2011 Gardening Thread (Read 1783 times)

 

Or should I just not worry about it, and put the hay on, and weed when something comes up?

You do not want hay...take it from someone who spent 18 years on a farm, they are not the same stuff and do not do the same thing.

Hay is dried alfalfa and staw is usually the dried stems of wheat although it can come from oats/barley too.  Hay is nearly 2X as heavy as straw.  Straw is very absorbent and will matt down in a nice weed-preventing layer.  Hay, once it loses its leaves in short order, won't do much of anything for you except possibly seed down things you don't want.  Straw will also start to break down quicker, hay will stay around longer due to tougher stems and create problems for you.

If a bale had green shoots in the spring it was just leftover wheat seeds germinating.

Buy wheat anywhere near the city/suburbs and they are going to rip you off.  I'm years out of the loop but I'd put the true value at $2ish per bale....I'm guessing any place except a farm where you buy it out of the barn probably charges $5-$7.

And yeah, my place is a ton of work.  Now that I have been here 4 years some of the stuff is starting to get less time-intensive but I am through putting in large gardens where we don't take care of it all or can't eat it all.  When the kids get older and provide more stomach and labor, I'm sure we'll use them all again.  

I just bought the bale at a local farmers' market.  They're all over the place down here, but, it doesn't necessarily mean it came from there.  Maybe I'll call the local Agway.

 

Or, what else could I use as a mulch?

 

Hold on, though, are you saying that bale I bought that had green shoots coming up in the spring...that was wheat?  Which means, it was straw, and not hay?

I've used straw, old leaves, grass clippings, and wood chip mulch for various applications.  The only thing with wood chips is it better be a place you want permanently mulched.

Straw bales are golden/yellowish and will get dirty-looking blackish with age (mold/mildew on it probably).  Hay bales are a LOT pokier and full of leaves.  If it is straw you will have smooth straight stalks.

Unless they were selling it as animal feed, few farmer's market type places would cell hay to non-farmer types.  Hay is for feeding animals; straw is for bedding them or mulching things.  Animals don't eat straw.

I've used straw, old leaves, grass clippings, and wood chip mulch for various applications.  The only thing with wood chips is it better be a place you want permanently mulched.

Me too.  Several of the neighbors and I have chippers so all of our yard waste gets shredded up.  I end up taking most of it because I am the only one with a compost bin.  What doesn't fit in the bin gets spread onto the garden.  My favorite mulch is leaves, though.  I have a 4x8 trailer that I tow behind my car and in the fall I use it to collect leaves that people put out to the curb.  I use them to mulch my garden in the spring.  I'll also spread them onto my lawn and go over them with the mower a few times.  Leaves are one of the best soil amendments and for the most part they are free.

I think that next year I am going to try no till gardening.  I usually till once in the spring but I think that I will skip it next year and mulch a little more.  I have access to plenty of mulch.  I want to see if that does a better job with keeping the weeds down.

Nice pics BTW, spaniel.

not sure how you grow potatoes no-till though.   I hill mine up pretty well to simplify digging.

I never have hilled them, at least not with dirt.  I use leaves instead.  I guess that technically they are mounded up quite a bit.

You're doing things on quite a larger scale than I am.  The advantage I have is that it does not take much effort to get a high concentration of organic matter worked into my soil.  My garden soil is very workable now, which is why I think that no till might work for me.  It will be fun to try at least.

Someone is eating my broccoli.  I don't think it will survive.  One of the plants, the leaves have holes in them, which, of course, looks like bugs or larve or something.

Another one, though, has the entire leaf eaten off, which makes me think rabbit, or maybe chipmunk.  Do chipmunks eat gardens?

My peppers...also holes in some of the leaves, although I hit everything up the other day with insecticide soap, which seemed to work on the tomatoes, but no so much on the peppers.

That, and, also, I think I planted my peppers too close to the tomatoes, because they're now being shaded.  Grrr.

On the other hand, the maters are doing great, as is the lettuce, and the cukes.

i really want the peppers to work, though.

 

Right now I am dealing with a groundhog that has taken up residence under my shed.

Garden hose and a couple large rocks over the holes....

A live trap with lettuce may also work. 

Garden hose and a couple large rocks over the holes....

 

A live trap with lettuce may also work. 

I get 3 or 4 of them a year on average.  A live trap with ripe peaches with some vanilla extract poured in the core usually works quickly, but this one has been resisting.