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new garden question
In article , Charlie wrote:
On Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:27:51 -0700, Billy wrote: In article , Charlie wrote: On Thu, 6 Aug 2009 13:58:38 +1000, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote: "George.com" wrote in message news:h5bfs1 I'd not bother with the plastic and instead cover the area with cardboard or old felt carpet underlay. Whatever comes free and second hand. A carpet layer will often have second hand hessian underlay they are happy to part with for free. Coffee grounds, food scraps, leaves, grass clippings. Chuck it all on top of the hessian or cardboard and leave for a few months & you have a garden. I think this system works even better if you chuck all thos things under the free top layer. I like to let the worms get at it and do a lot of work for me. But then my soil is rotten and hard and wormless so I also dig up some worms from my veg garden, dig a tiny bit of soil so thye at least have some soil cover and then do what you describe. hmmmm.......doh. This makes good sense, in that the worms don't have to chew thru the cardboard/hessian/whatever before they begin to work. Same weed reduction results, but faster soil improvement results. Thanks for the idea, Wormwrangler. Charlie I would suggest that you first lay down your soil amendments (manure, rock phosphate, potassiun [wood ash, what ever]), then your cardboard, or newsprint, and then cover that unsightly mess with the mulch of your choice (I prefer alfalfa), then if you want to go full gonzo, spread some green manure seeds (I'd go with rye or buckwheat to condition the soil [make it looser], or some legumes to add more nitrogen to the soil). In any event, the worms will thank you for it. No disagreement witcha on this and what I have done also, but my take and thinking, after Fran's post, is lay down a good layer of worm bait and food, such as cooked rice and pasta, veggie trimmings May I see the wine list?;o) , rotten fruit and trimmings, etc., *under* the cardboard, with amendements, in order to give the crawlers a head start on doing their business, and then continue with the layering. Just a slight variation on the procedure to which we subscribe. No argument, but I doubt that worms would see much difference between cardboard or newsprint vis-a-vis leaf mulch, or straw. As far as the alfalfa, one needs to find the right balance perhaps. I think parts of my garden suffered from alfalfa meal overdose this year. At least I had what appeared to be nitrogen burn on some things that I likely OD'd with too much alfalfa meal and blood meal. Particularly in my potted mix. I've had the same problems with alfalfa pellets, which I use in my lettuce patch, but with a much lighter hand in pots now. Manure Chicken Diary cow Horse Steer Alfalfa Fish Emulsion N 1.1 .257 .70 .70 3 5 P .80 .15 .30 .30 1 1 K .50 .25 .60 .40 2 1 You can see that alfalfa is almost three times stronger in "N" than chook doo. I still use it (pellets) in the lettuce, and carrots because I don't want to bury the plants under mulch. Otherwise, I've never had a problem with baled alfalfa as a mulch. Charlie The tomatoes are starting to come around, producing a little more each day. Koralic came in first, followed by Stupice. Everything else is very green. Happy to report that we no longer need to put on music for dinner. The crickets arrived two nights ago. With the stair lights on, it is nearly magical outside in the evening. (We eat late.) -- Racial injustice, war, urban blight, and environmental rape have a common denominator in our exploitative economic system. ~Channing E. Phillips http://tinyurl.com/o63ruj http://countercurrents.org/roberts020709.htm |
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