6th July

Again, this year we planted all our squash plants without using mulch film.

For years we have laid mulch before then planting the squash plants through it, it helps keep the weeds at bay and increases the soil temperature.

But two years ago, the price of the mulch film rocketed, which was blamed on some war or the wind blowing the wrong way who knows, and the price never came down.

But it did us a huge favour and made us put our thinking caps on.

Weeding the crop would be the first headache.

Every single variety of vegetable in the field are planted on a seventy-two-inch-wide bed which is made by the bedformer, we then plant three rows of veg down the prepared bed with our planter.

This then means that I can go in with the weeding machines set up with the same spacings through every crop, followed by the bed weeder which I made for hand weeding, this has three beds over each row.

But the squash plants grow that big we can only fit one row in each bed, and they are staggered to give them more room to sprawl out when they grow.

So, the first job was to remake the roller which makes the holes for planting the squash plants. Quite an easy job, it is just two-inch metal box section cut and welded in place, they just had to be grinded of and re welded giving us slightly wider spacing and in a straight line.  

We still use fleece to get the crop started, squash plants hate the cold, and a couple of weeks ago we took the fleece of the squash plants, and I re adjusted the weeding machines so I could get through, and then just one person was needed in the middle bed for bed weeding and the crop looks great, we will be harvesting courgettes next week, not a lot to start, but that’s always the case.

 I said we still use fleece to get the crop started, but I had ran out of room in an area of the field that I had set aside for the squash plants but was left with more than half of the bon bon squash needing planted, my counting had gone wrong, so I planted two rows beside the leeks, but there was no room for fleece, so I thought we will try them out and see.

They started of pretty good and the crows never pulled them out, but that could be because we get the plants planted deeper because there is no mulch film, and they were far easier to weed.

The squash under the fleece have only been weeded once with the machine, just because it is a bit more work getting the fleece off, but the bon bon squash beside the leeks had no fleece so I have weeded them three times with the machine and they are looking very clean and the same size as the squash that was under the fleece.

I am glad we were priced out of buying and using mulch film, it was just the way you were supposed to plant squash if you couldn’t spray or use straw to keep the weeds at bay, it did biodegrade away by the next year but was a bit of extra work to get it down and didn’t feel right using it.

For next year I will try not using fleece for half the crop, making weeding far easier and quicker, but we will have fleece sitting ready to through right on if needed.