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pp51armstrong

Cleaning up Neglected Garden

10 years ago

Hey! I'm new to the community and new to gardening. My wife and I just bought a house, and the seller completely neglected the garden during the few months before we moved in. We have a .14 acre lot and almost half of it is dedicated to garden space. There are several raised beds and a three foot wide section around the perimeter containing vegetation. About half of the garden contains annuals, and the other half perennials. Everything was completely overgrown when we moved in, and we didn't plan on keeping most of the existing plants, so our approach has been to just pull out everything we don't plan to regrow next year.


My main question is, what do we do with all of the plants after we have ripped them out? It sounds like we could compost, but there isn't a ton of room for a pile, and there are a ton of plants, so the pile would be huge. The other option I see is to bag up the plants and have to trash company pick them up. The problem with that is the number of bags it would require. So far I filled up about 20 bags just with the excess dill we had to remove.


For example, we have a ton of annual sunflowers. They are pretty, but there are too many of them, and we don't want to keep all of them. If I just head out there with a machete and cut all of them down, then what? If I leave them there for a while, will they eventually dry out and be able to be worked into the soil?


Long story short, we are trying to get this place ready for winter and planting things of our choosing next spring, but I am in way over my head so far.


Thanks!


Mike

Comments (11)

  • 10 years ago

    Ready for winter. You don't say where you are. Does it snow? If not, I'd dig into the beds and put the old plants in topped with some manure and dirt from another bed. I'd do this over and over till the entire yard is a compost heap. If you have snow, then that won't work.

  • 10 years ago

    Sorry, I am in Hudson CO, about 30 miles northeast of Denver. We don't get snow like upstate New York or anything, but there is definitely some snow.

  • 10 years ago

    Just saw this post, and was wondering what you ended up doing. Will add that you have a good opportunity to enrich your soil by following Suzi's suggestion. Chopping the stuff up as much as you can by hand, and then running over it with a lawnmower if possible, and then letting it sit through the winter will certainly break down a good portion of it. You can work it into your soil in the spring. Or rake up the unwieldy parts then for carting away. Of course, you're breaking my heart when I hear you dug up perennials as well. I would have waited for the spring to see what might simply be relocated to another spot. My interest is more than academic, as I am starting a new garden area this next season. I have the distinct advantage over you in that it is virgin ground recently built up with topsoil and retaining walls, but I will be planting it with perennials from my existing garden, which is definitely overgrown in places and needs some work. :)

  • 10 years ago

    I second the idea of mulching the plant material with a lawn mower. You can reduce a giant pile of leaves, stems, etc. to a couple of bushels in a few minutes. You can then dig it right back into the soil where it will break down in a big hurry, or put it in a bin to compost.

  • 10 years ago

    Yup, Suzi and all the posters above have the right idea, turn your yard into a compost pile. Even in your dry climate you will have a hard time keeping up with enough material for composting. Throw everything on the lawn and set your lawnmower on a higher setting than if you were to mow the grass and have at it. Sunflower stalks should be chopped up as much as possible before letting the mower do the rest of the job. Spade, or till it in the garden beds.

    You might want to find out what some of those perennials are before completely eradicating them. Some you may want. Join a garden club. Somebody there can help you with identifying the plants and their worth as a garden plant. That should get you off to a good start.

    I have 10 acres and throw nothing away. It's all compost on site for me....or firewood.

    Mike

    photobucket.com/user/Botann/library/My favorite pics?sort=3&page=1

  • 10 years ago

    Ready for winter. You don't say where you are. Does it snow? If not, I'd dig into the beds and put the old plants in topped with some manure and dirt from another bed. Cleaning company

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