Operation "kill a bunch of grass and plant corn"

Disclaimer: I have been lazy with the pics lately. 

I have been using my cell phone camera mostly because I keep forgetting to grab my good camera. So the pics recently have not been edited in Photoshop like normal. =) 

I put this tarp down with mike's help about a month and a half, almost two months ago. 

This appears to be the perfect amount of time to kill everything under it. I never checked the progress so I am not sure if I could have pulled it earlier. The next time I do this I will check more frequently. 

At first I tried to rake the dead grass but that took to much time and energy. I decided to pull the weed-whacker out and make short work of the grass. 

Here is what it looked like after I weed-whacked it. I raked all the dead grass into a pile and put it back down as mulch after we planted everything.

This complex system consisted of two sticks and a piece of string. I used a tape measure and a drum stick to make the holes for the corn at the correct depth and spacing. We planted marigolds at the ends of each row to mark the rows. Dara planted butternut squash, spaghetti squash and two varieties of watermelon in between the rows. This allows us to grow more food in a smaller footprint while the squash and watermelon leaves will keep the weeds at bay. I will post more pics as the plants come up.