MAN! i cannot believe my luck!
for 9months i've been trying to figure out a way to get
my hands on exactly what you've got!!

You have a gold mine.!! When the farmer drops it off...make it look
like your doing him a favor so he won't catch on. well o.k. maybe
i'm getting a little greedy here. ( Thank him profusely & send them pies
once a month)

Try to get the book by "Ruth Stout" title: No Work Garden Book
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books
it was on Amazon.com for $3.00
but you could also get it thru interlibrary loan. RuthStout will tell you
how to do this,
and you will have TTTHHHEEE best garden in the state!!!!!!!
Man i can't believe how lucky you are!
I'd kill to have it.

p.s. just to be really , really, nice to the soil; go to this web site:
www.dirtdoctor.com
under "information" then maybe "basic program"?
and add the amendments he recommends.
keep in contact with me i'd love to hear how it works out in time.
also, take pictures of before & then after.

wow!, oh, and also send me some radishes!
warmest,
jfrost


"William Orth" wrote in message
om...
My smaller secondary garden (maybe 30' x 50')has abysmal soil. I've
been planting winter rye in it for the past three years, but the
improvement has been minimal.

I recently received about 75 bales of rotten grass hay from a local
farmer. A portion of this has already been spread on the garden and
will be disced in this week. However, this farmer has other rotten hay
to get rid of, and he proposed an idea to me.

He suggested we line up 5-6 round bales (the BIG ones) of grass hay
and basically unroll them onto the garden. The idea would be to plant
veggies in between these strips, using the hay as a kind of 2-3 year
mulch layer.

I've thought this through and can't identify any obvious drawbacks,
outside of the fact that I won't be able to plow or disc this area for
a couple of years--at least until the heavy strips really begin to
rot.

Am I overlooking any obvious drawbacks? The hay is relatively free of
weeds.