Everyone knows you’re supposed to wait until Mother’s Day before you start with the gardening stuff. At least that’s what I’ve been told. Or maybe you’re supposed to get the garden started no later than Mother’s Day. Hmmm… well, it’s one way or the other. But what I do know is this last weekend we got started with the gardening with a vengeance. And it’s not even my garden. And we didn’t even get to do fun stuff like use the roto-tiller (which is only “fun” in the “power tool” sort of way). What we did was, we mulched the front flower bed. (That’s actually both me and the Little Woman this time, not like “we checked the furnace filter” or “we gave Lucy her heartworm pill” because that was all me.)
You know how much fun it is to mulch a flower bed? Me neither. And I just did it. Spreading around mulch (direct from the mulch mines of Cleveland- the bag said the mulch was from Cleveland, and it comes from mines, right?) is not great wads of fun. And mulch smells like poo. I think that’s one of the defining characteristics of mulch- the poo smell. And it doesn’t just passively smell like poo either. You break open the bag (I stabbed it repeatedly with a shovel- like I was practicing to kill zombie invaders) and dump the mulch around, the poo-smell steams up at you. Or more accurately in this case, the poo-smell steamed up at me, which was worse. I’d be OK with mulch steaming poo-smell at you, but when the poo-smell steams up at me, I take exception.
I have to admit (because if I don’t I get A Look) that all that new mulch sure makes the front flower bed look mulch nicer. (Ha! Did you see that? Instead of “much” I put in “mulch”, because I’d been mulching this weekend! Oh man, I crack me up!) But I have this sneaking suspicion that we’ll have to put more mulch down next year. But that’s still a year away, so I’m not worried. Much.
In happier news: I got the marigold seeds started when I wasn’t mulching. So in no time I’ll have beautiful marigolds popping up in their very own marigold patch. The search for the Garden Gnome continues.
I guess with all this gardening going on, I should get a start on my vegetable garden. I should go to the garden store and pick up both my tomato plants. Then, after I plant the tomatoes, I could mulch around them. The mulch would make them look so much nicer.
-Rue.
I think mulch that’s delivered in plastic bags smells like poo cause it ferments in there and fermenting stuff does tend to smell like poo, well, cause it actually IS poo. The little fermenting organisms eat, eat, eat and then poo, poo, poo. So poo smell abounds. Has anybody seen the dyed mulch? I’m seein’ it a lot down here and I think it bites the big one. Natural mulch is brown. This dyed stuff looks downright radioactive! Who would want a radioactive looking flower bed. I’d be scared that the flowers would get out of bed and start walkin’ round. :eek:
Rue, beware, mulching is addictive, not for you, but for the garden. Sure, you say you’ll have to do it next year, but then, its starts looking a little shabby in early August, there you are, mulching a second time in the same year! Then what? Sneaking in a little bark on a boring Saturday night? Then its, any time you’re home alone with the garden. It begs, and you’re too weak to resist.
Stop now, Rue. If you won’t (or can’t), we may have to have an intervention. That could get ugly… and smell of poo.
Poo is like a main ingredient in a lot of mulch. Though mulch can be dead rotten vegetation and stuff too, which can kinda smell like poo what with its dead rottenness and all. I get to drive by a big pile of mulch on my way to work. I’d get to drive by it on my way home from work but I go a different direction home. It makes sense that I do that if you know about the drive but since y’all don’t I guess it doesn’t make too much sense, but trust me, it makes sense. Anyway, I drive by this big pile of mulch. I know it’s mulch because there’s a big sign out in front of the big pile of mulch that says, “Free Mulch To The Public”. Sometimes I see the public out there shoveling or pitch forking mulch into the the public’s truck bed. It started out as a great big pile of mulch but now it’s a sotra medium pile of mulch cause the public’s been out there shovelin’ and pitch forkin’ away at the pile for about six weeks now. Where does this big pile of public mulch come from you ask? “Danged if I know”, I reply. All I know is its in this field across from the Albeeny Public Works Department. This big field is supposed to be turned into public tennis courts, which I don’t suppose the public can just shovel or pitchfork up. I’m guessing after the public tennis courts get built the public mulch pile will be somewhere else cause I don’t think it’d be right to put the public mulch pile on the public tennis court. Least it don’t seem like it should be right.
I, myself, buy designer mulch. It’s reddish colored cedar shavings and such. Looks tres chic amongst the shrubbery in front of my house. Designer mulch can be bought at Lowe’s and WallyWorld. Rue I noticed some garden gnomes at “Jack Daniel’s Garden Patch” which is on the main road to my house. I’m just mentioning it in case you want to come down and check out the collection. You can stay at the house if ya want. As far as I know there’s no Jack Daniels at “Jack Daniels Garden Patch” except for the guy whose name is Jack Daniels. He once ran for county commissioner from my district but he lost. His brother has an aluminirum buildings and awning place also on the main road to my house. The brother is the one who installed the carport and deck awning at my house. He lives about four houses down from me too. Matter of fact, he remembers when the cow was found in my front yard cause he saw the cow when he went to get his morning paper out of the paper box at his house that morning. See, we didn’t know each other before the awning and carport got installed. When he came out to look and give me an estimate he said, “I remember you’re the guy who had the stray cow in his front yard a couple years back.” I said, “Yep, that’s me.” Now we wave at each other if we happen to see each other outside. We’ve become waving neighbors. Plus I let him show some other neighbors the carport and awning so they could see some of his work. I’m just all nice like that.
Wow, Rue, it must be warmer where you live than it is here. I’m not a gardener, but when I was growing up they always said you’re supposed to wait until Memorial Day to start the gardening. Although you could start seedlings inside. But the outside stuff had to wait. Too much frost before then.
I had a good weekend. My church has two Swiss Steak Suppers a year and one of them was Saturday. I pounded and seared meat in the morning, managing to burn myself, get a blister, and bruise the knuckles of both index fingers. And then found out from TaxiDriver that the phrase “pounding meat” should generally be avoided in polite conversation, especially if it is in the context of “pounding meat is generally a man’s job.” He thought it was hilarious that I actually utterted that sentence.
Then at the actual dinner, I put together take-out meals. That’s a promotion for me since I’ve usually gotten stuck on dishes. Sometimes drying dishes, which is better than washing or, even worse, scraping, but dishes are still the job for the newbie. So I guess I’ve been around a while now so I’m no longer a newbie. Woo.
Then Sunday I went down to my parents’ in the afternoon and took dinner. I may not get to see them next weekend so this was an early Mother’s Day. It was very nice. And I didn’t get roped into doing any mulching because it’s too early where they live! I have to avoid visiting after Memorial Day because I could get roped in to mulching or other gardening. Eeeek!
The main uses of it are to provide some fertilization, while providing a finished look, and keeping evaporation down.
There is some mulch that is just like big hardwood chunks (the kind they might use on playgrounds, and some landscaping mulch), but there is some (primarily stuff you’d get at a landscape supply company, but it also comes in bags) that sits in piles and steams. It can definitely smell like poo.
I don’t have a garden, but I walk around and admire other people’s gardens. It’s much less work than having my own. And I live in an apartment. If I need to feel all nature-worshipping, I go down to the beach (one block) and throw rocks at the mutant seagulls, and think about how Lake Ontario probably doesn’t count as a natural experience, given the chances of finding three-headed fish in it.
But it’s pretty and close.
Alternately I could throw rocks at the stupid teenagers smoking pot on the beach, who think they’re being very secretive. At least they only have one head each.
Bad Fashion Guy was in Greek Bellydance last week. This time he was wearing white bike shorts and a pink mini tank top. And he still really sucks at dancing. I don’t think he’s actually capable of watching what the teacher’s doing, and then trying to copy it. Sharing a class with him is painful. At least he wasn’t wearing the floaty camisole. I’ll report back on Wednesday about his latest outfit.
We got our mulch from the hardware store in plastic bags because we really didn’t need that much. (We really didn’t need as much as we have, but someone will find a use for it.) Cracking the bags open was when the poo-ness made itself apparent.
Do you know me? You know how I know when it’s time to cut the grass? Everyone in the neighborhood laps me for the second time, the Little Woman says “go cut the grass”, or Lucy, my Jack Russell terrier gets lost in the backyard. (Our other dog gets lost in the backyard, but that’s because she’s real old and her brain doesn’t work much anymore, not because she can’t see over the grass.)
Hey Swampy, the big pile of mulch is probably from when the Albeeny Public Works Department goes out and cuts up trees that fall down after a storm or something. Then they grind it up and then they… leave it in a pile so eveyone can come get it. They don’t want it, but they can just give it away. That way they have room for more tree-grindings after the next storm.
And a snow shovel works great for moving mulch Trunk. The snow shovel that looks kinda like the shovel you might see in a horse stable if you’ve ever been to a horse stable and seen the shovels they use all the time even when it’s not snowing or there’s mulch to move. We have a snow shovel like that, only ours is plastic and we don’t have a pitchfork at all. So even if we wanted to, we couldn’t use a pitchfork on our mulch. So we snow shovel it around.
And when you leave the mulch sit around it becomes compost Ex. It’s the magic of gardening. It starts out as mulch and poof! compost. I can;t explain it.
Like Swampy, we use the designer mulch, a shredded cypress or cedar, and it isn’t terribly poodiferous. My neighbor though uses bonafide chickenshit, literally rendering the entire street almost unbearable for a couple of days. I’ve counseled him anally or, er, anually about doing this while it’s still cool outside but he continues to defer it’s application until the first heat wave of the year.
I know that but see, it’s not always there. Just every once in a while, during mulching season, a big pile of public mulch shows up. It amuses me. I’ll drive by and say, “Look! The public mulch pile is back!” ACBG tells me he’s used mulch from the public mulch pile before but now he uses designer mulch cause I’m classin’ him up some.
Can we get pictures? The floaty camisole thing is intriguing.
Rue, you lucky dog, you get to play with mulch! I don’t get to use mulch. I can’t garden, because my yard is solid clay. I can’t even dig little holes to plant stuff, because it’s way too much work. I tried container gardening, but I don’t get enough sun to grow any veggies or herbs. So I switched over to flowers, and then the squirrels dug up my pansies, and whatever they didn’t dig up, the deer ate. The squirrels aren’t all bad–in exchange for the flowers they dug up, they’ve left me a Christmas cactus (which unfortunately died before I could plant it, but that wasn’t their fault) and little green plastic bucket. Now I just have a few pots of random green stuff and some shabby-looking wild violets. I need to give up on gardening and start doing pottery! (FCM, if you need any clay for your pottery class, let me know! I have a whole yard full!)
I’ve seen the cedary kind of mulch–it’s not stinky, and it looks nice. It’s fun to walk on, too, as long as you’re not wearing sandals. Feet full of mulch are not so much fun.
It rained Saturday. Rained. Rained. Rained. Rained. Then it quit about 7:30 PM. Then the 'lectricity went off for about an hour. I got an automated call from Jawja Power to tell me my ‘lectricity had been restored about a half hour after I already knew it cause the lights came back on. I’m observant like that. “Hey,” I said, “The lights are back on. The 'lectricity’s been restored.” Still it was nice of em to let me know in case I was gettin’ all freaked out cause all of a sudden my dark house got light again.
Yesterday I had brunch after church. I made a sausage, egg and cheese casserole as my contribution. It got all et up. I was proud. Then last night I went to a friend’s house dinner cause I got invited. So, I didn’t just show up expecting to be fed uninvited, it was an official invite. She made a boiled dinner. Or as we say down here, “bald” dinner. It was corned beef, cabbage, taters and carrots all “bald” together. It was good. ACBG was jealous when I told him. He likes corned beef. He’s on his way back today. Did I mention he ran away to West Alabammy for a few days? That’s where he grew up. Middle of nowhere. Literally. I’ve been there with him. I don’t know how we got to where we stayed. Lots of itty bitty county roads to turn left/right/left/right and so forth. Didn’t have any idea where I was but there was beer so it was ok.
So mulch (HAH!) for my weekend. How was everybody else’s?
We get the Hemlock bark. At least that’s what I think we get, 'cause it doesn’t leave splinters in your fingers and toeses like the redwood bark does.
We’re debating what to put in our little garden this year. So far we’ve decided on tomatoes, and maybe zucchini again. The corn and cauliflower were a bust last year. I liked the peppers, but there’s only so many things you can do with peppers, (banana and pepperoncini), and we had a metric butt-load of peppers last year.
Actually I think that’s a mis-nomer. One does not actually load their butt with peppers. One uses a basket, or maybe the hem of one’s garment, if one forgot one’s basket, but not one’s butt, 'cause they fall off. The peppers, not the butt.
Herself makes this sammich spread outa grinded up corn beef and green peppers, the one’s in the little blue can, and mayo, that’s pretty good. I just thought I’d share that.
Swampy, you have lectricity in Jawja? Landagoshen!
I keed. I know you got lectricity ‘cause when I was there last year my brother had lights an’ everthing.
In other news, AVG just found a virus on my 'puter and squashed it. I’m so proud.
