Making Our Own Mulch. Global Warming & Hotter Weather using too much water!

With the weather being much hotter here now we have had to use a lot of shade cloth & mulch. Purchasing mulch is expensive these days, the reason for that can probably be blamed on Global Warming too! So we decided to make our own mulch, we have been cutting the reeds down at Cattail Pond whilst the water level is low (!), & carting it up to the gardens to use as mulch. Some we use as is where we can, the rest we run through or mulcher. It works well & makes great mulch.

Food Supplies. Tomatoes, Picking & Preserving.

We have started harvesting our tomato crop & preserving them. We may dry some like last year, but for now we are bottling them.

We always put stakes in for our tomato plants, but sometimes they get away from us! One day they don't seem large enough to tie, & the next time we check they have gone beyond tying! I am never game to try tying them once they have got to a certain size, because invariably the stems break.

Then there are the volunteers from last years crop, we could pull them out, but we never do. We can always use more tomatoes. These volunteers grow madly all over the garden & the paths until the paths are impassable! Stakes do make the picking easier, but I find it no great hardship to pick from the sprawling plants on the ground.

12 jars so far, this is the product of 4 baskets as at the top of this page, & we still have a lot to pick, & the crop is still ripening.