With the weed issues I have here, there is absolutely no way I'm going to try a "no-dig" or "no-till" garden. I don't have the energy to deal with the ground ivy and morning glory that seems to pop up out of nowhere and spread everywhere
. Last year, my rototiller died (first year planting in this garden) so I did kind of do a "no-till" thing. After half killing myself trying to pull the morning glory out of the corn, and the pig weed, button weed, morning glory, ground ivy, maple seedling, and everything else out, I broke down and went back to my farming roots and used Roundup to kind of control almost everything. That was a pain in and of itself, having to shield good plants from the spray while making sure the weeds got a good dose. But it worked, and I had a fairly successful harvest of most things, especially the tomatoes. This year, new tiller, entire plot got worked up, and things are growing great!
Lettuce is in full production mode now. Salads almost daily, and I managed to give away 4 gallon bags full last week! Spinach is doing ok, got a gallon off the one row last week, a quart or so Memorial Day weekend. Sure tastes good.
Zucchini and cucumbers are blossoming, hoping to start seeing some "cukes and zukes" soon. Pumpkins are about to start blossoming, seeing a lot of male blossoms that just haven't opened yet.
Had to replant the corn. I don't know if it was bad seed, bad conditions, or what, but out of the entire patch I had maybe 15 plants come up on the first seeding. Replanted June 4th, corn is all up and probably 6-8" tall already.
Tomatoes are starting to blossom and set fruit. Thinking first one ripe will be Sun Sugar, although the cherry baby's are catching up quickly to the Sun Sugar.
We had a big thunderstorm here on the 7th. It rained 1.75", most of that in the first 20 minutes or so. It knocked a lot of the potato plants down, but they still seem to be growing ok. They just don't look as pretty all spread out all over the ground instead of standing up. It rained so much so fast that I had water standing all through the garden.
Biggest problem right now is fighting the maple seedlings. Some of my rows I only spaced 2' apart, and can't really get between them with the tiller. So it's all hand work, and after the rain the ground is pretty hard. So I've been pulling a lot of these stupid seedlings, a handful at a time, whenever I have time to work on it. Eventually I'll get them all.