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.

The Birdhouse Gourd Arbor

Our wood chip pile at the south end of the garden has been invaded!  Heirloom Louisiana Ribbon Sugar cane grows in there, but so does luffa gourds, watermelon, cantaloupe, Tahitian Melon Squash, butternut squash, and lastly, birdhouse gourds.  The birdhouse gourd vines are prolific - almost like kudzu.  They grow everywhere and at night, their white blooms decorate the wood chip pile.

This year I decided to make an arbor or a trellis with an old piece of reinforcement fencing that I normally use for a cucumber trellis.  Except this time I made it into an arch in order to make a tunnel of sorts to walk through.  We have a pathway down the eastern side of the garden that opens to a gate leading to the barn.  Each day we walk this path several times.  

The tendrils of the birdhouse gourds grasp anything in their way, clinging tightly.  The tendrils have "springs" that allow it to flex as the winds blow.

The big leaves of the vine are growing and as the vines stretch out, they will eventually shade out the area.  I like that idea.  Tricia is a little concerned that snakes might lurk in the birdhouse gourd arbor and fall down on her as she passes beneath it.  That would not be good.  I would never hear the end of it.

The birdhouse gourd gets its name because, once dried, you can drill a hole and make a nice birdhouse.  We made several of these in prior years.  Unfortunately, the birds were slow on the take and wasps found that they were perfect places in which to build nests.  We will try again this year.  Tricia has painted some of them different colors and hangs them from tree branches like ornaments.  They are full of seeds and when shaken, they can be a musical instrument.  Finally you can cut them in half and make a dipper for getting water to drink out of a bucket.

As the trellis fills out with leaves and the gourd crop comes in, we'll update you on the progress.