RussianFibers

Friday, November 3, 2017

Wood chips... leaves and other mulch sources

Where to get wood chips or whatever materials. Free most importantly.
It's autumn - now. Meaning the time is now. The nature will work for you in colder and likely more humid weather (if you are in an arid climate like I am).

Here are several ways to get free mulch.

1) Chip and collect your own wood chips. All the branches , leaves.
Leaves are free with this method, but wood chips are not.
Chipping your own works if your location is remote and you have to process the tree waste and can not do hugelculture. Chipping your own as it is very tedious work for not a lot of return. Household chipper will produce after about 20 or 30 minutes maybe a cubic foot of chipped tree waste. It is good to cover 2-3 square feet of garden. Residential-sized wood chippers that can handle branches up to 3 inches (8 cm) are fairly costly (upwards of $500 new). If you can get a deal on a used one, it may be more economical, but it certainly isn’t all that efficient. Don’t forget that your “free” wood chips are now costing you a lot.

2) Free chips can be collected so from craigslist. Look for the local adds, and post one that you want wood chips. People who remove trees will drop off free. All depends on the location and how 'on the way' is your property.
These come in loads of 10-20 yards. That's your best bet.

3) Free leaves from neighbors in bags. Go pick up and the time is now. Post an add on local craigslist for leaves, for straw bales, for grass. I made me keyhole garden like that with free logs, leaves, grass and branches. It did grow over 200 pounds of food and I do not even know how many zucchini did I give away from that garden... that one went a bit crazy...
Lots of leaves can be collected from local neighborhoods. Have tarp in your car that will minimize the mess and make the clean up easy. If there is a concern about leaves flying look for local coffee processor, they will give away burlap. Starbucks will not, not likely...

4) Free grass clippings - pick up in summer for compost, dry grass makes very good mulch and no, that one does not fly away as easy as many would think. Neither do chipped leaves. These will come your way in spring when people do power-rake the lawns. These are handy and good mulch as well. It does not fly in the wind much. Surprisingly...

5) Search on google maps , white pages or what have you in your area for tree service, start calling and get yourself on the list for chips drop off. Say that you take pine as well (and no it's not bad, not too acidic, especially if you are on alkaline soil like I am that's the chips you want, they do decompose just fine and make good soil) . These are large loads 10-20 yards.

6) Call local power utility company and get yourself on the drop off list there, they all trim trees near power lines. These can be not a full load and if you are on the way they will drop off.

7) Call your local municipality/county and see what is their waste management doing and if they give away wood chips to public for water conservation. Lots of places do. Most will not load your truck except of particular days. This way one can get free smaller loads + truck gas.

8) Call local waste management. Some municipalities not only recycle they also compost.
They likely to have wood chips pick up location. They most likely will not load the truck. Some will on specific days in spring.

9) use https://getchipdrop.com Did not have whole lot of luck with that one so... Was on the list forever and nothing.

10) Pay attention on the road if you see that wood chips truck call them and say do you want to drop off wood chips guys? I'm right behind you here is the address. That's how I found me lots and lots of very free wood chips from local tree service that happened to work in the area often.

11) see local utility company or whatever tree people working the tree ask if they need a drop off and give them your address and contact. These personal contacts were most successful for me.

12) Keep the list of tree services. If you got on the drop off list once does not mean they still have your info, keep it updated and make sure you still want the wood chips.

13) Ask around if you see tree people working. Those loads that are close always are free.

14) Some tree people will deliver for a fee. That works well for people who are more 'out of the way' and remote.

BTE summary

This year amount of BTE on the property was increased significantly, aka we've got wood chips, lots of them, and neighboring property is converting dry lot (several acres) into BTE. If I'd write an update that would be a lot of text, I was doing some blog posts.

that's autumn all done and covered kind of a picture in kitchen garden

that's summer...

Things done BTE on property covered in blog posts are:

BTE over concrete, that's impossible, right? Nope...

BTE over concrete, for real, the plates inside that bed ... I do not know how deep, but when I tried to move dirt I found at least 3 concrete slabs like... parking lot kind one on top of another...) so that BTE grows where it not supposed to grow anything but ugly weeds

see below from the same spot. garden nick-named the circle of life.
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/08/squashes.html
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/09/autumn-new-gardens-updates.html

it did grow 300 pounds of squash... that was not planned :) and unknown amount of sunchokes sitting in there... last time when these were that tall in my kitchen garden I dug out 2 45 gallons tubs of those from 2 small areas... well that one is... o lot bigger, like 10 times bigger in diameter...
do I need potatoes after that...

BTE berry patch old patch
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/02/garden-season-retrospective-part-4-of-n.html
and new moved patch
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/09/rain-of-desert.html

BTE keyhole from how to build for free garden with multiple updates through the season
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/03/about-keyhole-garden.html
that did grow some plants...

and update-progress
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/07/keyhole-garden-update.html

BTE and rain harvesting and wicker bed
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/03/soils-restorations-water-management-and.html
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/09/rain-of-desert.html
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/09/end-of-september-gardens.html

BTE and spiral garden
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/09/autumn-new-gardens-updates.html

BTE sheet composting
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/09/end-of-september-gardens.html
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/10/october-something-old-and-something-new.html

BTE and land slopes management using terraces
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/02/no-dig-terraces-stage-2.html

BTE and extreme rain management (dry creeks and wicker beds, passive irrigation)
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/08/planting-rain-eclipse.html

BTE farm road and water management (it used to be mud after spring rains and we would get in there after November in winter, and in march before melt... next time in late July-August after 2 month no rain at all, now I can receive large 5 ton truck of mulch there and earth worms are living inside my mulched road, I'm not even kidding, for real...)

http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/09/end-of-september-gardens.html
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/10/fog-fog-fog.html
all done

BTE and chickens (use of fermented feed, fodder for like $20 system to feed 20 birds+ etc)
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/03/chicken-feed-different-free-or.html

BTE summer maintenance
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/07/summer-maintenance.html
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/08/summer-maintenance-in-progress.html

BTE winterizing and season extension
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/10/it-is-fall-all-right-cleaning-picking.html
http://russianfibers.blogspot.com/2017/10/winterized.html

hope some of these things will help someone in BTE farm management.
High mountain desert, alkaline soil 8.5+, zone 5a-5b, wild weather swings, high winds (55mph afternoon in spring for month is our normal) , last frost May 28, not unheard of in June, first frost September 15 or even earlier, humidity 10%, we go several month without rain then flood rains, so I do collect and conserve water, we also do have some irrigation water rights.

Friday, October 27, 2017

Winter around the corner

With winter strong winds came some damages. These are the memories f my nice hawthorn tree that was busted in half by the wind

this one is all gone, good I did not cu the growth around the trunk...

that tiny little twig on the bottom of this tree is all that's left ofit, hopefully will grow back... and the harvest

Winter means lots of dead bugs and birds going for extra protein, nope chickens are not vegetarian eaters by any means... they hunt and mean business, this one is older hen, molting bad

They finally found this bed nd did some digging

And this one, but not as interested... it has only 1 tree and that's it for now.

Sun room is set up with the self watering tubs experiment and the greens for the winter are seeded.

caged this time, because last time one particular critter thought the soft dirt is just it to go dig the heart away...hopefully they will have enough sun. Here it is, the winter garden experiment.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Fog fog fog

Fog again. It's second time this year, and in autumn...

I kind of came to like fog... maybe because it's so rare in the desert here. It does happen
And when it does everything enjoys it. Maybe except of the travelers...

Last layer of wood chips was put on the farm road at the back, sunchokes love all the rain water and snow melt we had however much that was (an inch and a half is a big deal here)

Evening the road an unexpected thing was discovered... the stuff is composting and there are earthworms living in that wood chips road cover... mind you there are very large wood chip trucks going over it... ones tree services use, they are 5 tons at least...

worms living in the road... that's new.

Hm... that's kind of... I do not know... farm fork... rest... pause... quiet...

So, the new 2017 garden beds update.

All is coming to the close of the season.
Now this one is called the circle of life garden. Because of sunchokes. They do make a circle.
It's not bad for BTE over the concrete at all. These things are 6-8+feet... for some of them when they were not all under the snow

to the point.. I want them to make a half-circle next year , they did very very well

Borrage is all done, only late season wild flowers are there

yarrow

cone flower and some mint

Will see the yellow from rudebeckia and white from yarrow and mint and pinks/lavender/blues from salvia and cone flowers... should be pretty with pale blues of borrage

Keyhole garden is all cleaned up, winterized just not planted with garlic yet

only white cone flower is there

and... holyhock, just one... but I've got seeds...

Spiral garden all cleaned up and winterized. I'm leaving wild flowers and late autumn blooming flowers for bees not trimmed

And perspective of all garden clusters with my new under construction permaculture cluster bed

there is someone in the fog...

is there...

maybe over there

or there... did hear someone

there?

maybe...

There is

it all gets lost in the fog. And no I did not mean those are mine... :), they are in the fog... come, look and go.

Fog in orchard perspective

one way

and the opposite way

close ups... oh that cheat grass germinating... soon the winter ground covers and wild flowers will go. but maybe I'll just throw wood chips there again

Someone's home in there... hopefully bull snake and not voles or some other rodent

And the ugly tumbleweed... gotta pick that up...

My C-shaped mounds have cover of wood chips and also generous helping of borage plants. these will sprout in spring and will be nice for the bees.

and orchard blooms. Clearly need a hair cut before February :).

Wind block and grass

some failures and successes. Caragana with no irrigation is good, seaberry failed. Have a backup so

Some trees are turning colors.

New aronia close up, will be a pretty tree.

Aspens are turning yellow a bit. Chickens are cleaning whatever they found there...

Front beds turned autumn color

roses said goodbyes for the season, and grapes

Foggy garden falling asleep, at least some of it, morning snoozing...

but he's (Alpha) wide away and on the guard duty on the front of the kitchen garden (he sure wants in... the WORMS... yeah, right dude, that's a negative in form of 6 feet fence )... and some others are digging behind the garden tearing up my bindweed (under the supervision of the Alpha's very own son). Better that than my new flower bed :)

at least sometimes :) Alpha is on the duty..sort off

That's his son... what should we call him... Beta... no that's a fish that does not roll with chicken

he's watching over his own pack of new pullets and he knows they are ready to lay.. can not wait for more eggs because older hens are all molting and slacking

busy :)

that's my next project for the autumn, to get it all fixed and covered. These maples are on theor last leg and their replacement Russian hawthorns will be plated as soon as out 70+mph winds subside... it's pretty crazy afternoon...

Ponderosa is not doing badly, but I know that red ring blight is there, the trees is fighting it, I did see the sap at new needles where the blight fungus is trying to set. Locust trees need a good trim and snow and wind damage clean up.

Meanwhile inside stevia in teh kitchen is off the covers.

Otside my last (or mostly last for the season things are planted) . My presents are in. Black aronias, they will be pretty and highly useful (basically that's acai of the north). That bucket over there is not neglected, it's the moisture source next to my new blueberry experiment