Just a reminder - I used our electric mulcher to mulch up old / gone to seed vegetable matter that the chickens don't eat (eg turnips, carrots, broccoli stems) to add back into the garden beds. I dug in the chopped up veg matter, gave a water and covered with mulch - this year pea straw/sugar cane mulch.
This week I peeled back the mulch to take a look at a few of the beds and I was amazed at the worm activity. The soil was still lovely and moist, and almost all the vegetable matter had disappeared / ceased to be identifiable in the soil. And the worms! Amazing! You can get the same impact by growing a green manure crop and then chopping/digging it on to the soil, but this method skips the growing part!
If you don't have a mulcher you could run over the garden waste (not weeds) with a lawnmower. The picture shows unmulched soil on the left, and mulched on the right - you can easily see the difference in moisture content.
Elsewhere in the garden - potatoes (kipfler) and tomatoes
Scarlet runner / seven year beans - no need to replant, they apparently DO go on for 7 years...or at least 2 so far in my case, and a pumpkin
Cornflowers, and oca and yacon
4 comments:
Garden looks great, don't you just love comfrey flowers, almost worth growing just to see them.
I am going to ask for a shredder/mulcher thingo for Christmas, hopefully this year they will believe I am serious. My kids think I am bonkers and surely must really prefer chocolate, body butter and candles - bless 'em.
Can't you have a mulcher AND the chocolate?! :-)
Just found your great blog - wonderful. Great idea to dig in organic matter straight into the soil then mulch over it - I'll definitely try that.
Thanks for stopping by Lanie - good luck with the mulching!
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