Using Garden Waste as a Mulch
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- Опубликовано: 27 авг 2024
- A viewer recently asked me what I do with my garden waste - and of course I mulch it - so it made sense to turn my answer into a video to show people exactly how I do that.
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That lawn mower mulch looks amazing! What a great idea! Thank you Greg!
You bet!
That mower mulch looks awesone, l cant believe lve been gardening so long & didnt think of it sooner...!
Hello Greg, Interesting for sure! I have learned a lot from you and the way you garden. This year alone I’ve added a 3’ X 8’ planting bed. When the craziness started, I remembered the way you put potatoes down and planted some your way and that bed will now have my garlic in a couple of weeks. It has been covered with leaves I used for the potatoes. I see the leaves are breaking down nicely, I still have a bag and a half of leaves I saved last fall and will have more coming in a couple of weeks.
Thank you for showing your way of gardening is easier on me, much appreciated!😉
Great to hear, thanks LC :)
I got really excited today when I realized that I will finally have a place to put my sunflower stalks: in the wooden garden boxes I will get made this fall! Or I will run them through my chipper! My husband will be so happy, that I’m not throwing them over fence, by the creek! 😂 watching your videos makes me think of so much stuff that should be obvious!
I’ve been storing some of my garden waste for fall. Been also using all my grass clippings in the garden. Even the stuff from my back yard. I never used it before, because that is where my dogs have access. But I’m relaxing about that!
I ordered my garlic from Vesey’s today! Excited to get it in the fall! Thank you for being so generous of your time & knowledge.
Awesome!
Thanks for the demo Greg. Very helpful.
You're welcome
Makes perfect sense. That's the very reason I switched from 'old style' gardening to beds!! WEEDS.Too old to compete with weeds!🤠 Not that I didn't mulch...it was just a " half-assed" effort,I guess.
mulch depth makes difference. A combo of mulch and sheets of newspapers works really good as a weed barrier if you are low on mulch.
Hello big day today it’s yard waste day this week so I went out to get some of those huge paper bags of leaves. The heavier ones should have grass clippings in them so I took a few of them too. Anyway just a note here from one place they were loaded with pieces of garbage foam in the bottom. Lots of work too. I’m not going to do that anytime soon.
Oh no!
AWESOME video Greg...totally agree with you! I use a ton of Maple Leaves and Grass Clippings this time of year and as a matter of fact am heading out to mow right now to make more mulch! I also use all the waste from the gardens...but I am lazier than you, I tend to just cut up the old garden crops with clippers as I am throwing it onto the designated bed and done!
Being overun by my fall kale and collards and am now canning a bunch of it up (freezer space is now at a premium!)
Anyway man keep those great videos coming!
Have a great day and stay safe!
Mike😀👍
Thanks man
I dehydrate my extra greens then put them in a blender to make green powder for smoothies, soups and casseroles. You store it in a glass jar. Takes up very little space that way.
Creme de la creme indeed! Lawn mower your mulch is quite a bold idea. You have converted me to eating parsnips. I didn't know what I was missing.
Yam of the North!
Great video, Just reminded me I need to fix my small lawnmower for fall mulching, Been in drought conditions and only had to mow twice this growing season but the old mulch on the garden has kept me from watering every day.
Right on
Thank you!!! This is very timely & informative!! Guess I know what I am doing tomorrow!!! Thanks!!
Glad it was helpful!
I always used leaf mulch in my garden but I also always tilled a lot but after listening to you and others I'm going to switch to the no till method. I like using vetch as a cover crop in some beds in the fall so I'll have to see how the vetch germinates on top of my leaf mulch this year. I'll just weed wack the vetch in the spring instead of tilling next year though. Thanks for another great video.
Youngsang Cho, author of JADAM Organic Farming, advocates a similar approach. the Koreans have been using it for 4,000 years. They do not rotate crops and all the waste from one crop goes back on the same bed. He says the best fertilizer for tomatoes is tomatoes!!! Yes, they put on diseased plants too. I had a relative who grew amazing rhubarb and you could have all you wanted, but the leaves had to stay on the rhubarb bed. When we look at nature, she always fertilizes with what she grows. They also feed the soil with microorganisms they grow, and supplement a little bit for the minerals the plant fruits remove from the soil with sun dried sea salt and rock dust. Of interest to you Greg is that he notes that gardens near the ocean always do better because they get some of the sea salt from the air. It takes VERY little. He has an extensive series of RUclips videos under the name of the book. I had to order the book out of the States because it was out of stock in Canada. More expensive at $69 CDN. But still a good value. He advertises another book of 100 Herbs (he didn’t author it). I bought it and returned it. Very poorly done. I wrote a very long review that is posted on Amazon - not sure if it’s under .com, .ca or both. Sometimes the Korean/English translation leaves a bit to be desired, but I made it work. BTW, he intentionally makes smelly plant teas! The odour is caused by nitrogen... the smellier the better. Keep up the great work... and keep well.
Love your mulching and bed making videos!
Glad you like them!
this video was really helpful . . . I don't have a bag for my mower and my garden is small but like another commenter I just used garden shears and took my time snipping. . I also didn't bother to pull the plants out of the ground, weeds and veg, but do you think I should have done that first? Guess I was just being lazy but also thought maybe pulling out the roots would disturb the soil and the roots will rot over the winter, but maybe that's not a great idea. , Have you ever tried that? One other question . . . I have found a local supplier of composted cow manure and wondered if that should go on the garden now, or should I leave it till the spring? I plan to also get some hay and add that for winter mulch, with a few spruce boughs to keep it all in place . . . we live in a windy spot. I love this new approach to no-till gardening, and thinking of the soil not being disturbed just makes so much sense. Thank you for showing us the path!!
Most of the veg will rot - unless they are binennial plants. Many of the weeds are biennial or perennial - so they will come back - so you should pull those
So cool! Thanks Greg 😁
You bet!
Hi, that may have been me who asked the question you are addressing in this video, if not, I asked one just like it and I do appreciate seeing how you drive over the garden waste with your mower! I suspect my mower may be a bit too wimpy to handle that but I’ll be giving it a try. I have been busily collecting and distributing mulch with high hopes for next year when a new question occurred to me. Each year I get tons of poppies, cosmos and other annuals reseeding themselves. They are so prolific in some areas I distribute them all over the yard. Now I worried that I will be missing out on this free display by covering with mulch the areas that reseed themselves! 😩
Some plants are better at pushing through mulch than others - can't speak to poppies and cosmos. Try an experiment with varying amounts of mulch - 1", 2" none at all - make note of how much you used in each spot and see what happens - then tell me. I''ve found that a lot of things can get up through an inch of mulch no problem.
Ok, I’ll let you know come spring. The charming thing about these flowers is that happily reseed themselves, no effort from me except I move them around to more appropriate places. Now I’m envisioning the seed falling on top of the mulch and becoming that seed that won’t grow. The mulch I scored for free is grass clippings and it has gotten quite matted down and attracted flies too (I’m envisioning wearing long sleeves, hat and scarf as you do, yikes) since it’s quite stinky. But I sometimes get spoiled hay from the local stable and I may be able to switch out the grass for the hay. Hmmm.
Greg, Have you ever put what turned out to be TOO MUCH mulch on top of one of your beds? If so, what let you know that you had put too much on? I think I may have over-mulched mine last year and I think that's why I had so many rodents living in my garden last winter. Do you think it inhibits the rate of composting if piled on 8" deep or more?
I agree - and rodents are the sign that you put too much on as you so astutely seem to have inferred. I've tried all different depths and I think 2-3" is the best. The soil still freezes, but that means the moles and voles can't proliferate to the same extent.
Onion
YEET!
Potato
YEET!
I'm sure he has a pile that he brings into the house, he YEETs to his collection pile. ; ) no waste.
You should check out Charles Dowdings' experiments on NOT doing crop rotation, I think you'll find that the standard idea of crop rotation is false
Charles adds inches of compost to his gardens every year - that's mainly why it's not necessary for him. I would have to create and move about 4 cubic yards of compost each year to add an just an inch of it to my garden beds. I think it's a lot easier to move things around a bit.
An Onion potato and tossed salad your ready for supper
:) Lol great video much love xoxox
Thanks
@@maritimegardening4887 your welcome
Hi, another great video 👍.
Thanks for the visit
If the plants are the ones you planted in the garden in the first place, then the seeds in them will be of the good variety, and it makes sense not to cook them, but let them grow next year, where they become a light snack or more mulch~
Hey Greg, thanks again for they knowledge you spread. One day I hope my channel is as established as yours!
I hope so too!
Lawnmower = poor man's chipper shredder! LOL.
Seriously, though, the lawnmower is the easy way to chip down weeds, garden waste, and fallen leaves.
5' X 6' X 2" = 37 gallons.
Great info Thanks
Glad it was helpful!
What a great idea!! Will you plant anything in it right now, or will this bed rest until spring?
I plant garlic this time of year - that's about it - things like spinach and lettuce don't really amount to much when planted in Sept here
Would love a future video on crop rotation. I have read all different things on but can’t seem to find any concrete info. Leaf, fruit, root, legume but shouldn’t alliums have their own category? Mostly I just don’t do the same crop two years in a row but my garden is definitely dominated by root veggies. Any advice is appreciated.
I've been thinking of making that the theme for my next podcast. Next Saturday I should have your answers :)
Thanks for the helpful information. How about using crabgrass yard waste for mulch? We have a whole lot of this weed!
I don't have it here so I can't speak to using it - not sure how readily it takes root - etc. I use grass all the time - but some grasses can be very invasive and will take over your whole garden
Crab grass is both invasive and roots much to easily.
I can not put it in my cold compost pile and won't use it as a mulch. Good luck.
I love the idea of using garden waste as mulch. We have a lot of insect problems here in Iowa; bean leaf beetles, asparagus and flea beetle, ect. They over winter in garden litter and soil. What do you suggest about this?
Manage pests as best as you can, and of course rotate crops where you can (doesn't work for asparagus I know). If you stick with the no-till approach, eventually your pest predator population should increase and help out. # years ago here my pests were kinda bad - but this year I hardly had to deal with them at all. I saw more birds and wasps than ever so I guess they are doing most of the work for me now :)
If non-rotation works for perennials, why not apply the same logic to annuals? I’m giving it a try for a few seasons. Iove the lawn mower mulcher. I hardly have any grass/lawn, but I do keep the mower mulcher busy. :-)
Perennials are different that annuals - different growing pattern, different root structure that gets larger each year. They are well adapted to growing in place, and they are not constrained by the season in the same way that annuals are - many of them, for instance, have root systems that go below the frost line. Think about how some of them grow well before the soil has thawed. Annuals , but contrast, have to get everything from the top layer,and they have to get it fast, and many of them are very vulnerable to pests and disease because they are not native (at least here in Canada they're not native).
Just ran over some weeds I have pulled weeks back.much easier mulch for beds.need to break up my lrg bed to something more manageable
your mulch doesn't get blown off with the wind?
It sort of knits together and stays in place - we get high winds here so it works man.
So what happens in spring, do you take some of that mulch off? Why isn't the snow enough of a blanket? Newbie here! :) from Alberta. Oh ya, I've been collecting my coffee grinds to put in the garden, what do you think? How much per bed 4*8?
The snow is a blanket - but doesn't give the worms much to eat - happy worms = awesome garden
@@maritimegardening4887 Thank you
will this method work on pole bean vines?
Yes :)
your veg look great, do you buy any fertister?
No, I have never used fertilizer in my garden - as I said in the video, the mulch breaks down and feeds the soil