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Old 07-10-2019, 02:54 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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On 10/6/19 8:29 AM, songbird wrote:
if you can find some plain cardboard (usually places will
give it away for free) or newspapers you can put that down
first and then top with your mulch and that will do a great
job of smothering weeds for a while.


I tried that on some little trees I am truing to get rid
of. First I cut them back to the ground. Then I placed
a big old piece of cardboard on top of them with a big
old rock to keep it in place. The SOB's just grew out
around the cardboard. These were 2' x 2' pieces
of cardboard!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Next attempt, I am going to try to girdling the branches.

I really, really, really do not want to use round up on them.

Oh and they are completely immune to cussing at them!


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Old 07-10-2019, 02:59 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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On 10/6/19 7:34 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 4 Oct 2019 22:43:36 -0700, T wrote:

Hi All,

I just watched a video:

Watch This BEFORE Buying Garden Soil for Vegetable Patch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU-76AnBEao

He makes the point that you have to add organic material
even to the best imported soil. He makes his point at
9:00 on the video.

What is the best way to get this kind of stuff into
my ground pots? Can I buy a bag of this stuff on
Amazon? What is it called?

-T

The stuff he had was from down under.


When buying compost or manure, make sure you know where it originates.
https://www.sonomacountygazette.com/...p-aminopyralid

Ross.


Ya. I have heard the bad stuff can ruin your garden!

I will make sure and get something that has been hot
composted.

Seems to me that scat would be so full of grass seeds
that hot composting would be the only safe way.

I have tried burying table scraps, but it does not
depose. Seriously.

What Happens When You Bury Kitchen Scraps in the Garden?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQFB9M2UdK0

Did exactly as he said.

Could not figure out what those balls rolling around my
garden were. Then I realized it was avocado pits from
two years ago that worked their was out of the soil.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

No wonder I have no worms!!!!

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Old 07-10-2019, 03:01 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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T wrote:
....smothering...
I tried that on some little trees I am truing to get rid
of. First I cut them back to the ground. Then I placed
a big old piece of cardboard on top of them with a big
old rock to keep it in place. The SOB's just grew out
around the cardboard. These were 2' x 2' pieces
of cardboard!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


little trees coming back from seeds or coming up
from roots or what? is it a bush? do you know what
it is?

cardboard is cheap enough and it can always be
put down in bigger pieces and a few layers and
overlap the seams so light doesn't get through.

one thing nice about it though is that it is
also an organic material which will eventually
end up as worm/plant food. in your rocky soil
you might have a hard time burying what bits of
it are left, but to keep them from blowing away
....

in one low spot here what i did was cover the
cardboard with chunks of bark that a friend gave
me from his firewood splitting. so it just looked
like a layer of bark being used as a mulch. after
the 2nd season i had to refresh the cardboard so
i did that, but that gave me four years of weed
free coverage for an area that was otherwise always
a lot of work to keep after all the weeds that
would sprout there. as a low spot any seeds from
the surrounding areas would get washed into there
or blown there.

recently we came into 550 engineering bricks so
we've covered the entire low area there with
landscape weed barrier and then put the bricks
down so i won't have to redo the cardboard any
more and we have a brick path from and to nowhere
but it is a good temporary spot to store and use
the bricks until we decide to do something else
with them.


Next attempt, I am going to try to girdling the branches.


if you're going through all that just cut them
off with some loppers. they work really well and
are not that expensive. i have a pair that i can
use to chop off branches up to three inches thick
and they don't need any electric power or anything
do use them, just a little muscle power. i
use them to keep any sprouting trees out of the
north hedge and to trim branches or to cut up
brush into smaller pieces. very handy. i use
them quite often as we have a lot of honeysuckle
bushes that can use trimming.


I really, really, really do not want to use round up on them.

Oh and they are completely immune to cussing at them!


what you could be doing with them is letting
them grow and then cut them off and using that
organic matter as a top mulch to hold in moisture.
eventually they well break down and turn into
humus (in an arid climate that's going to take a
lot longer than here so you should get a few years
out of them).

around here pieces of wood laying on the ground
last several years. where they are weeds aren't -
ok, well weeds will grow around or through them in
places. i still like them left as larger pieces
instead of going through the effort of chipping
them (some people buy wood chippers to deal with
brush and leaves, but i want the organic materials
here to last as long as possible so i never have
chipped anything and don't want the added expense
and maintenance of yet another machine to deal
with).


songbird
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Old 07-10-2019, 03:14 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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T wrote:
....
Ya. I have heard the bad stuff can ruin your garden!

I will make sure and get something that has been hot
composted.


some chemicals are unaffected by hot composting.


Seems to me that scat would be so full of grass seeds
that hot composting would be the only safe way.

I have tried burying table scraps, but it does not
depose. Seriously.


decompose.


What Happens When You Bury Kitchen Scraps in the Garden?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQFB9M2UdK0

Did exactly as he said.

Could not figure out what those balls rolling around my
garden were. Then I realized it was avocado pits from
two years ago that worked their was out of the soil.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!


an avocado pit is a big chunk of pretty hard
organic material so it takes some time to break
it down.

the other thing is that most gardeners have
more moisture and soil to work with to begin
with. in an arid climate things are going to
work much more slowly.

in a moist bucket with worms if you put a
fresh avocado seed in there it will sprout. i
dry mine out for a few months before putting
them in, or if you have a way to crush them or
cut them into pieces then they will turn into
humus faster, but i see no real reason to add
work to the process if i don't have to. i like
to keep things simple here.


No wonder I have no worms!!!!


they need moisture and organic matter and
enough depth to the soil to escape the heat
(if they are earthworms) in the middle of
the summer. for me it freezes solid here too
in the winter so they also like to get down
below the frost line if they can. if they
can't they'll hibernate or leave cocoons
behind for the next generation to continue
when the conditions improve again.

in the middle of a prolonged dry spell you
can dig down and find them curled up in little
balls waiting for the rains to return.

the common composting worms (the red wrigglers)
live near the surface and you may not even have
them in your area other than in some woodlands,
but then perhaps not if those woodlands are
isolated enough that they were never introduced
there.

when i first started worm composting here it
was during a spring dry spell - i could not
find a single red wriggler even under logs or
at the bottoms of some of the ditches. so i
did use the belgian night-crawlers to get going
and they have done pretty well, but eventually
i did get some red wrigglers for the surface
layer of the worm buckets and i also found a
few other species of worms here to use in them
so i have around 4-6 species of worms in them
and around the property.

i like worms so when i come across a good
book or article about them i'll put it on the
reading list.


songbird
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Old 08-10-2019, 12:29 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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On Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 8:50:22 PM UTC-4, T wrote:
On 10/6/19 6:30 AM, Pavel314 wrote:
On Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 11:13:43 PM UTC-4, Muggles wrote:
On 10/5/2019 8:55 PM, T wrote:


Do you dig in the sheep scat or just throw it on top?

About compost ... what do you have access to that you can use for compost?

--
Maggie


I built a three-bin compost system some years ago. Each bin is 4 feet wide, 6 feet deep, and 8 feet high. We fill one with weeds each summer and rotate using them each year as they compost. Here's a pictu

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...psp7iob3xu.jpg

Paul


Hi Paul,

The bin looked open.

And does it get hot enough to kill weed seeds?

-T


The bin is open to the air; the sides are woven field fencing and the removable doors in the front are metal mesh stapled to 2x4 frames. My wife, who uses the compost, says that she does indeed get weed seeds in the home grown compost. However, every year we get a pickup truck load of compost which does not contain any weed seeds at the county landfill for $10 . For starting seeds, she fills the bottom 2/3 of the pot with the home brew, then makes a sterile mix of county compost, peat moss, and perlite for the top third.. Any weed seeds in the bottom section die out before reaching the surface.

Paul


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Old 09-10-2019, 04:03 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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On 10/7/19 6:01 AM, songbird wrote:
little trees coming back from seeds or coming up
from roots or what? is it a bush? do you know what
it is?


They are about 1' tall. I think they are aspen of cotton
wood.

I will strip off the bark at the base of the branches
and leave all the leaves there. That should do the trick.

When I catch them at about 6" tall, I can pull the out.
They have a deep tap root.
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Old 09-10-2019, 04:08 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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On 10/7/19 6:14 AM, songbird wrote:
T wrote:
...
Ya. I have heard the bad stuff can ruin your garden!

I will make sure and get something that has been hot
composted.


some chemicals are unaffected by hot composting.


Seems to me that scat would be so full of grass seeds
that hot composting would be the only safe way.

I have tried burying table scraps, but it does not
depose. Seriously.


decompose.


What Happens When You Bury Kitchen Scraps in the Garden?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQFB9M2UdK0

Did exactly as he said.

Could not figure out what those balls rolling around my
garden were. Then I realized it was avocado pits from
two years ago that worked their was out of the soil.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!


an avocado pit is a big chunk of pretty hard
organic material so it takes some time to break
it down.

the other thing is that most gardeners have
more moisture and soil to work with to begin
with. in an arid climate things are going to
work much more slowly.

in a moist bucket with worms if you put a
fresh avocado seed in there it will sprout. i
dry mine out for a few months before putting
them in, or if you have a way to crush them or
cut them into pieces then they will turn into
humus faster, but i see no real reason to add
work to the process if i don't have to. i like
to keep things simple here.


No wonder I have no worms!!!!


they need moisture and organic matter and
enough depth to the soil to escape the heat
(if they are earthworms) in the middle of
the summer. for me it freezes solid here too
in the winter so they also like to get down
below the frost line if they can. if they
can't they'll hibernate or leave cocoons
behind for the next generation to continue
when the conditions improve again.

in the middle of a prolonged dry spell you
can dig down and find them curled up in little
balls waiting for the rains to return.

the common composting worms (the red wrigglers)
live near the surface and you may not even have
them in your area other than in some woodlands,
but then perhaps not if those woodlands are
isolated enough that they were never introduced
there.

when i first started worm composting here it
was during a spring dry spell - i could not
find a single red wriggler even under logs or
at the bottoms of some of the ditches. so i
did use the belgian night-crawlers to get going
and they have done pretty well, but eventually
i did get some red wrigglers for the surface
layer of the worm buckets and i also found a
few other species of worms here to use in them
so i have around 4-6 species of worms in them
and around the property.

i like worms so when i come across a good
book or article about them i'll put it on the
reading list.


songbird


From what I have heard on youtube, a good garden is
basically growing on top of a worm bed.

My avocado pits were whacked with the hammer side
of an ax.

I should make sure over the winder to occasionally
water my worm (singular) and my microbiome.

I had a little frog for a time last year!

Thank you for the tips!

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Old 09-10-2019, 05:55 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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T wrote:
....
From what I have heard on youtube, a good garden is
basically growing on top of a worm bed.


if you look into the biology of worms you find
out that they are little bacteria factories. what
they ingest and grind up together is food for the
bacteria they have in their stomach and they feed
off what the bacteria give them and any other
nutrients they can pull out.

the biology of a good garden soil is more bacterial
than fungal, but there are plenty of simple fungi in
garden soil too. if you compare that to woodland
soils or soils under perennial beds you will find that
those are dominated by fungi more than bacteria.

microbiology of soils is a good winter topic too
and also fits in nicely with studying composting.


My avocado pits were whacked with the hammer side
of an ax.


that'll do it! they turn a pretty interesting
color of orange if you cut them and leave them to
oxidize in the air for a few minutes.


I should make sure over the winder to occasionally
water my worm (singular) and my microbiome.


if it is really dry out, yeah, it won't hurt. just
make sure not to waterlog your garlic or bunching
onions.


I had a little frog for a time last year!


that's fantastic! do you know what species it
was?


Thank you for the tips!


always welcome, i love gardening and encouraging
wildlife (the non-pest kinds) and try to always
increase diversity.

i was just youtubing a video of a food forest with
over 500 edible plants/trees/etc. any place in the
world you can do that, even a desert. takes time and
effort, but once you get going it keeps building on
itself. like you are finding out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?68=&v=Q_m_0UPOzuI

imagine you are these folks and look where they
started 10yrs ago:

https://www.weforest.org/newsroom/di...-just-10-years

give 'em ten more years and keep adding whatever will
grow there and they'll be even further along.

love it. have fun. time to get outside to get
my mess cleaned up and improved. some seeds to pick.


songbird
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Old 10-10-2019, 02:37 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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On 10/9/19 8:55 AM, songbird wrote:
I had a little frog for a time last year!

that's fantastic! do you know what species it
was?



No clue. He did not come back this year.

Had a praying Mantis this year!
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Old 10-10-2019, 03:15 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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T wrote:
On 10/9/19 8:55 AM, songbird wrote:


I had a little frog for a time last year!

that's fantastic! do you know what species it
was?


No clue. He did not come back this year.


aww. well keep at it. every bit of shade,
cover and moisture you can provide gives them
more places to be.

we've had some toads here for the first time
in several years and i was so hoppy to see
them when they were so tiny and then i would
see them around later as they kept growing.

i've seen a few different species of frogs
here this summer, including one i don't recall
seeing before and then i forgot to look it up
while the image was fresh in my mind so not
sure i could find it now if i looked. perhaps.
a good project for a few minutes. thanks
for reminding me.


Had a praying Mantis this year!


those are always so interesting, like aliens,
can you imagine what they would be like if they
could live longer than just a season and keep
reproducing!?

i used to keep them in a terrarium with the
venus flytraps for a while to observe and feed
them and then i would let them go. usually
they were the green ones. here at this place
we have both the green and brown varieties.


songbird


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Old 10-10-2019, 04:48 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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On 10/9/19 8:55 AM, songbird wrote:
From what I have heard on youtube, a good garden is
basically growing on top of a worm bed.

if you look into the biology of worms you find
out that they are little bacteria factories. what
they ingest and grind up together is food for the
bacteria they have in their stomach and they feed
off what the bacteria give them and any other
nutrients they can pull out.

the biology of a good garden soil is more bacterial
than fungal, but there are plenty of simple fungi in
garden soil too. if you compare that to woodland
soils or soils under perennial beds you will find that
those are dominated by fungi more than bacteria.

microbiology of soils is a good winter topic too
and also fits in nicely with studying composting.



My guess is that the microbiome is everything. Without the
worms and organic matter for the proper culture, you
get poor yields.

No wonder hydroponic produce tastes like cardboard.


My avocado pits were whacked with the hammer side
of an ax.

that'll do it! they turn a pretty interesting
color of orange if you cut them and leave them to
oxidize in the air for a few minutes.


They still did not decompose! They worked their
way up and out of the ground and rolled abound
(yes, even the flat ones). Took me forever to figure
out what they were.

I have dug up vegi table scraps TWO year old that
did to decompose.

Does Peat Moss qualify as "organic matter"?




I should make sure over the winder to occasionally
water my worm (singular) and my microbiome.

if it is really dry out, yeah, it won't hurt. just
make sure not to waterlog your garlic or bunching
onions.


The plan is to water every three weeks after a
rain event. Otherwise let the rain do its
thing.

Forgot which treat you made the comment of raised
beds. I agree with out. They would dry out and blossom
rot would be the least of my issues. The only
benefit I see if that they are easier on your back.

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Old 10-10-2019, 04:49 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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On 10/9/19 7:48 PM, T wrote:
didÂ*toÂ*decompose.

did not

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Old 10-10-2019, 04:49 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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On 10/9/19 7:48 PM, T wrote:
whichÂ*treat


which thread

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Old 10-10-2019, 04:50 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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On 10/9/19 7:48 PM, T wrote:
withÂ*out

with you

Gee Wiz. I am batting 1000 today! :'(

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Old 10-10-2019, 05:25 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
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T wrote:
songbird wrote:

....
that'll do it! they turn a pretty interesting
color of orange if you cut them and leave them to
oxidize in the air for a few minutes.


They still did not decompose! They worked their
way up and out of the ground and rolled abound
(yes, even the flat ones). Took me forever to figure
out what they were.

I have dug up vegi table scraps TWO year old that
did to decompose.

Does Peat Moss qualify as "organic matter"?


yes, make sure it is sourced from a sustainable
producer. i don't use it here much any more though
because if you take bagged leaves and other stuff
and bury it for a few years it will end up looking
like peat moss. i just dug up a stash from several
years ago and if i'd have lit a match it would
have probably blew up since there was so much
methane coming out of it. but then i have clay
and moisture to seal things in down deep enough.

i was rather surprised by that. looked exactly
like peat moss. it is now all stirred in with the
garden soil in that garden and looks pretty good.

the problem with peat moss is that when it gets
dry it can take more than a simple quick watering
to get it rehydrated. mixed in with garden soil
that is kept moist it is an excellent material,
but it is not a heavy fertilizer, like most
composted materials the benefit is from the
improvement to the soil structure and the habitat
it provides for the bacteria/fungi/etc as it
gradually decomposes.

i think in a pretty active garden soil it
breaks down further within a few years but if you
keep adding organic material as you garden each
season that isn't too much of an issue.


songbird
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