Well, it finally warmed up enough and stopped raining long enough to get the winter squash plants set out. This year we started them inside in soil blocks because the weather has been so cold. In a warmer year we would have just direct seeded them.
As you can see in the picture we put the plants through holes in a large piece of black plastic. This suppresses weeds so we can plant in an area that has a lot of quack grass or other difficult to eradicate weeds and not keep that part of the garden out of production. At the same time, the black plastic warms up the soil which helps these warmth loving plants thrive. The few weeds that come through the holes can easily be pulled out and eventually the squash plants crowd out anything else. We can reuse the piece of plastic for three or four years.
We have also started our melons inside in soil blocks this year the same way and will put them out on their piece of plastic on Sunday. They weren't quite ready today.
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