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For some reason, it is always steamy and hot when it is time to mulch the winter squash. We finished planting all the varieties this week, but planting is the easy part. The field is a little over half an acre, and there are 21 rows of biodegradable plastic in that space. The plants are 18" apart in those rows.
After we finish planting, we have to cover all the plants using low metal hoops that hold up a long filmy blanket that keeps the bugs off the squash. The field is a billowing sea of white fabric, secured by hundreds of sandbags. And then we have to take that row cover off when we get the hay bales, and we move those bales into the field, take them apart and spread them thickly and evenly to keep the weeds from germinating.
Growing without pesticides and herbicides is an easy choice--but the work of keeping the bugs and weeds away is a Herculean effort. When we finally get all the mulch down and the covers back on, all we have to do is turn on the irrigation now and then, and the plants will grow luxuriously inside their squash tent, unattended.
