Comments on Outside Clyde: Breaking Garden Taboos

Ooh, I love taboo-breaking! Can't wait for your re...

2008-05-17T18:22:00.000-05:00

Ooh, I love taboo-breaking! Can't wait for your report on the results.

Hi Melissa, thanks for stopping by. I need to spen...

2008-05-15T16:53:00.000-05:00

Hi Melissa, thanks for stopping by. I need to spend some time checking out your NC blog. A quick look indicated I could get lost for a while there.

Hello from a fellow NC gardener. I've learned a LO...

2008-05-15T10:09:00.000-05:00

Hello from a fellow NC gardener. I've learned a LOT about wives tales lately...hadn't heard that one! Love your blog, garden on!

Carol is right, the soil itself is what is most im...

2008-05-14T21:49:00.000-05:00

Carol is right, the soil itself is what is most important. The resident gardeners have been adding bagged compost and manure for decades and green manure cover crops every so often.

My approach will be to add a thick layer of wood chip mulch annually, depending on the decomposition rate and a sprinkle of granular fertilizer as needed. I am too lazy to mix and use foliar spray fertilizer.

I think the secret isn't so much what the mulch do...

2008-05-14T21:28:00.000-05:00

I think the secret isn't so much what the mulch does, but how rich is the soil beneath? I think your garden will do just fine. You'll know what to do if the leaves start to look yellow.

I'll be planting my summer crops as soon as this rain let's up. Too wet to dig right now, even in the raised beds of my garden.

Carol, May Dreams Gardens

Can you get an organic liquid fertilizer to foliar...

2008-05-14T20:28:00.000-05:00

Can you get an organic liquid fertilizer to foliar feed the vegetables, Christopher? It's easy to find in Austin - don't know about NC.

Annie

As far as I'm concerned, fresh mulch beats no mulc...

2008-05-14T17:06:00.000-05:00

As far as I'm concerned, fresh mulch beats no mulch. And free is very good.

It is huge and going to get bigger. The section wh...

2008-05-14T07:48:00.000-05:00

It is huge and going to get bigger. The section where some roses had been heeled in is going to be reclaimed for vegetables.

A Cow manure dressing is on the list for the veges. In Hawaii my normal bed making procedure was a lasagna style layer of cow manure or good compost, top by a 4 to 6 inch layer of wood chips and a sprinkle of balanced fertilizer. In twenty years I never had

Christopher;I have looked into the wood chips issu...

2008-05-14T07:02:00.000-05:00

Christopher;

I have looked into the wood chips issue myself (since that's all I have, free), and the new "received wisdom" seems to be that the nitrogen uptake occurs only at the interface between the thin mulch layer at the soil surface and the microorganisms beneath, and therefore is insignificant as LONG AS the mulch remains only on the surface. Apparently, it is when the mulch

Hi Christopher, your plantings did show no sign of...

2008-05-14T05:14:00.000-05:00

Hi Christopher, your plantings did show no sign of any kind of deficiency with yellowing leaves, but they were just planted that day. I have seen fresh mulch do that before, but it doesn't happen immediately. Maybe some well composted stuff, I like Black Kow in a bag, around each tomato and pepper with the mulch pulled away. You could do an experiment, feed some but not all to see what happens

It's huuuge. I am green with envy. It's the aver...

2008-05-14T00:45:00.000-05:00

It's huuuge. I am green with envy.

It's the average last frost date. You develop a feel for these things, right.

I'm all for breaking taboos, but I'm a little concerned the woodchips will deplete your soil's most available nitrogen. Can you get your hands on a bag of alfalfa meal?