weeds in the garden

This posted Thursday with no text.  I am not sure how that happened.  So here is some text to go with the pictures. 

This picture shows the weed free area of the garden.  Early in the season, I planted and laid down newspaper and topped it with grass clippings.  It worked well last year.  The problem this year was that if I want grass clippings, I had to be out and ready for them when hubby mows.  If I wasn't, I didn't get clippings.  Now, we are out of grass clippings.  We haven't mowed in weeks since we haven't had any rain.

So, the front part of the garden looked like this.  Weedy and embarrassing. Seriously, you can't tell what is weeds and what is tomatoes. 

So, I broke down and spent a few hours on two separate days fixing it back up.  I went to the recycling center and grabbed a big stack of newspaper.  I laid several layers down all around the garden.  I kept the hose out and sprayed them wet as I went to keep them from blowing away.  It looked like I was paper mache'-ing the garden.

Then I laid down a nice layer of straw.  I have heard some garden bloggers saying that straw is expensive where I they live.  I pay $3.50 a bale.  I think that's a fine price.  I have to transport it, but they will load it for me. I can fit two in my car at a time.

After several hours and a nice watering, it looks like a garden again. 

A happy garden = happy zucchinis.  Can they be happy if they get grilled and eaten?  A happy garden = my happy tummy.