How do you mulch yours?

[ina]

eeek! Mine does try to catch them, but only seems to get the occasional one. She's not interested in the ones that have conked out already...

Nope, I've got access to unlimited (almost) amounts of muck, too, so I can be generous with it. But, as I said, none is going on just now - it'll wait until spring.

[Boots]

I only ever layer paper or cardboard if I have something to keep it down, like manure or pen muck. Otherwise it doesn't stay there long... ends up all over the place! If I use manure, I also layer with hay, but I much prefer to use the stuff from the pens which comes ready mixed and well broken down. If you just spread cut hay, you can expect it to grow once the conditions are good again, and you may spend a heap of time pulling it up again.

Having said that, while it creates a layered compost of sorts...I would never use my good compost (humus) as a mulch. It is much to valuable and I keep it for growing in.

If you are resting a patch, I say go with a green cover crop. Have no idea what would work over there mind you, but here things like pigeon pea, peanuts and amaranth are brilliant as they can then be used as feed for livestock as well.

Small beds could possibly be bedded down with hay, manures, chipbark whatever and then tarped (or maybe use recycled plastic?) to maintain moisture and limit sunlight/growth?... or maybe the goal is to minimise water absorption to limit nutrient leaching? Um...Why is this the done thing again? I forgot.. and its on the other page...

[hedgewizard]

The idea of a winter mulch is to reduce overwinter weed growth, but mainly to stop nutrient washout on bare soil. I think I'm mainly going with forage peas (from Moles) as a green manure plant though, since

a) I don't have enough mulch material to hand, and
b) I need to get the humus content up quickly.

My pumpkins have done well though - growing straight into subsoil in a 25mx4m strip, I dug one metre deep, 60cm diameter holes in a zig-zag, 1m apart. I half filled these with partly composted wood chippings, then topped off with half-composted mostly-grass and topped with a 5cm layer of topsoil, having saturated the holes with water first. The pumpkins did pretty well in that, and yesterday we cut 31 middle-sized fruits and one "giant" for carving (about the size of a beachball). Does this count as growing under adversity?

Wait... something wrong... Boots! Avatar! *ack* *ack* Cuteness overload! *aargh...*

[Boots]

LOL... Yeah just providing an extreme alternative to Stoneys grumpy looking mugshot....LOL Tis a tad ooh ack cough splutter though, I must agree.

The Pumpkins sound great. Interesting method too. Wish I could get pumpkins and watermelons happening here. Think the soil must be too acidic or something. Have certainly tried and others seem to be able to grow them. Did get one vine happening in the bamboo trash and wood chips quite by accident, so maybe wood chips are the special ingredient?

Didn't you say something about changing your avatar...

[supersprout]

For paths, woodchip over woven black plastic, or straw over newspaper.

For growing areas, about 8" of anything organic: straw



leaves



raw kitchen waste, freshly pulled weeds, chopped up stalks (like JAs or sweetcorn) leaves from cabbage/beet, hay, pony poo, wood ash, grass clippings, newspaper, cardboard ...

I try to finish with a layer of straw for Neatness



and black plastic for extreme mulching up the communal lottie path

[hedgewizard]

nice. I got diverted yesterday and had to do the comfrey patch earlier than planned (5 Bocking plants) to cope with a UCD (Unexpected Chicken Death). Gonzo the chicken is now one with the earth, and via the comfrey will soon be one with the veg beds.

Mulching with dead chickens... nah, it'd never catch on.

[PurpleDragon]

Which finally answers a question I've had for months and months - what to do with a chicken carcass if you aren't gonna eat it. Why didn't you eat yours? Because it died itself? I have wondered if it is okay to 'plant' chickens - you never know with defra!

[Stonehead]

Which finally answers a question I've had for months and months - what to do with a chicken carcass if you aren't gonna eat it. Why didn't you eat yours? Because it died itself? I have wondered if it is okay to 'plant' chickens - you never know with defra!

Speaking of which, I now know the answer to the chicken disposal question!

Seerad have informed me that culled chickens must be disposed of in a licenced, approved incinerator and not on farm (unless it has an approved incinerator) or in the wheely bin.

However, if I have a plucked and dressed chicken that I was intending to eat, but it went off, then I can still dispose of it in the wheelie bin as it's then domestic waste and not farm waste.

I therefore suggest that when you cull your chickens or find a dead one, that you pluck it, gut it and wave it around the kitchen a few times, muttering "oh, dear, I clearly can't eat you". Then throw it in the wheelie bin as domestic waste.

Don't you just love officialdom!

[PurpleDragon]

Indeed. Wonder if flinging it on the bonfire constitutes incineration. Probably not, if it isnt official and permission has been given in triplicate carved in granite

[Millymollymandy]

But if you just have a few backyard chickens, who is ever going to know? I know mine will be buried in the garden just like my cat. Have no idea what the rules and regs are in France, but in France all rules and regs are there to be broken!

[PurpleDragon]

Quite frankly, I shall probably do the same, but don't tell anyone, eh?

[hedgewizard]

I'm not a registered holding or anything, so the rules for disposal don't apply to me; they may think they do, but they don't. So there.

Something killed my chook, and I don't know what - so it doesn't make sense to eat the chook in case that something kills me!

[Boots]

I reckon it peeked over your shoulder and read those dumb rules you have over there and died laughing.

[Stonehead]

I'm not a registered holding or anything, so the rules for disposal don't apply to me; they may think they do, but they don't. So there.

Actually, they do! But I never said I follow all the regulations to the letter, did I...

[hedgewizard]

I go with the europeans on this one. Every time Brussels passes some new piece of idiocy they all say right, fine, no problem - rubber stamp it, and then completely ignore it. Most of the stuff isn't even passed out to authorities on the ground. Occasionally there are fines, but most of the stuff really isn't important.

Britain on the other hand, being somewhat anal in character, sends out armies of little men with clipboards and the courts are salivating at the thought of stuffing a few more harmless folks into our practically empty prisons.

As jacques delores once said with a gallic shrug when asked by a journalist why so much crap was coming out of the legislators (and I paraphrase) "If you have two thousand legislators, what are they going to do?"