On Mon, 24 May 2004 22:10:44 -0400, "Ray Drouillard"
wrote:


"The Watcher" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 22 May 2004 23:36:22 -0400, "Ray Drouillard"

wrote:

We are planting a garden on the land that we just bought. The soil
is a
really sandy loam where we are putting the garden (it's a whole lot
more
sandy than loam on most of the rest of the property).

We need some heavy mulch to make this work.

We have five or six acres of planted red pine forest.

If we rake up a bunch of needles and use them to mulch the garden,
will
that cause any problems?

One thing to remember is that pine needles are very flammable, so make
sure you
keep them moist. I like using them as mulch, since they are nice and
durable,
but they do burn fast and hot if they dry out. You might want to keep
them away
from buildings, too, in case they do catch fire.

That might be tough. The majority of my property is covered with the
stuff -- and the trees that generate it.

They're not that big a problem, as long as you keep them moist(at least the
bottom layers). I like to run them through a shredder and they make pretty good
mulch. It seems to take a bit longer than a lot of other organic materials to
break down, but the flip side of that is that it also helps protect the soil
surface longer that way too.