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[ninnymary]

Bee, I'm going to continue using the wood chips in my perenial bed and containers for asthetic reasons but definitely switching to the hay/straw on the veggies. I don't have weeds but like the increase of worms that the hay seems to produce. I just added chips earlier this year so hopefully by next year they will have decomposed some so that I can start using straw on those veggies.

Mary

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, I'm going to continue using the wood chips in my perenial bed and containers for asthetic reasons but definitely switching to the hay/straw on the veggies. I don't have weeds but like the increase of worms that the hay seems to produce. I just added chips earlier this year so hopefully by next year they will have decomposed some so that I can start using straw on those veggies.

Mary

You know how hard it was to dig a hole for seedlings without getting the wood chips mixed into the soil and all? That was always a problem but couldn't be avoided. Well, doesn't happen with the hay, so another benefit.

I was just out there telling my son about how glad I am that I won't be trying to find a source of chips, loading the chips, unloading and spreading the chips, etc. anymore. What a huge load off my mind and my body!

Hay is so easy to source here, for free or really, really cheap. Easy to load, doesn't get the truck bed all dirty, easy to store out of the weather if you want or just let it sit in or near the garden getting rotten if you don't. Easy to unload, easy to scatter, looks good too. Cleaner to use, doesn't get in my shoes like the wood chips did either.

 

[ninnymary]

I agree about it being hard to move it aside to plant without it getting mixed in with the soil. It's the same thing when I have to fertilize my roses.

Mary

 

[baymule]

My wood chip piles have rotted down to a dark crumble with larger chunks of wood chips in it. We are using cardboard this year to smother out the weeds. Millions of weeds. Maybe trillions. We are covering the cardboard with the wood chip mulch.

We weeded a 10x50 patch a few days ago, then cleaned out the sheep barn and spread the manure on this patch, followed by Azomite rock dust. Then DH covered it with cardboard today and dumped mulch on it with the tractor. I raked it out to cover the cardboard.

 

[flowerbug]

votes for Marigold!

one reason Mom loves the wood chips we get is that they load them right in the truck with their loader, so all she has to do is scrape them off the truck into a wheelbarrow and then wheel them to where we want them to go.

i don't really use them in veggie gardens, but i'm familiar with working around sticks or other materials like chunks of bark because i do mix some of them into the garden soil at times. i don't think it makes that much difference in how most veggies grow other than perhaps root crops if you want to avoid them being funny shapes. when it is all that i have for extra organic material that is what gets used. the fresh woodchips though, almost always are top dressing for perennial gardens. i try to keep the larger chunks of bark or flat pieces of wood scraps for edges or used on top of cardboard.

 

[henless]

Bee, I'm so happy your garden is working out better this year! I hope & pray you have continued success with the hay mulch. I know I always had tons of worms with my leaves/pine straw mulch.

My broody delima was a disaster. Momma took to the babies just fine. I kept her penned up in a separate area for two weeks, then gave them a few days to get used to coming in/out of the coop through the pop door. Well, I guess with the babies being out in the run, they attracted the attention of the area rat snakes. I don't blame anyone but myself. I never raise babies in the summer. I always get my biddies in Feb/March, that way by the time summer gets here, they are 2 months old or better. Lesson learned. Cold weather biddies only for me.

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, I'm so happy your garden is working out better this year! I hope & pray you have continued success with the hay mulch. I know I always had tons of worms with my leaves/pine straw mulch.

My broody delima was a disaster. Momma took to the babies just fine. I kept her penned up in a separate area for two weeks, then gave them a few days to get used to coming in/out of the coop through the pop door. Well, I guess with the babies being out in the run, they attracted the attention of the area rat snakes. I don't blame anyone but myself. I never raise babies in the summer. I always get my biddies in Feb/March, that way by the time summer gets here, they are 2 months old or better. Lesson learned. Cold weather biddies only for me.

That's a shame, Hen. I'm awful sorry about that. I've had that happen...two years ago I lost over 20 newly hatched biddies to black snakes. I'd check on a hatch and note 3-4 chicks out of the eggs, then go back and find those chicks had disappeared altogether. It was frustrating, to say the least.

I applied deer netting to all walls around nesting sites, as I've caught black snakes in deer netting a couple of times(they get wound into the squares and can't figure out how to get out, so just get intertwined even worse).

Then we cleared out any brush piles or lumber piles at the edge of the woods near the coop and my son killed one large black snake in our outbuilding. Haven't had black snake problems since then but I've noted we also don't have a return of our garter snakes, milk snakes or eastern brown snakes either, so I know those blacks are still lurking out there. So far the deer netting lining my maternity ward has kept them at bay, though I have a HUGE black snake skin shed off right behind that netting, behind the location of the nest boxes.

 

[Nyboy]

Bee, I'm so happy your garden is working out better this year! I hope & pray you have continued success with the hay mulch. I know I always had tons of worms with my leaves/pine straw mulch.

My broody delima was a disaster. Momma took to the babies just fine. I kept her penned up in a separate area for two weeks, then gave them a few days to get used to coming in/out of the coop through the pop door. Well, I guess with the babies being out in the run, they attracted the attention of the area rat snakes. I don't blame anyone but myself. I never raise babies in the summer. I always get my biddies in Feb/March, that way by the time summer gets here, they are 2 months old or better. Lesson learned. Cold weather biddies only for me.

Time for new snake skin boots and belt

 

[Nyboy]

From BYC for snake eating eggs not sure how Hume. Take egg make small hole blow out insides. Fill egg shell with salt cover hole with melted wax from candle put salt filled egg in nest with other eggs. Snake eats egg shell breaks inside snake snake dies of salt poisoning

 

[henless]

@Beekissed - TexasPrepper2 has a video up about how he uses the netting to catch snakes around his place. You're right, the snakes gall ALL wrapped up in it. I'll probably get me some next year for chick season. Better safe than sorry. Besides, they would be easier to find in the netting then hiding inside the coop. Those boogers are hard to find. DH worries about a venomous one getting in, so do I.

@Nyboy ~ Never heard of that one. I do have ceramic eggs in the nests, but I've never had a problem with egg eating snakes. Just the baby killers this year.

DH is trying to talk me into building a new coop.