I ripped up the melons, the squash and the pumpkins. I left behind a few volunteer squash that look healthy enough. All had been damaged by squash borers and were just havens for squash bugs to lay eggs upon.
I also cleared out all the old pea vines and cut off the overgrown chives. Tied up some flowers~don't EVER plant bachelor's button flowers in the garden, they simply cannot stand up, lopping over and taking all the other flowers with them in a wet tangle of mess!
I'm glad I took the pumpkins, as they were eaten out at the base by the squash borers and they just came up in my hand as easy as can be...rotten to the core. I'll replant them all and hope for the best, as they were all pretty damaged. All the radishes I had planted in those hills were all extremely bug damaged also...worse I've ever seen...and they didn't seem to do anything to stave off the pest bugs like everyone says, so I'll not replant those.
Didn't remove the cukes...Mom says let them be and see how they go. I'm for taking out half of them and replanting, so I may still do that...just remove the smallest, scabbiest plants and let the bigger ones be.
Opened up that tunnel and removed everything but the broccoli....got a heaping wheelbarrow full of lettuce and pak choy that had gone to seed and the slugs had rendered rotten at the bases. Will remove that landscaping fabric this week, letting that area of the garden dry out and will redo that tunnel in another area. I left the broccoli in place, just in case it wants to form some heads and I put down some slug bait on that area.
I didn't place those greens in the coop, as I was afraid the slugs would just thrive up there and procreate into the compost. I took them over next to the woods and dumped them, where the dogs have been eating on them ever since. They LOVE lettuce and eat it with gusto every chance they get.
When next I do a tunnel, it will be on frames so I can easily check it, plant it, harvest it, etc. This tunnel fabric with a million pins is for the birds!