... galinsoga vanquished, or so it would seem.

The green manure cover crop, planted as soon as frost was out of the ground, had grown thickly to almost waist hight when it was laboriously mowed and the resulting mat trod into the soil. While it was growing (peas, oats, vetch), nothing could compete, was over grown and shaded out. After mowing, the heavy mulch acted as a landscape fabric.

At planting time I scratched shallow grooves through the mat to accept the seeds of beet and squash. Now, both crops are prospering. (The green stuff along the edges in the photo is creeping charlie, creeping in—but it will be easy to discourage.) Pickled beets could be on the horizon this fall.

On another note, a report from Pinebox indicates there has been an outbreak of the “friendly fly,” a fly that looks like a house fly, but much bigger. It’s friendly for two reasons—it doesn’t bite humans and it controls the obnoxious forest tent caterpillar, which denuded the forest last year. “In early summer it emerges from the ground and seeks out forest tent caterpillar cocoons, where it deposits live larvae which bore into the cocoons and feed on the pupating insects.” (Evolution in action) Last year’s caterpillars, followed by this year’s flies—and eventually the wild outbursts will subside, for about a decade.