Looks good, Tiffy!

Karen

That looks great, Tiffy! Leaves mixed with coffee grounds is essentially all I put on my tomato/herb bed every year.

I have a question unrelated to the original topic, though. Are you saying that blue pansy returns every year? Through your Canadian winter? I sowed pansies this year, and got not great germination on a lot of them, and so far, very little growth. I was almost going to fling them, but I might take a chance and plant them and see if they survive the winter down here in Massachusetts.

Dawiff,

Some of them return and some of them reseed as well. Those are my favourites and because the leaves are a bit different - not as wide - I can ID them easily. In another area of the gardens, I planted pansies on top of a retaining wall two years ago. Now they are all in the garden below the wall and there's all kinds this year. Usually the slugs get them badly, but this year the slugs haven't been too much of a nuisance.

I even have a pot full of them on the deck. They were planted last year from store bought, but reseeded in the pot. One of the main plants also came back.

à¹Your mulch looks beautiful, tiffy. Perfect colors.

Hi Tiff
As those of that compost know, feeding the soil is the most important thing we can do for our veggie/flower beds. What you created in the wheelbarrow looks great and will continue to feed your soil. Good going!!

Alberta

Picking up a lot of tips on composting here! That stuff looks beautiful in your garden beds.

What's the white-flowering plant next to the pansies (which are gorgeous, btw)?

PV

Beautiful and healthy, Tiffy!
The way I garden there is not much need for mulch- plants are happily fighting for growing space, planted close to each other. I also save all my leaves/ most of them oak leaves/ but am too lazy to put them through shredder. I figured mother nature does not have one so I should not need one either. Once leaves on the ground late fall, I clean up from walking path onto flower beds and keep them on. When spring comes I remove worst loads to let plants grow through and again leave them be. By mid May I have my beds full so seeing old leaves is not an issue. Have not tried with other kind of leaves and oak's are tough enough not to smother plant crowns during winter.
Have plenty of reseeders this way and no weeds.

PV,

Those white flowers are creeping baby's breath. I actually bought some last year which flower in pink. I used to have creeping phlox all along the front of this bed, but it choked itself to death - literally.

tiff - every picture of your gardens show healthy plants and wonderful mulch.... I love your set up in your yard - the rocks are great!

I have tons of leaves - UCG - but bought a leaf shredder (under $100.00) and had trouble with it picking up rocks/sticks/twigs/cones, etc. - - do you basically lay out the leaves/UCG on a tarp - or can your shredder handle anything a bit hard? - I returned mine because I was afraid it would break if I continued using it.

I may try another shredder -

Thanks - Carrie

Tiffy how do you keep weeds from coming through your compost? I used mulch this year because it was a new bed and I wanted to make sure that the weeds didn't come through too much.

Making my mouth water. Great project.

LOL Bakemom! Thanks!

Carrie, I place the leaves on the lawn where there are no rocks and when I dump the bag I do so in windrows. I check for large pieces. Pine cones are out, but spruce cones are OK. The shredder can take twigs up to 1/2 inch in diameter. Makes an aweful noise when a small branch gets in, but you get used to it. If it's too much, I stop the shredder, the piece comes back out, and then I restart. Doing it on a tarp would be good too.

Proudgm,

I mulch about 2.5 to 3 inches thick, less as I get closer to the plant bases. I still get weeds, but definitely not as much as I used to. The above bed won't show any weeds for about a month now and when it does there will be very little and they will be easily removed since the mulch makes the soil more friable.

In the compost itself I don't have weeds if that's what you meant. I don't add garden waste into the compost unless I know it's weed free or know that this is a pile that I'll trigger to go to 145F in terms of temperature. All my garden waste goes into cold piles situated in several places behind boulders on the property. Out of sight, out of mind - until I need the soil it creates.

Your beds look so great. Nice job.

Paula

Thanks for an excellent idea tiffy! That mulch looks great and will be great for your plants. I might need to get a leaf shredder.

That is gorgeous mulch! Maybe I'll borrow my mom's shredder and do that. Although it will take me awhile to accumulate that amount of UCG. (My local coffee shop doesn't generate many pounds per week)

Your garden looks wonderful, as usual!

Great idea, Tiffy! And, needless to say, your garden looks terrific.

I was just starting to wonder where I'd use the 7 contractor bag worth of alreaady shredded leaves that I have sitting in a corner of the yard. Now I know... once my UCG supplier has supplied me with enough UCGs! What ratio did you use?

Thanks for the tip.
Marianne

Tiffy,
The leaf hog does ok with small pine needles shredding?
I may have to go get one then, as my big chipper/shredder does like some stuff, prefers to eat the wood chips I have the tree trimmers dropped off.

My UCGs are gathered in those buckets they sell kitty litter in which is 14kg (approx. 30 lbs.) and I'll spread at least 1/2 bucket over a full large bag of leaves before shredding. I used a 5 gallon pail the other day and threw 1/2 of that on the leaves which did fine. Like I said, I also add some finished compost, about i 5 gallon pail, and then mix the whole lot.

Bussylizzy,

We both were posting at the same time. :O)

The Leaf Hog does great with pine needles. You can see them in the pic of the wheelbarrow. The dryer they are, the more they will break up. I get mine from two neighbours up the road who have rows of pine trees. Once in a while they will rake them all up and leave in a pile at the end of the road where the row of trees stop and that's my signal to go and get them. I spoke to them a couple of years ago and this is our arrangement. I just bring bags and fill-up.

Ok, you convinced me for a new yard toy, lol.
I have Blue Spruces I can suck up pine needles and a 45 ft row of Arborvitea that drives me NUTS with the litter.
The 5 branch white birch sure makes for some leaf dropping in the fall, and I usually blow them over the flower bed.
If I could rake these and suck em up, shred would be a wonderful time saver for me!!!!!!!!!

For wood chip mulch I have one huge pile the tree trimmers dumped last year when they were trimming my oaks and pines for the power lines.
Compost for me is a annual load of horse manure from the horse farmer, fielded for one year for black gold.
Put that down for new grass area and had to mow the grass 7 days afterwards.

Here is this years wood chip and start of the woodburning splitting pile
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Back again,
Found the leaf hog listed at Wally World for 49.98! This weekend, new garden toy for me, he he!!!!!!!

:O) Busylizzy's gonna be busy this weekend!

Tiffy, such a great idea. I read somewhere that if you don't have a chipper to put the leaves and such in a garbage can and stick your weedeater in it and have at it. It's supposed to mulch everything up. I may try it. I called the local coffe house and asked them to save me grounds and she said YES! She fills a 5 gallon bucket every day so I have to go on Saturdays to pick them up! I have apple leaves back in the woods that I can use, now I have to find some pine needles. I really like the looks of your beds, so neat!!!

Oh, I have a kid splitting that wood pile, I stack it.
For the leaf hog I hope to "suck and run", :-)

Wow, that mulch looks great. And the pictures of your gardens are just beautiful! Now I'm thinking a shredder might be a good idea...and add some stones to the gardens! :)

In the fall, I shred a few piles of leaves with the mower - enough to fill 3 or 4 30-gallon garbage bags. I use those along with a top dressing of compost to mulch the gardens in the front yard in the Spring. I also use whole leaves but the shredded leaves are more tidy in appearance. Those gardens are a bit more formal and ornamental.

In the back, where the gardens will be mostly natives and more naturalized, I use whole leaves for mulch, collected in the fall. I collect UCGs too and mostly use those for lasagne beds. Removing the filters and mixing with the leaves sounds like a great idea too.

For paths and under bird baths, and a few other places, I use aged wood chips. Got 2 piles leftover from tree work that was done in the yard. The one on the left is 2 1/2 years old, the one on the right is 1/2 year old. The older pile is perfect for spreading...just gotta get out there and do it!

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Drooling here when I see your wood chip piles ladies! The electric company used to come by and when trimming the trees would give us as much as we wanted but now they have been instructed that in woodsy rural places like ours they are to dump the chips as they go on a treed area on the other side of the ditches. Bummer!

I am really thinking of investing in a chipper shredder next time I purchase something. I do have lots of branches that need a bigger machine. Got to save some $$ for that one.

But I'm not going to let go of this mulch soon. It's been the driest June for quite some time and this stuff is retaining moisture in the soil nicely.

Tell me something, is Hemlock mulch, the kind you buy at the garden center or in the bags, good for the soil? That's the kind of mulch I purchased for one of my perennial beds and on the other I added pine mulch. I had to in order to keep the weeds down, they're both fairly new beds, which I started last fall. I did mulch these beds last fall with partially crushed leaves and grass clippings but needed a quick fix this summer and went for what was readily available. Will this mulch eventually help my soil? I know it will take quite a while to break down.

Linda,

As far as I'm concerned, anything which provides organic matter and feeds the soil is good. The hemlock should be good. This was just a cheaper route for me since I didn't have the $$ to spend on what would be required.

I know it takes a bit longer, but to till things and turn the soil over while amending is just not my thing. I have been able to change the friability of the soil in some of the gardens from photo #1 in which I had to take a rock to move the soil to photo #2 where I can just dig my hand in. I still have more which aren't there yet, but they are getting better.

Photo #1
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Photo #2
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Do note that these pictures were taken in the same garden, one type of soil just 3 feet from the other.

beautiful wheelbarrel full of mulch there - your plants will be very happy. I h ave a large pile of wood chips that we are let aging - it has been a year now by fall I want to spread some of it - this has been a year of redoing gardens so everything will need a new layer of mulch when I am done. We have a chipper/shreader which gets alot of use - it will take up to 2" branches - I LOVE free mulch.....

Lynne

Drats, went to Wally World last night to have the oil changed and some groceries.
The lawn and garden area didn't have that leaf hog, guess I will have to order it from the net.

Inspiring pics all around! I just called my grocery store coffee shop. They produce about 25 pounds of wet grounds a day, and only have takers for a few days a month. :)