That Crazy Guy
If you need me, I’ll be the crazy guy in the park shoveling dead leaves and sticks into five gallon buckets and putting them in his trunk.
No, I’m not kidding, unfortunately. I live in a new housing community. It’s three years old. There are no trees. I use a recycling/mulching lawnmower. The only thing I harvest that gives me lots of dead material is weeds, and those don’t really make good mulch because of their zombie-like tendency to come back to life in the most improbable of places. Other than food compost, I don’t have much left to put in the garden to help refresh it!
What else is a gardener to do? Any other ideas?
Such dedication! I am slowly getting to the point where i will make my own compost. For mulch, I use last year’s straw that I get from my old dog’s bed but last year I bought cotton mulch. Didn’t do as well as I thought so I am back to straw.
Paul James (Gardening by the Yard) buys bails of hay and lets them sit for up to a year so that they’re all moldy inside and starting to break down. He says that he loves it for his compost bin.
Mm. Mold. That’s a great idea, though. Living in a rural area, I’m sure that I’ve got access to some moldy hay that I don’t know about.