Mulching the garden

[elainemary]

Now is a good time of year to mulch plants in your garden, ahead of spring growth. Preserves moisture so flowers will produce more pollen and nectar, plus no weeding then to be done later in the season when busy with the bees.

Shifted 20 cu m of partly decomposed woodchip last 2 weekends, c240 large wheelbarrows. Delivered in 2 x 10 cubic metre loads from our local tree yard. Ask for the oldest woodchip as partly broken down but never seen a negative effect on the soil or plants. Use garden compost too as an under layer.

Been doing this over last 10 seasons and now just top up and rotate sections of the garden that we’ve been working on

Whilst a cost, saves a lot of time weeding and the plants are all healthy and do well despite being at altitude here in the south Pennines

 

[Erichalfbee]

That's a good job done. We mulch with our own compost and 3 year old leaf mould....we have a lot of trees
The hens usually have a ball in it

 

[Wilco]

Make friends with the local tree surgeon. They usually have a massive mound of woodchip needing using!

 

[madasafish]

Three large compost heaps to take mainly leaves.. After two years festering, it makes lovely compost

 

[E&MBees]

Now is a good time of year to mulch plants in your garden, ahead of spring growth. Preserves moisture so flowers will produce more pollen and nectar, plus no weeding then to be done later in the season when busy with the bees.

Shifted 20 cu m of partly decomposed woodchip last 2 weekends, c240 large wheelbarrows. Delivered in 2 x 10 cubic metre loads from our local tree yard. Ask for the oldest woodchip as partly broken down but never seen a negative effect on the soil or plants. Use garden compost too as an under layer.

Been doing this over last 10 seasons and now just top up and rotate sections of the garden that we’ve been working on

Whilst a cost, saves a lot of time weeding and the plants are all healthy and do well despite being at altitude here in the south Pennines

That’s what I’m currently doing with my own garden, my parents and at work. Makes a massive difference to the soil, provides foraging opportunities for birds and stops the dogs feet getting so muddy! I do love the smell of wood chip!

 

[JamezF]

I love woodchip I've used it on top of cardboard to make all the paths in my veggie plot, polytunnel and greenhouse. I reckon I've got through perhaps half a dozen dumpy bags worth in the last eighteen months. Fortunately the contractors leave me all their waste when they do any tree work around the 11kV electricity cables along our road, and we had a couple of dead trees taken down in 2019 that generated a fair bit. After buying a trailer load on top of that, I decided to invest in this beastie:

It will eat just about anything that I consider too small to be worthwhile firewood.

I'm having serious thoughts about using the same idea (cardboard covered by woodchip) under the hive stands in the apiary. I have a large number of sycamore I'm planning to take down this winter because they're around a pond and clog it with dead leaves every autumn, so I hope to have plenty more.

Hadn't quite finished here (tail end of last March, I think):

But this was in May when the tomatoes were planted out in the polytunnel.

I did collect twelve dumpy bags full of fallen leaves last autumn, but I'm probably going to save those to mix with the compost in the event that we get a bit too heavy on the "green" stuff (easily happens in the summer with the veg waste and grass clippings) and I need to balance it out a bit.

James

 

[E&MBees]

I love woodchip I've used it on top of cardboard to make all the paths in my veggie plot, polytunnel and greenhouse. I reckon I've got through perhaps half a dozen dumpy bags worth in the last eighteen months. Fortunately the contractors leave me all their waste when they do any tree work around the 11kV electricity cables along our road, and we had a couple of dead trees taken down in 2019 that generated a fair bit. After buying a trailer load on top of that, I decided to invest in this beastie:

It will eat just about anything that I consider too small to be worthwhile firewood.

I'm having serious thoughts about using the same idea (cardboard covered by woodchip) under the hive stands in the apiary. I have a large number of sycamore I'm planning to take down this winter because they're around a pond and clog it with dead leaves every autumn, so I hope to have plenty more.

Hadn't quite finished here (tail end of last March, I think):

But this was in May when the tomatoes were planted out in the polytunnel.

I did collect twelve dumpy bags full of fallen leaves last autumn, but I'm probably going to save those to mix with the compost in the event that we get a bit too heavy on the "green" stuff (easily happens in the summer with the veg waste and grass clippings) and I need to balance it out a bit.

James

Where did you get your shredder from? I need a new one at work. Current one is useless.

 

[user 20297]

I decided to invest in this beastie:

It will eat just about anything that I consider too small to be worthwhile firewood.

James, I like your technique. Does the chipper work on softer stuff such as dead perennial stems or thin clippings when cutting back bushes? It looks like a belter of a machine

 

[JamezF]

Where did you get your shredder from? I need a new one at work. Current one is useless.

I spent ages looking for one that would go on the PTO of my mini-tractor, but they just seemed to be hideously expensive even second hand, so I started looking around for a self-powered one. I got the impression that the ones around the 15bhp mark are much more effective than the smaller models and when I started comparing them all I found that whoever is selling them, they all look as though they share an awful lot of parts. I'd not be surprised if they all come from the same factory in China where the company that is ordering can decide which design of outlet they want, which engine manufacturer they'd prefer, what hopper mounting they'd like, how the emergency cut-off should work and what colour they'd like it. Oh, some had electric start, too.

So given that I'm not really going to work it that hard, I went for one at the cheaper end of the market from these people:

Crytec Products

If I was going to be using it every day then I might have gone for one with a real Briggs & Stratton engine rather than what I believe is a Chinese clone, but the price got a lot higher at that point (and look like they've gone up some more since I bought mine).

It came in a thin ply crate and took about an hour to put together. Assembly instructions were non-existent, but there's a video on the site (for a machine in a completely different vendor's colours). I recycled the crate to extend a trailer for catching the woodchip



For what I want, it's been fantastic. There were other brands that arborist-types seem to rave about for commercial use, but they were way out of my price bracket. I could really only justify the price of this one on the grounds that it would mean I'd be saving money on not having to buy as much compost and woodchip as a result. I bought six tonnes of council green waste compost in 2020, another six tonnes last year and probably about a tonne of woodchip last year. That adds up to well over half what I paid for the chipper, so if I don't have to buy any more for a few years then it will probably pay for itself.

James

 

[JamezF]

James, I like your technique. Does the chipper work on softer stuff such as dead perennial stems or thin clippings when cutting back bushes? It looks like a belter of a machine

It's happy to take softer stuff if there's not too much of it at once and it's fed through with a bit of thicker material at the same time. My in-laws (who live in our "granny annexe") had someone in at the tail end of last year to tidy up some hedges and shrubs and I fed all of that through it, but there were also brambles, a few self-seeded tree saplings and stuff like that as well as the lighter prunings. If there's too much lightweight stuff all in one go I think it struggles to get clear of the outlet.

My father-in-law has one of those electric shredders you can buy in the DIY sheds and I'd probably use that if I just had lots of soft stuff. Or spread it out on the ground and go over it with the lawnmower.

The smaller petrol shredders (around 6bhp) might actually be better with light stuff because they tend not to have outlet chutes. They just drop the chopped material on the ground. They're allegedly not really that happy if you feed bigger stuff through them though (even though they claim to be able to take it).

James

 

[Skinfaxi]

Where did you get your shredder from? I need a new one at work. Current one is useless.

I got a stihl viking gb460. It works well up to 7cm hardwood branches.
It is good for rose clippings and soft perenniels