I don't use any hay, it's too full of seeds that turn into work. I just mound up the dirt, and then cover it with plastic. My neighbor does truck farming on a big scale, and he has a machine that installs the plastic bladder mulch. He never lets it run out of the plastic, so when the roll gets down to the end, he changes it, and gives me the remaining plastic. I install it by hand though.

I set the rows so I can use my tiller in between them to keep it pretty weed free, but after the vines get growing that process ends. I have to clean out the weeds near the plastic by hand. I'm pretty faithfull to that process until it gets late in the season, like now, and the weeds start to show up among the vines. Soon, I'll harvest what's left out there, and pull up everything and till it before winter sets in. It's supposed to freeze on Sat. so I'll most likely try to pick all the squash and pumpkins, along with a few watermelons that remain out there. I'll move the tarps to a different spot in the garden where I'll plant the tomatoes and peppers next year. I ususally rotate everything so I don't plant the same crop in the same space two years in a row.

Oh, I see. I misinterpreted your earlier post.

Do you ever have ground digging critters under your plastic or tarps? The one year I tried it I had a terrible time keeping soil around my plants' roots. I'd not notice it half the time...until it was pretty much too late.

I have some mice once in a while that will chew on some things, like the sweet potatoes. It's supposed to freeze tonight, so I spent the afternoon harvesting what I could. One more 5 gal. pail of tomatoes, a bunch of winter squash, watermelon, lots of peppers that I'll freeze tomorrow, and even a couple zukes yet. Cut down the corn stalks and made a corn shock. Put the pumpkins and some other things around it for a bit of Autumn bliss. Delivered some bags full of tomatoes, peppers, and sweet potatoes to a few friends and neighbors, so now I'm going to take a short nap before I go feed the horses.

Ah...that also sounds like bliss; both the harvest and the nap.

Can't believe I never saw this thread before -- what an excellent topic! I think my biggest mistake of all time was buying into the idea that I should be very careful about using fertilizer because I would just get leaves and no fruit (tomatoes, peppers, etc)... then I started being much more liberal with the fertilizer, on the recommendation of our conservation district guy, and have had pretty tremendous results.

My biggest mistake this year was to plant a lot of my onions inside my "hoop trellis" that I grew gourds on... they by far didn't receive enough sunlight and my onion harvest this year was quite pathetic! Oh well...

Live and learn, as they say.