Originally Posted by jeff

David Hare-Scott wrote:
jeff wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:
jeff wrote:
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All cucurbits struggle in the heat not just cucumbers. The reason is
that they have big soft leaves that lose water quickly due to both
evaporation and transpiration. On a well grown plant the root system
can be huge

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OK, I have a couple bags of cyprus mulch. How much should I put down?
An inch or two? The soil is reasonably good.

I don't know anything about cypress but normally put down 2 in of fairly
compact mulch or more if it is likely to compact down quickly.

OK, I mulched with cypress which is shredded cypress, fairly light in color.

It's noon on a sunny hot day, it'll get hotter. Temperature
measurements with my IR thermometer are yielding between 10F and 20F
*cooler* with the cypress mulch. I'm thinking this by itself is very
good! Cool.

The very darkest (near black) soil is almost 30F hotter.

Jeff



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