One Person, Garden Compost

[ducks4you]

Even HERE I didn't dare burn last week. Winds 20mph and above and until yesterday, it was very dry.
Today, after a good soaking rain, I finally can burn the contents of my burn barrel, and start a new pile of weeds.
Guess that @digitS' might be using more cardboard in between the garden beds!

 

[digitS']

using more cardboard in between the garden beds!

No. My use in the home garden with big pieces of cardboard boxes didn't work well. Doubling them may have been a mistake. The top layer especially, never laid out flat!

It was hard for me to believe. Every time I ran the water out there I'm thinking, "Okay, that wet cardboard will lay out flat and stay that way!" Didn't happen.

Curling edges are a little difficult to walk thru. Pulling it up finally, I found lots of slugs. They had been a problem in the veggies.

I could have commented in @TEG Project Manager 's thread on mulches. No. Mulching paths sent quackgrass and bindweed off horizontally to grow in the beds. Mulching beds, makes a home for voles.

I have stone mulch, naturally, from rocky ground. Run the sprinkler twice and the soil is all washed off their top surface .

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

Soil and climate could have a lot to do with it. Nobody seems to believe me but Illinois is really a reclaimed swamp. Lakeshore of Chicago couldn't be built upon until they engineers sunk down pileons. (sp?)
ALL the farms that surround me are tiled to pull away groundwater.
Where I live everything buried LOVES to rot, so maybe cardboard works here bc it isn't a dry environment.
I imagine gardening solutions for a Meditterian climates might work for you.

 

[heirloomgal]

I've tried adding ash to my garden before. Usually wood as from our BBQ or some burned cardboard. At this point, I have no idea if it has added anything significant.

I have considered setting a bed on fire towards mid-July when it would be the driest, but that would make me extremely nervous.

I think the thing with ashes is, it isn't really effective simply mixed it in with the soil, but specific thicker applications, say over a line of planted seeds. Or applied in layer form to a sprouted onion bed. Somewhat like how diatomaceous powder is applied specifically, not generally.

Mulches. For as many reasons as I love them, I have an equivalent amount of reasons why I don't. And the don't like qualities continue to add up . Voles being #1.

 

[flowerbug]

Soil and climate could have a lot to do with it. Nobody seems to believe me but Illinois is really a reclaimed swamp. Lakeshore of Chicago couldn't be built upon until they engineers sunk down pileons. (sp?)
ALL the farms that surround me are tiled to pull away groundwater.
Where I live everything buried LOVES to rot, so maybe cardboard works here bc it isn't a dry environment.
I imagine gardening solutions for a Meditterian climates might work for you.

the problem with tiling is that it also removes nutrients along with the water and then if you later on have a really prolonged dry spell and are using a shallow well, well... *poof* no water...

 

[ducks4you]

LOTS of problems with current farming practices. We could have a long discussion.
In the "suburbs" of Champaign/Urbana/Savoy/Decatur/Springfield/Danville, which are the medium sized cities in the center of Illinois, new business districts dig ponds to siphon off rainwater. They are magnets for Canadian Geese and local ducks AND turtles.

 

[ducks4you]

LOTS of problems with current farming practices. We could have a long discussion.
In the "suburbs" of Champaign/Urbana/Savoy/Decatur/Springfield/Danville, which are the medium sized cities in the center of Illinois, new business districts dig ponds to siphon off rainwater. They are magnets for Canadian Geese and local ducks AND turtles.

 

[Jane23]

So the wild horses visited my property again.

We plan to put up a better fence but it is low down on our list of things to do.

I will be going around where our propane tank is and collect their leavings, as there will probably be 6 or 7 piles to clean up and add to the garden.

Yes, it is nice for the garden, but it does get seriously old to do this.

I will need to do it on Wednesday, as I work today, if it is not snowing.

 

[flowerbug]

i've gone around and picked up rabbit and deer pellets out of the gravel mulched areas. one or two pellets at a time. so i think i'd much prefer a horse apple instead.

 

[Jane23]

i've gone around and picked up rabbit and deer pellets out of the gravel mulched areas. one or two pellets at a time. so i think i'd much prefer a horse apple instead.

I have a really large raised garden bed as my beans all disappeared last year when a rabbit got to them. I don't plant beans in that bed anymore. Around 20 rabbits are living around me right now. They would be all over my garden if it weren't so high.

I think they are funny. They like to sit in the bucket of my husband's 977k. Its like they are waiting for ride.

I don't mind them, and they can poop where they will. The horses get old as it rips up my property. Montana is a fence-out state, so people just let their horses wander. This can be very dangerous in the dark, and I have almost hit them before.