Monday, July 7, 2014

Garden -- time to plan

If you've been waiting that one cycle while you figure out where your best sun is, you should be about done.
Now it's time to plan your seeds.
You know that you need an area that gets sun by 8 a.m. so your tomatoes don't develop blight.
Unfortunately almost all your summer veggies are like that.
So now you might have to choose between tomatoes and zucchini, because the zucchini will take up all the space you can give it.
What's more, you might need to soup up the soil if you want to try for cauliflower, broccoli, or cabbage.  That would mean putting manure under the compost -- but you can't  put your tomatoes in the same place because that's too rich for tomatoes.
Then you need to find a source for FULLY COMPOSTED manure, which won't have that smell your neighbors will hate, and for plain compost
NOT mulch.  Mulch prevents growth.  You want to promote the growth of your veggies.
I was talking to a guy in my town who does "landscaping" and twice he said mulch and I corrected him to compost.  I did hire him to haul my compost.  He offered to haul unpackaged compost.  I didn't want to pay him to do the spreading.  He hauled bags of our local bagged compost for me, stacked the bags where I said, and I did the spreading. 
By the way, if you do want to prevent growth somewhere, absolutely read Mike McGrath's fulminations against the pine-fragranced stuff that may actually be broken up shipping pallets and not real pine bark.  Also the scientific research.
Yes, there are good mulches.
Also notice at the end of this article, information about a termite killer that ISN'T going to poison you, your pets, your kids, and wildlife.
And that's how you plan to have a healthy, low-cost, non-poisonous yard next year.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

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