My easier, better soil, no fuss, less work, composting

You have to admit that particular mole is so gawd awful ugly it's cute.

Yup, milky spore would certainly chase everything over here.

I used Milky Spore once[JBs]...on another yard my daughter had at that time. Still she had the fruits and flowers that most other yards did not have....not so many fruit and veggie gardeners around here.

It would take kadoodles to treat my place and the road sides for 3/8 mile each way.

Yes that would be a project and at a respectable expense. I'm sure a quanity like that could be purchased at a much reduced price if you get to the maker. It's all on the boxes. Remember it holds up for fifteen years in my case. I have just finished applying the third application in fifty years.

I estimate that the JBs arrived here about 20 years ago. I remember those first odd looking things on a rose bush.

a DGer on d-mail asked

my answer:
you have the right idea, but no, your tomato plants will need material to sink it's roots into and get nutrients from.. So... what I sometimes do in this situation where I have lots of material that is still breaking down, but I want to plant is I dig the area and add the amount of soil that will sustain the plant till the other organic material breaks down into a rich loamy soil.. Does that make sense??.. Now for the flip side.. there is an entire forum devoted to straw bale gardening veggies.. you plant right into the straw bales and the results are amazing. However, the bales are tight, slightly composted and give the roots a place to hold onto and I believe there are additional items added for food. With loose leaves and material where there is a large amount of air passing through, you need to give the roots a place to grow. Whether or not you can directly plant into your in place compost really depends on how close to soil your material resembles the texture of soil! I hope that makes sense! :)

Susan

This message was edited Jan 27, 2008 3:17 PM

Excellent sense. Susan.

WOW Double and Triple WOW

what a thread to read!!!!!!!!!!!
DH is just gonna love me to death when I explain to him what we are going to do in the veggie garden and the flower beds....hehehehehe....I think he already has learned trying to rake up all the pine needles and leaves just isn't' going to work like it did in the yard back in Illinois...2 acres is too much to worry about and besides as we all know it helps everything continue to grow better with the "mulch" already there.

Now just to get a tiller so we can finish getting the bamboo roots out of the veggie area then I am starting the new no till compost way ...have 2 big piles I can toss in there to get things started for this year.

thanks for all the super info everyone
and
docgipe Love the picutres!

I wonder if you couldn't smotherout the bamboo roots with a couple layers of cardboard. That's what Im trying with wisteria here.

if you chop it up, you will have 50 gazillion more.

I don't know if anything smothers bamboo. May a couple layers of concrete?

I have heard, though, that if you cut it to the ground, let it grow back to its full height, then cut it to the ground again, it will kill it deader than a hammer. No, I haven't done this myself. No bamboo on the place, except the wispy native stuff (Giant Cane) by the road, which is not a problem. For some reason, it doesn't spread like the imported bamboo.

Mibus, when I saw you saying bamboo, my heart sunk for you :( Do you have lots? You must get all the roots completely out and you know the runners can spread like wildfire right?? If you build a bed and plant it out and bamboo shoots up, you will have no choice but to rip it out and possibly damage your plants in the process.. No, cardboard will not smother it. It will give it a nice mulch to pop up through. Yes, maypop beat me too it.. I was thinking concrete too. Please don't add unrooted fresh bamboo to a pile of earth. It can root and make more babies for you in gratitude.

My worst nightmare neighbor scenario includes them planting uncontained bamboo!

Susan

No, cardboard will not smother bamboo. If you can figure out what kind it is you can chop it down and then harvest the shoots. If not just keep chopping it back, it will take a while.

I have some bamboo, but I grow in pots.

Well there was at one time a fairly good size area of it I found a website called bamboocrafts.com the guy that runs it lives in Austin and found out it is a running type and the name of it but would have to look that part back up.....BUT we cut some down and I made some wind chimes then I tried drowning it as they say ti doesn't like wet feet and I also poured 2 gallons of vinegar around it to bring up the acid level as they don't like that either. last weekend we rented a backhoe and dug the whole area up after DH cut all the poles down (they are laying next to the house in case we want to make something ...wind chimes, headboard for a bed, use them for stalking veggies...etc).
I just called home depot today to see about renting a tiller to go in and work more and tilling the area up to get the rest of the roots up.

Now cardboard is a no it won't help ...cement yeah it would but then what do I do for my veggies LOL
other reading I did says taking a black tarp to block out the sun and such will kill it off a sit has no place to get its energy from then.
the only true way to get rid of it when not planted correctly is backhoe.
Mowing it over does keep it under control though too for those that want to have it and not contain it
I also go out and break off any shoots coming up before they get to 25" in height that is suppose to keep them from growing out more so far it works.

Hubby has taken 3 big piles of roots that we made from backhoe to the burn pile so when it is dry enough he will burn it up...wanna hear something that sounds like a shot gun going off burn bamboo without breaking a hole in the nodes LOL

I've told him IF he wants any bamboo for a privacy type thing then we will get clumping bamboo and contain it properly.

Milbus, I can relate!! Our neighbors had bamboo that had run into our septic system. What a mess that was. The originial neighbors who where not happy with us hacking up the bamboo, (which was on our property) sold the house. The new neighbors were not thrilled to find it crumbling the edges of the house foundation and buckling their patio, so we ended up with partners in murder of the bamboo. It took us almost 5 years in all to get rid of all of it. A back hoe along the septic system was not an option, but they ended up using a little on their property to dig up the main clumps of the stuff. Nasty thug is bamboo and tough.

ohhhh then I see you've already been introduced to your bamboo! :) Yes, backhoe sounds right!!

Good Luck!!

When I hear folks say they want to grow bamboo for privacy, all kinds of better options come to my mind, but it's a personal preference I guess.. I've just seen what it can do and it's bad..

Some folks don't care or don't know how big or how much space a plant/tree will eventually take up.. I thought it was funny to hear a gardener when he was told his Dawn Redwood was planted too close to the house and he replied that he didn't care.. by the time it was a problem he would be taking a dirt nap!! I've got a live oak from FL planted in the way back of my property and evey time I see it, I think, I know your not supposed to be here... but I planted it anyway! Hopefully, it will be a good 60 years before it's a problem and I wont have to deal with my inability to plant properly for my zone.

:)

Susan

hi susan I have greatly enjoyed and learned for your thread and everyone's input. My sympathies to those having to fight bamboo. I think that if I were property shopping and I saw bamboo in or anywhere near the property I would pass it up!

susan. what's wrong w/ planting a live oak in back of property?

Hey there Vossner :)

I think I read somewhere that there are rules against planting bamboo in more progressive areas. I wouldn't want it on my property.

We have the occasional ice storm and live oaks don't lose their leaves during the winter.. They grow in FL, south GA and coastal areas. It will grow until we have an ice storm and the weight of the ice will bring it down.. Just talking about it makes me second guess my decision.. It's planted by my well and I'd really be a mess without that well... I'll let it go a few years and it'll give me time to think on it!

ohhhhh. I grow several w/ no problem. Just wasn't thinking about the potential dangers in your situation.
OK. I'm w/ ya, now.

There are a lot of invasive plants still in the catalogs. It took me three years of digging by two men a couple days a year to clear out Japanese or Oriental Bittersweet. After it was hand dug three times I resorted to multiple treatments with Roundup for two years after the best digging we could do. Now five years later we are applying good compost in hopes of getting grass to grow where we literally ruined the soil to get rid of our beast.

I am sure this is not as bad a bamboo but it is a mess of the highest order. I have a friend that had a bamboo run off the property only to appear right up through the city street in front of their house. The city fathers were not happy scouts when that happened. They got lucky and sold that house to some poor souls who then carried on the fight.

if bamboo is done properly it is okay to have but the ones that planted it here didn't know what they were doing ..there is no THICK( credit card thickness) black plastic or cement to contain it I think it was done as a way to hide the back area since no one has done anything there in over 12 yrs. (luckily the neighbor behind us to the north has talked to DH and given him some info) The last major thing done was 12 yrs ago when the 3 neighbors went together and had someone come in and take out some of the pine trees.

As for the wisteria going wild here I took and pulled up as much of it as I could find and stripped the leaves off and cut any roots off of the vines running the ground and used them to make baskets...I'm sure I didn't get it all but that is okay I will find it and do the same again this year if DH didn't get it all LOL

This message was edited Jan 28, 2008 8:21 PM

Soulgarden, why is the live oak a problem?
I've seen them all over cities in my state, on small strips of soil by streets and in people's front yards where the branches have been cut away from power lines. Sometimes they grow only 10 feet from buildings without doing damage. Maybe they uproot sidewalks--not a problem in my book, considering their usefulness and beauty. It may be my favorite tree (that and American beech). Doesn't drop branches like water oak. Takes a lot of wind, stands up to hurricanes. Good bird habitat and makes mast for deer. That last thing may not be a selling point, though.

When I was very young almost all the houses had out buildings like wash houses or equipment sheds and honest to goodness real out houses. Wisteria was a cherished plant that crawled all over those out buildings. It stayed under control by mowing over the shoots that came up in the grass. We had one that was a tree made from three or four woven vines. Yes I understand it can be a problem but we did not know that. At that time folks bragged about their huge wisteria plantings. I guess in todays small property situations it would be a real problem.

Well I do know that IF DH didn't' get it all I am going to try and dig it up and re plant all that I find together and try weaving them together as they grow to make it into more of a tree. I love the blooms and smell of them.

My property is 2.5 acres - not small. The wisteria throws underground shoots and is coming up the entire width of the property. Not much of it gets mowed, and wherevr it is not mowed the wisteria is coming up forming dense matts of roots that even trip you if you walk over it.

I understand the native wisteria does not do this. chinese wisteria might be o.k. for a few years in a well tended yard, but after 100 years it is a major invasive here in Alabama. Not good.

No till gardening- How do you all keep the leaves from blowing away on windy days?

Love this forum. Love this thread. I've been on here for hours and I'm only half the way through. I feel like I'm getting a PhD in soil restoration. I am a new subscriber and wondered if I would get my $20 worth. What a deal! Who knew dirt cold be so exciting. If there's a worm forum on here, I'm going there next.

Pamgarden, love your enthusiasm. I gardened for 40 years before figuring out how to do it right. And the learning never ends.

Leaves will blow on windy days, but in a no-till garden the soil will stay put. No-till is designed to maintain the natural cohesiveness of soil, rather than incourage wind-blown erosion that is characteristic of cultivated soil.

Pam: You haven't scratched the surface yet. There is nothing more exciting than dirt. I spent 40 years of my life digging it, drawing profiles of it, and backfilling the holes I had dug.

gloria

dean how about that wind today!!! i need to go check my yard and see if my leaves all left the no till garden!! maybe dumping a little garden soil on top will help them stay in place and help to break them up faster?

As far as the leaves blowing away with high winds.....mulch them first and I would say 98% of the blowing problem is fixed. I have about 30 - 40 mph winds today and with any moisture in them, they stay put.

oh --good idea--a quick spray would help too

Indy,

Thanks for the reply. I wet them and the newpaper down and watered the garden well. Hopefully that will help.

It's interesting to read about what folks south of us have to deal with - around here (Indiana) there are few bamboos that will make it through the winter - and if you find one it's unbelievably expensive. I've never seen a wisteria here that got out of control...guess I have "zone envy"....huh?

i hate that they blow in the pool!! still haven't gotten out to see how badly they blew around today--too much fun on the websites!! better get out before it gets dark tho

there was some very bad blood over two former neighbors in dallas area who got into it over the bamboo one planted--got really ugly with death threats or some such thing recorded on the phone and taken to police!! after that i knew better than to plant bamboo in texas!

I think bamboo can be okay in it's right place. I have some clumping bamboo planted in the ground.

does it look like the bamboo in movies of the jungle? does it grow super fast?

Yes, it does only it grows close together instead of running all over the place.

I can't believe I'm recommending machines for gardeners, but I admit that I like my little chipper/shredder. It has turned a mountain of leaves into nice crumbly bits that stay put in strong wind, like what I'm getting right now.

Sounds good, maypop!