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Showing posts with label mulching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mulching. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Plop, splat, plop…plop….splat

That was the sound of our wet clothes as they hit the laundry room floor at 9:30 Tuesday evening.  

It’s been so blasted hot we’re outside early morning and again after supper till dark.

Monday night we lost light at 9:30 along with all our energy…..it was still 85 degrees with 65% humidity. My hair was so wet I looked like I’d just stepped out of the shower. 

Last night wasn’t much different other than it was still 88 at 11 pm UGH!  But, It’s so worth it as Mr.Fixit is totally on board now with composting.

Don’t get me wrong, he was before but didn’t understand the amount we really needed for the garden. We do have a compost bin…but it is 1 bin & we keep adding to it….so its never done. I’ve tried shifting some to the side but it ends up mixed back in.

  So far this summer I’ve bought 4 yards of compost and could use 4 more .  1yard = a front end loader scoop.  Granted 1 yard was only $5.00 but, it was the time/gas/quality and yes money I had a problem with when, with better resource management we could do it ourselves.  So, after much discussion, I’m getting 3 large compost bins.  At the shop he receives shipments weekly on pallets & will be bringing them home to reuse.  I’m hoping we have enough to get 1-2 built this coming week and will add other sections as he receives more pallets. 

The other change is to put the plans for a pool on hold till next year.

Our pool became Fred and Ethel. 

Yes, that’s right I named them

A friend of ours retired & moved from a large land holding into a smaller home in town.  He sold us Fred and Ethel for less than 1/3 the cost of a new mower and trailer. Its half the size of the tractor and cuts the same width making it much easier for me to use.  Less than 3 years old and has just over 100 hours on the motor….to good of a deal to pass up!

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Mr. Fix-It on Fred….

.Ethel was off to the side half loaded with grass clippings

With over 5 acres there is a LOT of grass to mow.  A lot of grass to mow = a wonderful base for compost~! Monday evening he mowed the 2 acres in front of the house blowing the clippings in deep rake easy rows.  When I finished yesterday afternoon (with help from my SIL Jessie and the kids), I ended up with 8 (1 yard) trailer loads of clippings!  That’s not counting all the clippings I used to mulch the pathways in the garden (1-2 more loads)    Talk about a work out LOL! 

We’ve plenty of carbon to blend in with the grass clippings & intend to do this again 2-3 more times this summer.  A neighbor on the other end of the field has horses and cattle and are more than happy to let me fill a few buckets of manure to mix in the piles. WOOT! So excited I was doing a happy dance.

10 years ago If you told me I’d be dancing over compost I would have asked what time you were due for your meds!

The garden is going crazy, beans are nearly ready, squash and pumpkin are growing like gang busters…updates later I think I’ve rambled enough for now

Ah, I’m a happy girl!

Katie

Monday, June 25, 2012

In the garden, fighting the weed war!

The green beans are coming along beautifully.  I didn’t put as many in this season as I have in years past.  We still have plenty put up down stairs but, I like to can in 2 yr. cycles.  In other words, every other year I can enough for 2 years in case there is a tough growing season…we still have enough to get us through.

While I was in Calif with my son this spring, Mr. Fix-it added a few front loader scoops to the garden to help level it out.  Drainage and watering is much more effective.  But the added dirt also means new soil that hasn’t been “de weeded”  To help slow/smother the weeds growth (cause admit I’m a lazy gardener)  I covered the pathways with sheets of cardboard and then layered cut drying grass on top of the cardboard.  The same thing could be done using 3-4 sheets of newspaper.  It’s a bit of a win win as the cardboard/or newspaper will breakdown and easily till into the garden in the fall.  Cardboard layered with grass takes about 3 months and news paper 1-2 to breakdown and is an effective weed barrier

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Pathways mulched with cardboard covered with cut grass

If you choose to mulch your pathways in this manner, it’s important to use untreated grass clippings. We cut our field as a lawn at least once a week so I rarely have clippings to “harvest” luckily our neighbor bush-hogs his field only 1-2 times a month and provides plenty to rake up. 

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This photo shows about 1/3rd of what he mows.  His field starts just past the shade of the tree & you can see a fresh cut line of sorts.

This morning he’s mowing for the first time in 3 weeks WOOHOO The mother load! 

I’ve found it works best if I let it set a day on the ground before raking.

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As you can see in the far left of the photo, my onions are over run with weeds.  The new soil added is denser and apparently loaded with weeds.  It’s so dry when I try and pull the weeds I’m pulling onions.  I’ve been trying to pull 1-2 around each plant and let it be for a day or so, then go back for more.   I probably should have mulched here first but I wanted the areas that are weed free now to stay that way & will work my way over to the onions mulching.

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Squash, cukes and pumpkins are all coming along in flower and looking good. 

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The weeds in the tomato’s and peppers are out of control!

I need to tie up the tomato’s today & prune a bunch of suckers.

Time to get off here and get busy…what are your plans for the day?

Katie

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