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flowerbug

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I want to see the plaid compost!!! Please! Plaid compost! Is it Irish?

If you say this too loud, someone will tell you are doing it wrong and why it won't work. I *love* the internet.

And by *love*, I mean loathe.
And by internet, I mean the anonymity that lets trolls hide from standing behind their words.

I guess my only real concern is too much wet green stuff and it can turn slimy and smelly. Not that smelly means much to a pig owner. All things are relative...

The wood chips are matting. Pretty neat to see. Keeping most of the weeds down where it is packed, but the grass is now poking through and I'm plucking solitary sprigs of grass. It's gonna be a long summer.

rake the mulch back, put down some layers of cardboard, cover it back up with mulch. it's much quicker than weeding by hand. i've yet to see any grass survive two rounds of this. usually the first round does it.

i have a billion plantain seeds in a low area that love to sprout if given a chance. the cardboard trick works great there too. i don't have wood chips there on top but instead have large chunks of tree bark holding things down. if i weed it by hand it will take me many hours. to move the bark aside and refresh the cardboard layers takes about an hour or two at the most.
 

flowerbug

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Plantain is precious here. I encourage it almost anywhere I find it.

yes, cow salad, the rabbits tend to eat it out of the little we have left of the grassy/lawn areas. you'd think i weed that area, but i don't, they do it for me. in the surrounding gardens i leave the plantain alone if nothing else is growing there until it is big enough to harvest. i pull up the plant and leave the leaves on the ground and then i put the seed stalks and roots on top of that for the birds to peck at. i'm not actually sure they eat the seeds or not, but ... :) to me weeds are free worm food and gifts of energy and nutrients from the sun/earth. Mom laughs at me and doesn't like the weeds laying around but the gardens keep getting better soil so i must be doing something right...
 

Beekissed

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Seeded some trays on 3/31 and my pink Brandywine maters won the race to sprouting...noticed them bending out of the soil today. No heat mats this year as the wood stove is still in action right now and that's warmth enough in that room.

Hope I can keep them alive to planting out time.
 

RUNuts

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Unfortunately, the grass is coming to light between the sunflowers. Might layer cardboard over it. I was trying to figure how to do that, but I'm still waiting for the lettuce to sprout amongst the radishes. Walkways, no worries.

The parrots were sorting the compost from around the banana tree. Tried to kill another tomato plant too. I need a badminton racket for the birdies!

Good news! More peas sprouted!
 

ninnymary

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@Beekissed Got some really nice horse manure. Getting reading to put it on my beds. The wood chips that are there are still not very decomposted. I want to put the maure on top of that and then put more chips. Question, about how much manure should I add. Since the chips are there I'm thinking it won't burn anything.

Mary
 

Beekissed

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@Beekissed Got some really nice horse manure. Getting reading to put it on my beds. The wood chips that are there are still not very decomposted. I want to put the maure on top of that and then put more chips. Question, about how much manure should I add. Since the chips are there I'm thinking it won't burn anything.

Mary

I'd go with a good 2 in. application before adding the new chips. Can't hurt at those amounts, especially if you add an equal or more amounts of wood chip.

Lucky you having access to good horse manure. My sons are supposed to be bringing me some too that I can place in my hay bale raised beds but I'm getting antsy to get those filled up....need to get these onions out. I think they've grown all they are going to in these flats.
 
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