In article ,
George Shirley wrote:

I grew up in the piney woods of SE Texas, takes many moons to actually
acidify soil that way. It is a cheap way though if you're patient.

If you are less patient, see if you can find baled "pine straw." I have
some reservations about the fact that folks seem to be happy to strip
their forests of organic material to sell it, but given that they do, it
would help your (T's) yard a little faster than not. And of course, try
to get as many leaves as possible in leaf season, when folks are
throwing them away...spoiled hay is likewise highly useful (unspoiled
hay is also useful, but much more expensive.) Even shredded paper helps,
though it ties up nitrogen while it decomposes.

Creeping buttercup is currently my least-favorite weed; it will find the
surface from being buried 6" down and mulched over. I now aim for
partially dry and (sealed, anerobic) compost on that stuff.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.

On 4/21/2016 9:03 PM, Ecnerwal wrote:
In article ,
George Shirley wrote:

I grew up in the piney woods of SE Texas, takes many moons to actually
acidify soil that way. It is a cheap way though if you're patient.

If you are less patient, see if you can find baled "pine straw." I have
some reservations about the fact that folks seem to be happy to strip
their forests of organic material to sell it, but given that they do, it
would help your (T's) yard a little faster than not. And of course, try
to get as many leaves as possible in leaf season, when folks are
throwing them away...spoiled hay is likewise highly useful (unspoiled
hay is also useful, but much more expensive.) Even shredded paper helps,
though it ties up nitrogen while it decomposes.

Creeping buttercup is currently my least-favorite weed; it will find the
surface from being buried 6" down and mulched over. I now aim for
partially dry and (sealed, anerobic) compost on that stuff.

I wish we had something other than live oaks in this subdivision. We
have a young pear and a young fig that drop leaves but that's about a
quarter bushel of useful leaves. The kumquat tree seldom sheds leaves
and the pine woods behind us have been decimated for more houses. Off
hand we have something between 3 and 5 thousand new homes going in
within a square mile or so.

I am going to drive around the nearby subdivision that has oak and other
leaf shedding trees this fall. I don't think those folks would mind if I
stole their bags of leafs from the curb. Might have to slide around
right after they have all gone to work. Being retired helps with that. G

We have a barrel composter, no compost heaps in this subdivision, it is
banned. Shredded paper of any kind takes a long time to compost that
way. I help it along with a bit of water each time I open the barrel and
have recently started soaking the scrap news and other papers. Will see
if shredded cardboard rots quickly when it has been through the
shredder. Looks like a good spot of "brown" stuff for the composter. I
put the egg shells through an old food processor and turn the shells
into very small bits, seems to compost much quicker that way and adds a
goodly amount of calcium to the mix. Also saves those items from the
recycling bin. Our trash output is very small, maybe three lbs worth on
a busy week. We can most of our own food at home so not many cans and
cartons to recycle.

I miss our huge cherry bark oak from our place in Louisiana. Seemed to
drop about a ton of leaves each year that went directly into the
gardens. Thing was a little over nine feet in diameter at three feet
about grade. I even forgave the tree for dropping a six inch diameter
limb through our roof during a hurricane. G

George

Ecnerwal wrote:
....
Creeping buttercup is currently my least-favorite weed; it will find the
surface from being buried 6" down and mulched over. I now aim for
partially dry and (sealed, anerobic) compost on that stuff.

if you're willing to use shredded paper then plain cardboard
or cardboard with some black ink on it is very good for
smothering hard to get rid of weeds. a few layers overlapped
so that water can get through will work just fine. then put
your mulch on top. by the time the cardboard gets broken
down by worms/pill bugs/fungi, etc. the weeds have usually
run out of energy. i use this method on most of the spots that
turn out to be a lot of trouble and i don't want to disturb
them by digging up the entire area. much less work than digging
and pulling weeds out too. especially considering you can
usually get cardboard for free from almost any store.

i used this method last year along a fence that was being
taken over by pennyroyal and also a low area that was collecting
weed seeds that i wanted to cover. spent about 5 minutes the
rest of the season getting a few stragglers along an edge. in
the low spot eventually the bark pieces and stuff i put in
there will be good humus to scrape up and use someplace else
and i can put down another round for the worms to work on.


songbird