The battle of weeds

I worked on cleaning more of the straw/hay out of the red barn and grinding/vacuuming it up for mulch.  The goal was to get the weeds under control in my gardens since I didn't use black plastic row covers this year.  The big garden with the corn, beans, and tomatoes was the first target since those crops are my biggest concern this year.

OMG, it was hot and DIRTY work, but the cyclone-rake and mower combo really helped "clean" the really really disgusting and moldy and dirty old straw/hay.  I wore my respirator doing this as the dust was prolific and some very fine (and full of mold spores and god knows what).  This was a real respirator - not a simple white paper filter mask.  It was a pain to wear - especially in that heat, but I remember that dad did this task last year without a mask and he got farmers pneumonia!  

I should have done before and after pics - but it was too painful to show the before! Anyway, after lots of hot and miserable work here is the big patch:

Some of the tomatoes are blooming!

You can actually see the plants now!

There are some eggplants in there - but they are being eaten by flea beetles!  I need to sevin the garden!

I used a lot of the hay from the barn, which I am happy about - having it there attracts varmints which attract snakes!  I got all of the fire wood off the floor and separated it from the straw. I piled all of the fire wood up near the "lake" and burned it - it burned all night!  I ran the straw through the mower-cyclone-rake combo and it made a good amount of mulch.  I used a lot of the intact bales as well for mulching.  I think there may be 6 or so left - I hope to cover all of the front garden (except maybe for the potatoes - I think i might use wood mulch on them for convenience of application and maybe it would help to grow more potatoes!

I hope the weather permits me to do more mulching next weekend.  Seems like its very rainy this year so far.  

Here are some pics of what the inside of the red-barn looks like now - its starting to look under control!

No more loose firewood and straw on the floor!

Running low on straw!  Maybe 6 bales left.

A little bit of free straw left yet.  Look how much light comes through the far wall!  That side was for hay storage so they made it more porous to help ventilate and dry the hay.  I am debating with myself whether to cover the outside with metal siding or placing wood slates over the open spaces like they used to in the old days.