I'm here to say we did.
Almost.
We were able to run around and collect some mulch. We got a bag of magnolia leaves from my dad (Big thank-you to the large magnolia tree in my parents' front yard.)
We also got some cardboard from the neighborhood liquor store. (And thank-you, neighbors, for the large amounts of alcohol consumed.)
I've been (not seriously) considering changing the name of this blog to The Great Mulch Experiment.
So far this season, we've used straw, magnolia leaves, oak leaves and mulched trees and other tornado debris.
It was kind of a surprise to discover the mulch that worked the best.
The magnolia leaves!
Take a look at the pictures below.
The first one is a row of okra with no mulch...
...and the second is a row of okra with magnolia leaf mulch.
There's not a weed to be found in the magnolia mulch.Now take a look at our potato plants which were mulched with oak leaves. Do you notice some weeds poking through?
So, I'd say the breakdown of mulch (best to worst) goes something like this:
1. Magnolia leaves
2. Straw
3. Mulched trees and tornado debris
4. Oak leaves
Other than The Great Mulch Experiment, we also watered, fertilized, harvested and made pickles.
The fertilizing and pickling will have to wait for another post.
The pesto-making was the only item not crossed off our to-do list. However, my weekend is technically not over yet because I have Monday off. So...
The harvest today included:
okra
tomatoes
cucumbers
herbs
flowers
and......
POTATOES
Apparently, when the potato plant gets all wilty and dead-looking (see above) the potatoes are ready. So we pulled about 4-5 plants today and found roughly 20 Yukon Golds awaiting us.
I plan on roasting these with the herbs we harvested today: rosemary, thyme and oregano.
Yum.
If you remember, we planted several cut potatoes. This is what it looked like when we pulled the plant:
Sometimes, you can get something from nothing!
Lesson learned.
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