I'm going to make an effort to cut the kitchen scraps small so everything breaks down faster. I used the blender to mush up a couple of days worth of scraps, but that seems like too much work and messy to clean up. Right now my beds are probably more like 6" deep. Maybe I should go for building up the small area I have rather than adding on. What do you think?
Easier, better soil, less work, in place Composting Part 2
Does anyone here use Plantskydd deer/animal deterent? If so do you mix the powder? The box says mix four cups to a gallon and it is VERY thick...I am a little confused and wonder if I am not diong something correctly, I don't think it will come through the sprayer as thick as it is...if I use more water I am afraid it won't be effective...grrrrr! I hate when things don't go easily...lol It foams when you mix it or I would try mixing it in a blender...but I don't want the bloody mess all over me and the kitchen, my dog is already going crazy with the way it smells!
Any quick reply would be helpful! Thanks
my garden looked rough too so i put dried grass on top and it looks much better now
JanetS I bought a case of Plantskydd a couple of years ago. I was going to sell some but didn't get much interest. Mine is a liquid in a ready to use type sprayer, so no mixing. I do think it works, just have to remember to spry it on the plants. Just yesterday I sprayed my newly growing delphinum to try to keep the rabbits from eating any more So sorry not to be of any help to you, hope you get help for the mixing.
Donna.
I mixed some last year too, and had the same problem, but I too believe it did work. I am going to try to premixed! There is a dealer nearby so I am going to take what I have left of the powder back to her and see what she says. It is always worth a try, when you are unpleased with an expensive product. Is the premixed reddish brown as well when you spray it on the plants?
Yes a deep reddish brown, and by the smell should deter furry animals. Ha
For those of you wanting to learn more, I just found this thread and think it could be very helpful :)
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/649906/
Susan
Score!!! We don't take a paper - we'd NEVER have time to even pretend to read it, so I've been fudging on the newspaper component. I could borrow some from my mom - I'm not sure she reads hers either. Anyway, my father used to live - alone - in Santa Fe NM, and then he had a stroke and eventually was moved back east to be near me and my siblings. But in the process, his sister (my aunt) went out and shipped a bunch of stuff to me, pottery and glassware and so on. And it was all wrapped in PAPER! Like newspaper size with no print, perfect for lasagna beds or no-dig beds or what-have-you! I don't have to scrounge it or anything, stacks and stacks of otherwise useless paper! Plus it came in a gigantic cardboard box. Huzzah! xx, Carrie
Susan, I have purchased the following, based on the many excellent suggestions of yourself and others in your threads, 50 lbs green sand, 100 lbs alfafa meal, 100 lbs bagged composted horse manure, 15 lbs of worm castings, 100 lbs of bagged potting soil . Now, what do I do with it? I don't want to just dump it out willy nilly. I can go out to the garage and read what it says on the back of the bags, but I thought you may be able to advise an internet site that has the information in one place to help me learn more about the items I have to add to my lasagna beds of paper, composted hardwood chips, potting soil, leaf mould and kitchen scraps (which are looking better every day). Oh, and the beds have worms now too, which we didn't have before.
Hip hip hurray for worms! xx, Carrie
Subject: Too fertile soil-add super phosphate? Can anyone give me advice on this problem? I live in a real clayey area. But the cows in my pasture have left a very nice black manure mixture. My hubby moved it up to our yard and I've been using it in flower beds and the veg. garden. However, it is too rich. If I want more flowers on my perennials can I just add super phosphate to it?
I planted 5 strawberry plants in pure manure last summer and wound up with about 50 plants and 5 strawberries. I know it was stupid, but I had lots of plants to give away. I need to re-do that bed too. I'd like to just add super phosphate to it. Would it work?
Thanks! Trish in Missouri
Trish,
I would take a sample of your soil to the University of Missouri Extension Center in your county - I bet it is in St. Charles. For a small fee, they will send it to the lab and tell you exactly what you need to do for the soil that you are using.
carrielamont...I'm with you on reading newspapers, but there really is a simple way to get as much as you need. Take a nice comfortable folding chair, a good book, and go to your local newspaper recycling bin on a nice sunny Saturday. Place a computer generated sign in your vehicle window "Newspaper Wanted", and wait for the action. A cooler full of canned Country Time lemonade makes a nice exchange offering, if you wish! You can sort out the glossies while you wait. Good way to meet nice little old ladies too. Ever see a teenager at a recycle bin???
LOL but I'm happy now, I have STACKS and STACKS of plain white paper, pre crumpled! I'm a happy camper. (If there were teenaged boys there, my daughter would probably help!) xx, Carrie
Susan,
I'm coming back to you with a dogwood question. You expressed concern earlier about the dogwood's surface roots. Do you think that I would be better off not using newspaper on the dogwood to smoother the grass? Instead, I would just add my humus, alfalfa and mulch on top. I want to be sure that the grass is killed.
Hi Pam.. just got back from some time on a local lake with my family for Spring break!
50 lbs green sand... I don't know. I've never used it. It's to break up clay right?? Then I guess you might spread it over a clay area where you want to create a bed :)
100 lbs alfalfa meal.. Like it.. Full throttle like me :) Pam, this can be used to feed worms and attract them to your bed area. You can make alfalfa tea.. or you can do the least amount of work and let it get rained on where you spread it and think your letting nature brew its own..which is what I do. There are no hard and fast rules (for me there aren't) about how you want to put this down and/or how much. I have put it down first thing where I have built beds and most lately, I spread it on top of my compost to force the worms to come up for it and bring it down with them. I have spread it thin and thick and haven't seen any ill results with either. :)
100 lbs bagged composted horse manure... Do you have a truck at your disposal? Horse farmers want gardeners to come and get the stuff off their property. I have found them through an agricultural market bulletin in GA and have posted in the farm and garden section on craigslist. I'd take a couple dump truck loads of the stuff :0 Yes, put it in where you want to build a bed :)
15 lbs of worm castings.. Pam.. I used to do the worm bin and feed them and it drove me nuts to separate the worms from the castings when I wanted to harvest.. I also have seen worm castings sold and to be quite honest, it is truly cost prohibitive to cover any real sizable area with purchased worm castings. Yes, I've seen the studies and things DO grow much better with a mix of castings. My opinion is that if you provide ample organic material for the worms in the bed and provide a great habitat for them to live in, they will deposit pounds and pounds of worm castings all throughout your beds and thus feeding your plants nutritious food without you having to purchase the finished product :) But now that you have it..spread through beds!! :)
100 lbs of bagged potting soil...hmmmm.. That stuff is expensive.. Do you have any pots that need plants?? :)
"Oh, and the beds have worms now too, which we didn't have before"....Worms are wonderful. The goal is lots of worms in your beds :)
Trish.. but you know strawberries are runners anyway right? But yes, seems like too much if you didn't have much of a crop.. I'm not sure.. I would think the aged stuff would have a more balanced Ph. ?? I'm not a cow poo kinda of gal.. Horse for me so I don't have experience with it.
Can you get into trouble for taking paper out of the recycling bin? I guess that would make me kinda like the entrepreneurs that would want to take the soda cans out for resale to a recycling center..
Good for you Carrie.. Funny!
My husband just asked me what I was doing and I told him I was on DG talking about dirt.
:)
Susan
Pennefeather.. I have an area in my front yard that was designed to showcase a dogwood tree while the pines around it were taken out. The pines were a danger to my home and we braced ourselves during each storm. The guy that came to grade the lot after the pines were removed was a grader and not a tree guy. The landscaper gal I had hired to do the work had misrepresented herself as having 20 years experience in the business and she didn't. The Dogwood was heavily back filled over and the roots were driven over and over time it suffocated. I hired an arborist to come diagnose the tree and when he told me it was dying and there was no help for it I asked him if he had ever had a client cry for a tree dying and he said he had.. I felt that bad about it :( I studied up on trees and their root systems and how they live and grow and there are certain trees that have low lying roots... a dogwood is one of them, and they can't take lots of back filling and stress to the root systems. I would look it up if I were you. I have now planted a scarlet oak in it's place and I'm sure it will be a lovely tree once it gets some age on it... But I would use caution with smaller prized trees when doing a tree ring bed :)
Susan
Susan: That is so sad!
:) I've been through worse!! I'm over it..it was a while ago and if I had not of had a bad landscaping experience (there was more!) I might not have taken it upon myself to learn as much and be so self reliant in my yard and garden.. I might not have trusted myself to do it and left it all to the "experts". So there was silver lining in it
:)
Susan
Time to see the results of my soil..
My latest blooms :)
http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb196/soulgardenlove/June%20Blooms/?albumview=slideshow
New Bed Mothers Day weekend
http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb196/soulgardenlove/Secret%20Shade%20Garden/?albumview=slideshow
Earlier in the spring
http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb196/soulgardenlove/?albumview=slideshow
:)
Susan
Susan, very beautiful! You must be so proud!
Carrie
Thanks. I don't know if one can feel proud with as many weeds as I'm cultivating right now, but I enjoy the flowers :)
Susan
LOL. My HUSBAND, of all people, suggested we make a raised bed under the window where we cut down some brush. That's the first exciting part. But there are still little stumps in there, and we're both too decrepit to do anything about them.
Light bulb over his head #2, since we can't remove them, why not smother them? Build a HIGH raised bed, and plant gobs of plants on top of them. Light bulb #3, and this is what I wanted to tell YOU about, all by himself he had the idea that we don't BUY yards of soil to put between the top of the stumps and the top of the bed, we fill it up with the bags of leaves I've been collecting and the bags of grass and the chipped mulch we have lying around. He thought of it all by himself!
Carrie
Wow! I belive in the concept of thought osmosis! Thats what happened :)
Yup . . . . :>)
Have enjoyed reading the threads re Susan's method of gardening. Hope it is okay if I bump this up. I have some questions about a project I'm doing.
To block the view of our barns, planted a row of 2-gallon wax myrtle shrubs 16 months ago. Dug holes 6 feet apart. Soil is extremely dense red clay. Put a 2-foot square edging around each little shrub. Have been periodically adding shredded oak leaves inside the 2-foot square. The shrubs have grown extremely fast, now more than 5 feet tall. Mowing around the shrubs has gotten to be very difficult and not pleased with the way it looks. My plan is to add lots of flowers all around these shrubs.
Have removed the edging and started laying down paper and cardboard and covering with mulch we previously made of oak leaves, llama manure, etc. I don't know anything about the root structure of wax myrtles, so decided to play it safe and not add any mulch on the area right next to the shrub but realize the root structure probably extends out farther. In the area between and to the side of shrubs, adding mulch 3 to 4 inches deep. Afraid to make it deeper all at once but also don't know if it will be heavy enough to kill the grass underneath. Plan to continue adding shredded leaves occasionally.
Am I in danger of killing the wax myrtles if I add deeper mulch? Would like to hear what results others have had when layering around existing shrubs, especially experience with wax myrtles. These are my first.
Thanks,
Glenna
This message was edited Aug 18, 2009 6:52 AM
First day's progress.
Wow, Glenna, your progress report photo looks very attractive and healthy for the soil. I hope someone with experience with wax-myrtles can answer your specific questions. But generally, I do have experience with extending beds by the lasagna garden method around large shrubs (about your size) . I leave a foot or so of space around each stem/trunk, and then start placing my cardboard/newspaper layer onto the surrounding grass, adding shredded leaves, manure, grass clippings, up to about 6 inches high, as far out as I want the bed to go. I leave this for a few months before planting in the new area. The layers eventually "overpower" the grass and shrink down to the level of the original shrub level to create nice friable soil. I do mulch the area right around the shrub with chopped leaves, being careful not to place the leaves right up against the stem/trunk. The greater surface area I am mulching with the lasagna method has not seemed to bother any of the shrubs' roots yet.
I panicked when I ran out of newspapers, but a friend who is an air conditioning contractor was really happy to bring me huge cardboard cartons and I also got my DH to clean out his stack of blueprints from old jobs, so I'll be using a variety of paper on this. I think I'll mark the different paper areas just as a test to see if there's any difference in future.
Got delivery of 10 yards of mushroom compost-turkey manure-sand-top soil mixture and my leaf shredder back from repairman. Better buy some Joint-Ritis for my aching muscles next. LOL.
Hi folks,
Also a newbie here. I have read this thread with great interest and have a lot to learn. I wish I would have found Dave's earlier before I started these beds in the pics. I have a question on no till for beds that are already made.
How would you use this for these. I started these this year.
The one big bed with the lilly's is four years old and covered with a foot of wood chips. I can't lay paper and start covering everything with greens & browns in the winter can I???
Will plants come up through it or will I smother everything.
What would your advice be for these beds. Can I turn the bed with the foot of wood chips or would I be ripping up all my plants and what to do about the beds with the rock???
Thank you for your help and I with put this method to work for future NEW beds.
Here is a blog thing I started if you want to see better pics and what I'm doing.
http://pentwaterproperty.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
penth, Very interesting blog. You have done a lot of work. And i understand your frustration with the deer. I live in the desert area of Wash. State. When I moved here 24 years ago there was nothing but Sagebrush and grass. Didn't take the deer long to find my garden. I have 5 1/2 acres of hillside. I had about 2 1/2 acres completely fenced in, on drive thru gate and 2 walkthru gates. The only time deer bother the garden is if I leave the gate open. This morning early I looked out to see a 3-point buck standing in the open gateway. I didn't think to take a picture, just hurried out to chase him away and close the gate.
I know you have lots of trees but no trees here other than what I have planted. Here are a couple of photos of my north hillside redwood fence. About half of the fence is hardly visible now that the trees and shrubs have grown. I much prefer to have the fence and not the frustration of deer eating everything I plant. Picture #1 is of pretty much eastern end of fence.
Donna
And this is a picture of just to the west of previous fence picture
Donna
Actually in rereading my first message I see I put the wrong time I moved here it was 14 years ago not 24. Donna
Dogs_n_. Sure wish Mushroom compost was available here in my area,. I used to be able to get some but not now. I make my own compost but not as fast as I could use it.
Donna
rutholive - I've purchased mushroom compost in bags at Lowe's.
The nearest Lowe's is 130 miles so don't imagine I will be able to work that out. Today I bought 20 sack of what is labeled Manure Com post blend at WAlMart. I bought some earlier this year at 97 cents for I think it is 1 cubic yard. I was not terribly excited about it but figure it can't really hurt. I had planned to get 10 bags, but it was on sale half price, so for 50 cents I bought 20 bags.
Donna