George Shirley wrote:
songbird wrote:
George Shirley wrote:
...
Hoping this fall that we will be able to take all the homemade "dirt" in
the raised beds and mix in a lot more composted cow manure plus all the
stuff from the composter. I intend to rent a small cement mixer and use
that to mix up all the goodies and then back into the beds. Beats trying
to rock a tarp back and forth with our old arms and shoulders to get a
good mix. Need to add another bale of peat moss too.

just put it down on top and it will get mixed in
when you plant new things in and if your worms are
working...
No worms here, in five years I've found two worms and I suspect they
came in pots dear wife had bought. Remember, we have two inches of sand
on top of several feet of gumbo clay.

earthworms will live in clay, it's the composting
worms (red wrigglers and others) that might not do
well with the heat.


i think many people are really wrapped up in
gadgets and techniques more than common sense.
for some reason they forget that nature has
figured out how to rot and reuse stuff that
just falls on the surface as is.

Years ago we had good dirt on the old home place and lots of earth worms
and good bacteria. I have four generations of "gadgets" and other tools
that have been passed down to me. One of my great granddads was a
blacksmith and his tools were made by him, including the wood drills,
etc. I oil them once a year and put them back into the home made tool
box from more than a hundred years ago. All of those go to my middle
grandson when I'm gone.

and i bet none of them were made of plastic?

another reason why our current society is
more full of trash. a lot of plastics just
crumble too easily when they age.


if you're worried about bugs and smells it
does help to bury some things under several
inches of soil to keep the flies off and to
make it available to the worms.

We both grew up in the country with critters of all sorts and all the
manure went into the compost heap and got turned frequently. On this
6500 square feet of property with driveway, sidewalks, and a 1960 square
foot house we barely can grown anything. At least all the fence line is
growing something pretty or edible and we have three fruit trees. Every
other house has a live oak in the front yard. Our front yard tree is a
pear. G

we have one fence that is being held down by
wild grapes. it's a major project but i sure
would like to get those out of there. the grape
vines shade out the grasses and those grasses
hold the soil in place along that ditch. when
the water runs hard it is going to move over to
scour the bare soil (easiest path) instead of
through the area that has grass growing in the
center. it'll be a messy job too if i get in
there and move some of that grass back from the
center to along the sides again. none of it
makes sense if i can't get the shading shrubs
and vines removed and keep them out of there.
the trees i've kept after so they've not had a
chance to get too big that i have no way to
remove them. one of them i took down with a
hammer and chisel.


i turn my worm buckets out into the gardens
once a year. otherwise i only disturb the soil
in them to put new things in that need to be
buried. in rotation through the buckets it means
i may do something once or twice a month in
each bucket (depending upon how many food scraps
we have).

keep it simple.

I tried growing worms a couple of years ago, they all died, probably due
to the heat here.

likely if they got much over 90F and/or didn't
have enough water.

i have had the buckets in here do ok with some
spells of 90+F and not running the AC, but i do
make sure they have plenty of water in them.


Looks like we're going to get more rain in dribbles but it's still free
garden water.

i hope we get some this evening or tomorrow. the
forecast has been calling for some rains, but as usual
many storms go either south or north of us.


songbird