my garden. We also have gotten quite a bit of rain on the east coast for July. My eggplants are growing like crazy!
Alison says
The rain has been VERY favorable this year. Your garden looks great!
Tracy says
I know many, many people who live in the northeast, many farther north than I am, (I’m in southern NY), who grow just about all of their fruit and vegetables themselves. As you know, it doesn’t take a lot of land to do so, just good succession planning and some way to start seeds indoors in late winter. I have a friend in Vermont who grows just about every fruit or veg her family of nine (!!!) eat, raises chickens, and trades with a neighbor for all her dairy — on an acre. You couldn’t blast me out of the northeast!
Mavis Butterfield says
I totally think produce grows better there than here in the Pacific Northwest.