The Tail-end of our Mulch Inventory

We've talked at length before about Back to Eden Gardening where we use wood chips (4 inch layer) in the garden.  I won't bore you again with the details, but by doing this, you never need to till.  You hardly ever need to water.  You hardly ever need to weed the garden.  It makes gardening so easy.  Additionally, the chips decompose and become topsoil.  Each year you add another 4 inch layer and let nature take care of itself.

I don't even want to speculate as to how many loads of mulch we've gotten delivered to the house for free by right-of-way cleaning crews eager for a place to drop their loads of wood chips.  I stopped by a crew I saw working about 5 miles down the road the other day and left our address and contact information.  I've not heard back from them.  It is a new crew out of Texas that must've won the contract.  

We need more chips!  We are on our last pile and there's a reason we saved this one for last.  Normally the wood chips heat up and decompose quickly.  This last pile did not.  The reason for this is that it is largely made up of pine straw.  Pine straw is coated with a shiny, wax-like layer that contains high amounts of lignin.  This makes it resistant to decay, bacteria and fungi.  That's kind of counter-productive to our goal of mulch in the garden.

But we found a use for it!  The walkways/borders on either side of the garden have a dual purpose.  In addition to being walkways we use, they serve as a border or protective barrier for what's outside the garden.  That would be grasses and weeds, namely bermuda grass, bahai, and nutsedge.  These grasses are persistent, relentless and determined and require constant effort to keep them from encroaching into the garden.  You can see some of the grass on the eastern edge of the garden.  It so desires to get into the garden.

The grasses had invaded, filling half of the walkway with grass that we had mulched a couple of years ago.  That ended yesterday.  I removed all the weeds from the garden path on the interior eastern side of the garden and used a wagon and pitchfork to unload a 5 inch layer all the way down.  It's so nice and clean now - free of grass!

I did the same thing on the western edge of the garden.  It is so clean and in order now.

But it will require vigilance.  Those grasses send out rhizomes that climb through the fence and try to get a foothold in the garden and creep forward.  Someone has to guard the wall.  Almost like Colonel Nathan Jessup in "A few good men" in calling the Code Red, ha ha.  We'll keep our eyes on any encroachment and put more mulch on top.

Securing the Border

Border security is serious business.  If you have no control of your border, undesirables come at will, unimpeded and wreak destruction on your land.  A fence can be porous.  Eyes cannot be on every square inch of land boundaries, making unlawful entry easy.  At first incursions are slow, almost unnoticeable, but gradually more border crossings are made, and before you know it, you've lost control of your land.  What was once paradise is ruined.  Dramatic actions are required to salvage things.  You must stop unlawful entries, severely punish those that have come in unlawfully, and then strengthen your borders to prevent this from occurring again.  One must be vigilant.

I'm talking about our garden.  We have a fence that borders our garden and acts as the boundary between the garden and our pasture.  Our pasture is primarily bahia grass and bermuda grass.  Grasses great for pasture, but BAD for gardens.  They run from rhizomes and quickly spread.  A fence does nothing to keep it out.  If left unattended, the bermuda, bahia, and nutsedge will quickly overtake the garden. You can see the grass coming through the border in the photo below:

I have found that a mattock is an under-appreciated garden tool.  I use this bad boy to dig up the border crossers by the roots.  I toss them over the fence - back where they belong.

I clear a two foot "de-militarized zone" to represent land re-patriated and reclaimed.

But I'm not done.  I move wood chip mulch and tightly pack in the cleared zone four inches deep, creating a clear border that is easier to patrol.

Over two afternoons, I patrolled the border, stopped illegal border crossings, and fixed things to deter future crossings, for the near future at least.

Here's a look all the way down the border fence once the job was done.

It was good to get the job done.  It was homeland security - literally.

More On Tomatoes and Mulch

In the last installment, we talked about the row of volunteer tomatoes of unknown variety that we planted.  We have more tomatoes than that, though.  I planted a number of tomatoes from seed.  They popped up with great germination rates and we babied them through the sweltering heat of July and early August in seed pots on the back patio, watering them with water enriched with (stinky) fish emulsion.

As they reached around four inches in height, it was time to transplant them into the garden.  I carefully removed them from the pots with a spoon and transplanted them into garden soil mixed with compost and chicken litter harvested from beneath the roost in the hen house.  They were planted about 24 inches apart and will be trellised using the Florida Weave method once they reach about a foot and a half in height.

In order to determine where in the garden to plant, I use two criteria:

1. I plant them in an area of the garden where tomatoes haven't been in the last two years,
2. I plant them between the rows where vegetables were planted last growing season.  This allows a crop rotation where the soil is rested.

Once the location is established, it's a quick job of planting and labeling the plants.  I water them in with the "home grown" fertilizer I made with rainwater, leaf mold, and weeds that's been fermenting in buckets with the tops on.  It doesn't smell nice, but I think the plants will love this home-brewed fertilizer concoction.

Once in the ground, there's one more thing to do.  We use the Back to Eden gardening method which involves no tilling.  In this process we add a four inch layer of composted wood chips.  This imitates what happens in forests, where trees fall and rot, contributing to the manufacture of rich, nutrient-laden topsoil that fuels growth of lush vegetation.

In the yard, we have pile after pile of wood chips that have been breaking down for several years.  A pitchfork and garden wagon is used to move the wood chips into the garden.  Just look at that dark brown (almost black) mulch.  If I was to rub this through my garden riddle, it would disintegrate into topsoil, but we won't do that - we'll allow nature to run it's course.

The mulch is forked in a four inch layer over the existing soil and moved around the plants.  This mulch provides a covering to the soil.  The soil should always be covered to discourage weeds.  The mulch also provides a barrier that slows evaporation and allows the soil to stay moist even during periods of drought.  You can't really tell, but the previous 4 inch mulch layer has mostly turned into soil and will be a fertile growing medium for the fall garden.

By the time the entire fall garden is planted, we'll have a new 4 inch layer of wood chips spread out.  It's an annual process and each year, the soil gets better and better, just teeming with earthworms and emitting a musty, yet healthy soil smell, if that description makes any sense.

Decomposing (Mulch Time Lapse)

The crews that are maintaining electricity right-of-ways are back in the area.  The crews consist of a bucket truck that has a wood chipper behind it and a supervisor in another truck.  Limbs that overhang powerlines are trimmed back by a man in the bucket with a chainsaw.  Guys on the ground pick up the branches and feed them into a wood chipper.  The chipper shoots the wood chips into the back of the truck.  Once it is full, they are looking for a place to dump it.

That's where we come in.  Over the years we've taken (seriously) about 100 loads of mulch.  Tricia seeks them out and gives them our address and they come.  We've received two loads so far in the last couple of weeks.  One morning this week it was in the upper 30's.  I walked outside and saw steam coming from both of the recently delivered mulch piles.  This is evidence that the pile is decomposing.  Beneficial bacteria are breaking down the mulch pile.

These piles of mulch are a couple years old.  They don't steam anymore, but they are about half the size that they used to be.  A lot of the decomposition has already taken place.  If you scrape off the top layer, you'd see that the bottom of these piles are pretty well broken down.  Mushrooms grow in the pile, too.

In the back, I scraped off the top layer of a mulch pile from three years ago.  A three year old mulch pile has pretty much been transformed into topsoil.

I mix composted chicken litter with this and use it as a planting medium.  It's great organic matter and helps your soil retain moisture and reduces compaction.  If you see those crews working in your neighborhood, I highly recommend you going to talk to them.  It is a little unsightly to have piles of mulch in your yard.  If you have an HOA, I guarantee you it's not allowed.  Free mulch that turns into topsoil is something you want.  We'll keep taking it until we no longer have room.

Another Layer of Wood Chips

Many years ago we implemented an "easier" way to garden.  It involves no tilling, minimal watering, and minimal weeding.  It's called The Back To Eden gardening method and is patterned after the way that soil is created naturally (by God) in the forests.  A brief summary is that the soil is never exposed.  The forest continually rains down leaves that decay, trees that rot and other organic matter that decomposes on the forest floor, creating topsoil and a haven for fungi, earthworms and other critters.  

We do the same by seeking out wood chips from crews clearing power line right-of-ways in the area.  They drop off load after load of wood chips at our house.  The price is right.  It's FREE!  Over the years, we've gotten between 50-100 loads.  The wood chip piles sit and decompose and shrink.  By the third year, it becomes rich topsoil.

With the newest mulch that hasn't turned to topsoil, Russ helped me and we began moving it to the garden.  In late August/early September, we plant the fall crop of vegetables.  We use a rock rake to pull back a minimal amount of existing wood chips, leaving maybe 6 inches of soil exposed.  We plant our seeds into a very narrow seed bed we've furrowed and then we cover with topsoil from totally decomposed wood chips we've run through our garden riddle. 

When those plants are about 5 or 6 inches tall, we move wagon loads of wood chip mulch and completely cover the existing chips and 6 inch strip of exposed soil around the young plants.  We aim for a 4 inch layer, ensuring that the wood chips completely surround the plants.  By doing so, the soil retains moisture, needing minimal irrigation.  The wood chips crowd out any weeds that might want to grow because the soil is covered by 4 inches of mulch and no sunlight can reach the soil where any weed seed might be.  Finally, the layer of mulch decomposes and by the next year, the mulch has become part of the topsoil in the garden, adding nutrients, organic matter and fertility.

Here's a peak at a portion of the garden that is completely mulched.

I have more wood chips to move, but the carrots and spinach is not tall enough yet, and I still need to plant radishes, turnips, and mustard greens.  I highly recommend Back to Eden gardening for anyone!

Joy Comes in the Morning

For several mornings, we'd hear "beep, beep, beep" and that would alert us that bright and early, the workers on the right-of-way crews were unhooking the wood chipper and backing down our driveway to dump another load of wood chips.  We filled up all of our available space and had to tell them that we couldn't take any more.  That's too bad.  But we have all we need for now.

I zoomed in on the photo above to show you what is going on.  Can you see the steam rising from the wood chip pile?  It wasn't even cool outside, but the piles are heating up.  The chips are decomposing and bacteria growth is starting to work.  Pretty soon we'll see mushrooms growing on the piles.  Some will be edible and some not.  Eventually, all this stuff will make some rich compost.  I move it wagon-load at a time to the back of the garden and layer wood chips and cow manure, wood chips and more cow manure.

We did lose a couple blueberry bushes in the drought, but the ones that survived are loaded up with blooms.  Tricia made homemade blueberry muffins this weekend and they were absolutely delicious.  I asked her how many blueberries we had left in the freezer, hoping we'd not run out before this year's crop comes in.

The bushes are a-buzz with honeybees.  In our beekeeping class, they told us that honeybees can boost crop productivity by 30%.  I hope that is true.  Our bees are certainly working the bushes hard.  Hopefully, we'll have a great blueberry crop.

One thing we haven't had for the last two years is citrus.  The intense freezes we've had for the past two years have decimated our trees.  I spent the last two days burning the dead citrus branches that our neighbors cut off of their trees.  They even lost some.  The only citrus tree we lost was a lemon tree.  The navel orange tree was damaged, BUT, I'm seeing blooms on it!

Same thing with the 1 year old Owari satsuma tree.  We bought another satsuma tree at the nursery in town that is supposed to be more cold hardy (down to 10 degrees Fahrenheit).

This tangerine tree has very minimal growth on it, but it's a fighter.  It has some blooms on it.

My stroll through the yard was a joyful one.  We may have citrus once again!

Too Much Mulch? Never!

In advance of storms (hurricanes, thunderstorms, or straight-line winds) the power companies contract out crews that trim trees along the side of the road that have limbs that could potentially fall across power lines and knock out power.  Those guys are constantly working.  They are right down the road from us and Tricia stopped and gave them our address.

It's not that we are interested in them cutting our limbs.  I hope they don't!  We are interested in the wood chips that they make.  They toss all the branches in a wood chipper that shoots the mulch into the back of their truck.  When the back of the truck is full, they need a place to dump the mulch.  That's where we come in.

Over the years we've lost count of how many loads we've taken.  We use the mulch in our garden as we use the "Back to Eden" Gardening method.  We've explained it before in past posts.  What a time-saver and labor-saver it is!  Anyway, shortly after giving our address, we received the first load:

We were grateful to receive the free gift.  We put it into our garden and it becomes part of the soil.  Here's the truck on its way out.  The workers will hook up the chipper to the back of the truck and begin trimming and chipping.  Soon they'll have another load.

So far we've received 4 loads.  My wife began talking to some of the gentlemen on the truck.  They told her they were originally from Cuba and that they've lived in Venezuela, too.  They made it very clear that they do NOT like communism and that the United States is the best country they've ever lived in.  These friendly, hard-working men love America.  It made me feel good to hear people saying nice things about our country for a change.  I love the USA!

For comparison purposes, I wanted to show you some wood chips that we had received two years ago (I think).  Notice the difference in the size of the pile.  Over time, bacteria decomposes the chips and the pile shrinks into half the size that it originally was.  Some might call this an eyesore on your property, and it probably is, but the benefits far outweigh the aesthetics in this case.  There are upsides to living in the country and not having an HOA.

The outer crust of the pile looks like wood chips, but if you scratch the surface, this is what you'll find:

The chips in the center of the pile are moist.  Mycelium runs through it, actively breaking it down.  Earthworms wiggle through the pile, actively working.  I take a bucket of the wood chips and put on some gloves and run handfuls of this across a piece of hardware clothe I have stretched across another bucket.  The scraping motion pulverizes the decomposed wood chips into a rich, black medium that is perfect for planting seeds into.  The bottom of the pile doesn't even need to be processed.  It is rich, dark topsoil.  This a a great amendment to the garden soil.

Knocking Things off the List

I had a somewhat easy day at work today, so it allowed me a little time in the mid-afternoon while I had some daylight left to knock two things off my list.  How's your To Do list?  If it's anything like mine, I add two things for every one I scratch off.  I'm not complaining, though.  That gives purpose and ensures productivity.  It protects one from the sin of slothfulness!

First item on the list:  Move mulch to the garden pile.  We have a number of piles of wood chips that have been decomposing.  As I make space in the back of the garden, I move it from the yard piles to the big pile in back of the sugarcane in the garden.  These piles have reduced significantly in size as they decompose.  It's time to go find the right-of-way clearing trucks and get some more.*

The interior of the pile is moist and full of mushrooms.  If I rub it all together in my hands, it turns to a rich soil-like substance - a nice growing medium.

In the big pile of wood chips in the back of the garden, I'm working on what I call bacteria compost lasagna.  I call it that because I have layered wood chips, cow poop, wood chips, dead chickens that the mink killed, wood chips and cow poop.  Today I put a cap on the lasagna but topping it off with wood chips.  The bacteria in the cow manure and dead chickens will inoculate the wood chip pile with bacteria.  The mushrooms will further break down the pile so that next year some time, I can move all this into the garden.  Then we start the process all over again.

Second item on the list was to "secure the hen house."  As you saw, the mink murdered a number (about two thirds) of our flock.  They did so by accessing the hen house at night by digging under the tin walls that weren't reinforced by bricks and cinder blocks and gaining entry.  Today, armed with some self-tapping screws, tin snips, a drill, and tin, I drove the tin into the ground deep and screwed it in securely and then piled bricks and rocks against the wall to discourage them.

I know what you're thinking.  "It ain't pretty!"  It's not.  This is an old hen house that was given to me and moved on site.  Over the years, the bottom tin rusted out leaving holes that tempted various varmints and vermin to find their way into the hen house.  That ends today.  I know it doesn't match and its not even.  A friend told me one time, "Animals don't care if it's pretty.  They don't care if the wood or tin is cut square.  It just has to be functional."  I subscribe to that!

It's all patched up.  Along the back wall where the roosts are, prior to my patching job, you could see sunlight from where the holes were.  Not anymore!  The only daylight you see is from the coop door that I have opened.

Third item was to patch up the holes in the rabbit hutches.  These are really, really old.  There were numerous holes in the roof and in the hardware cloth that would allow critters to get in and kill my chickens.  I fixed all of that and worked on latches for the doors.

You can see the hens making their way into the hutch on top.  That's where I lock them up for the night, safe from predators.  The bottom hutch is not ready so that we can move the hens from the chicken tractor that's in the yard.

I didn't want to move them before I had everything fixed as best as I could.  That was an afternoon of fixing things.  The next items are much more fun.  I'll be digging sweet potatoes and picking pecans.  Hope ya'll have a great weekend!

Wrapping Up a Garden/Chicken Project

We butchered all the roosters over a month ago.  We've been eating them and the taste is superb.  They are not as big as the Cornish Cross meat birds, but they taste better, we think.  The downside is that the Cornish Cross birds are ready for slaughter in only 8 weeks, while the birds we hatch from our own eggs take about 6 months to mature. 

Now that all the roosters but two are in the freezer, mostly hens remain in the chicken tractor.  I push them to new grass everyday and bring food and water.  I'm ready to make things easier.  It is time to incorporate this flock into the free-ranging flock out in the pasture.  It's always tricky trying to get the flocks to assimilate.  Birds of a feather, do indeed, flock together.  Before doing so, I'll trim the pullet's wings.

One project must be completed, first, though.  From past experience, I learned that young pullets can squeeze through the 4x4 mesh of the fencing that surrounds the garden.  Chickens get into the garden, scratch up seeds I have planted and eat the plants.  Worse than that, those that can't get in the garden, stick their heads through the fence and scratch away all the wood chip mulch, exposing the ground.  The exposed soil soon sprouts weeds that spread across the garden.  Not good!  

So I embarked on a labor intensive project.   I cut a 1 foot strip of 2x4 welded wire fence and wired it over the 4x4 fencing.  This will, I hope, bar entry into the garden of any pullets.  No way they can get through there.

Then I backfill with wood chip mulch to cover over and choke out any weeds that might try to grow from the previously exposed soil.  I pushed it right up against the fence and packed it in good.  Once it settles, I'll add even more.

I got mostly all of the garden fence complete.  I'm lacking a 6 foot portion on the east side and a 15 foot section against the south side.  I wanted to finish, but it got dark on me.

Once i have that finished, I'll release the chickens that are currently in the chicken tractor, into the pasture to roam - just not to roam in our garden.  Before I do that, I'll clip their wings so that they can't fly out.  Letting them loose on the pasture will save roughly 20 minutes a day in feeding, watering and pushing the tractor.  Always looking to make things more efficient.  We'll see if this time-consuming project pays dividends.

When the Poop Hits the Fan

 Oh boy, here we go...

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We've all seen images of Sri Lanka falling and their leaders being ousted from power.  Irate citizens storming the palace, swimming in the president's pool, and setting things on fire.  Costs are up, food and medical supplies are in short supply, people are hungry (and very angry).  Years of corruption led to a deep distrust in government.  The country is on its way to bankruptcy. 

What happened?  Their leaders bought into green energy.  Everything should be peachy, right?  Sri Lanka has an ESG score of 98 out of 100 - the highest in the world.  In April 2021, their leader, without notice, banned all imports of chemical fertilizers. This caught farmers by surprise and reduced yields of staple rice crops, driving prices higher.  Hunger is a great motivator.  It motivated regime change.

But look to the Netherlands...

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What is going on there?  The government sparked massive protests by proposing to cut the country's livestock in half to limit carbon emissions and agricultural runoff.  Dutch farmers also say that they feel disrespected the Dutch populace, media and politicians.  They are literally biting the hand that feeds them.

I'd like to talk about these two events for a moment.  Notice the similarity?  Poorly thought out government green initiatives caused this.  It is just my opinion and everyone has one.  Contrary to popular opinion, it is healthy and normal to think differently and have thoughts of your own.  We live on a little homestead farm where we grow approximately 90% of everything on our table.  It comes from right here off the land.  We don't use chemical based fertilizers or herbicides or pesticides.  (More on that in a minute.)  We generate very little waste.  We are about as green as it gets, but I abhor the green movement.  I love freedom.  The green movement is anything but.  I also feel that many green movement people don't practice what they preach.  These elites want to impose restrictions on you, while they're still living high on the hog. 

I want to show you how we grow our own fertility, but before I do, I want to tell you that since our country industrialized and most people live in the cities and don't grow their own food, chemical fertilizers are a must.  We won't use it on our little 5 acres, but if all the people in cities want food, and want it at an affordable price, synthetic fertilizers are a necessity to maintain yields and grow the amount of food and fiber needed to sustain life as we know it.

The other alternative is to have everyone do what I'm about to show you and grow your own food.  First, we compost everything.  All scraps go into a compost bucket that we walk out to the compost pile daily.  Egg shells, squash stems, onion skins, coffee grounds.  Everything goes into it.  

It all decomposes and rots down and attracts earthworms who do their thing in the soil and the soil fertility grows.  We also grow peas and beans that set nitrogen in the soil.  We're growing fertility.  We also make biochar and inoculate it with cow poop and bury in the garden.

At absolutely no cost, we have tree trimming companies deliver load after load of wood chips to us.  They dump them right there in the yard.  An eyesore, to be sure.  But it is gold.  For years trees pull fertility from the soil.  Then, when they are cut down and chipped, all that fertility remains.  It is imported to our 5 acres and I let it decompose.

After three years, this is what the wood chips turn into - black, rich, fertile topsoil!  I incorporate this into the garden.

We pick up dried cow patties and pile them in the back of the garden.  After they 'cool down' for a year, the cow manure is ready to be incorporated into the soil for fertilizer.

Here is our hen house.  You can see the roosting bars.  Chickens line the bars at night to roost, and they poop while they roost.  The poop falls beneath them, piles up and composts.  You've got to be careful with this.  It is so potent, if you put it directly in your garden, it will burn up all the plants.  It is wise to wait at least six months and preferably 9-12 months.

Here is some good composted manure that the hens produced.  Homegrown fertility.

This right here will grow some vegetables!

Those are just some of the ways we boost soil fertility and grow our own fertilizer.  We can do it on our 5 acre farm.  We're not trying to feed the world, though.  We're feeding our family.  We've also had years to learn and make mistakes and implement the new concepts.  How do you do this on hundreds of thousands of acres?  I don't know.  They want to drastically reduce the number of cows, so don't look in that direction.  Composting on that scale doesn't work either.  Chicken litter is used wider agriculturally for nitrogen application, but can't be currently broadcast as efficiently and economically as chemical fertilizers.

Before setting restrictions and making proposals about something like farming that most politicians know nothing about, government leaders would do well to have well-thought out alternatives drawn up and allow appropriate time to change.  Something (experience?) tells me government ain't gonna do that.  You can have the highest ESG scores in the world, but if there's no food to eat, your people are all in poverty, and your leaders are driven from power, what did you really accomplish?  When the poop hits the fan, you oughta pick it up and compost it and grow your own food.