The rain is good (15mm over the last day), the chill (there’s a frost warning for tonight and tomorrow) and sticky clay-loam mud are not so good. But the calendar is flipping and there’s really no time to take shelter. Conall puts in plastic mulch for melons, anchoring it every few feet by scooping out soil, pushing down the plastic, and replacing the soil. We’ll cut X’s to transplant into, and water by hand around each plant as necessary. Labor-intensive, but it’s the most reasonable way to decent melons I’ve found so far, and it worked out well two years ago. After experimenting with straw mulch for tomatoes and melons last year, I’m back to using plastic for melons, and that’s it. Straw is great, but the extra work of spreading and then the fall clean-up seemed like stretching it for everything else that has to be done this year.
