How does our garden go - Part Two

Part 2 brings us to the months of May and June and a great speed up in outdoor activities. Please excuse the house - you can tell that Martha Stewart doesn't live here. Most days are spent outside, from can see to can't see.

May - May 1st, I do the final sowing of transplants, with the heirloom or open pollinated melons and squash (thanks to a suggestion by Canada Mike) replacing the now emerged beans.
Also during the first week, the final push to finish adding the amendments and turning the soil is finally done, using a garden fork. (We have about 1000 X 3 feet of raised bed, which equals about 3000 square feet of turning to do. Who needs to go to the gym? We also try to cut the grass during this week, as it provides the first layer of mulch (with all the shredded leaves from last year) on the beds, and it is now growing at that "first flush of green" rate.
Once the beds are turned and the lawn has been mowed, (we are hands on gardeners), Grunt sets up the bean poles and pegs down their strings, runs the side lines for the tomato arms, and generally prepares to start transplanting the tomatoes, and peppers. Since May 4th is our supposedly last frost date, we also sow the beets, carrots, onions, potatoes and other direct seeded vegetables at this time. (If we find the time they can also be planted the last week of April.)
Starting May 15, weather permitting, comes the push to do the transplanting. Grunt takes care of the tomatoes and beans and I (Grungy) commence on the Cape Gooseberry, corn, melons, squash, and peppers in that order. Should we have a nice spring we can generally be done with the transplanting by the end of May, although some years find us finishing it in late June.
Did I mention mowing - every week to 10 days the grass has to be mowed and as soon as I finish my share of the transplanting, I start mulching all the beds. It helps hold in the moisture, provides nutrients as it breaks down and slows or eliminates the need for weeding. Did I mention I HATE weeding?
We grow mostly Open Pollinated (O/P) and Heirloom vegetables. It would be totally this way, except I have yet to find a good winter storage onion, that will come close to "Copra". Anyone have suggestions?

June find us finishing the planting and tranplanting schedule, finishing with the onions. We plant them in a thick line and then when they are about 6-8 inches tall, we thin the first line and transplant the spares into 5 more rows, planting them roughly 4 to 5 inches apart both ways.
Mowing and mulching are in full swing now as we are on agricultural irrigation water and everything is watered at least once a week including the lawns. The garden beds themselves, depending on the weather and the plant uptakes can vary from 1 week down to every other day, for about 2 hours. The lawns receive an eight hour soaking if the weather has been dry. All of our irrigation is done with drip lines, including the lawns. It cuts down on water loss, and most of the plants prefer to have the water applied to their roots (this is especially true of tomatoes).
While we are mulching, we also are weeding. Our worst offenders around here are dandelions, creeping charlie, quack or couchgrass and knapweed, with wild chicory and chickweed thrown in for good measure.
By the end of the month, the tomatoes have taken off, and Grunt finds he is filling his days by tucking in branches that pop out of his side lines. We rarely prune our tomatoes, as we want to see what nature will provide as intended, and we aren't into producing the biggest tomato for the fall fair. (And pruning 300+ plants would just add too much to the workload.) Between mowing and mulching and weeding, and greeting guests, I find my days getting quickly filled, and when our heads hit the pillow at night, we know that we have been doing something. Oh the feel and smell of fresh turned earth!