The neighbor I share a front stairwell with I think would kill me if I got a massive delivery of wood chip. I have heard the horror stories.
But it's insane the yard is less dirt and more a nest of weed roots. I actually managed to get the tiller attachment for a free ryobi weed whacker I got and that has made the soil at least there way more usable. But I have to weed for sure every week. The mulch honestly won't stop them.
LoL, yes and tho' it may, for some, be ok to eat them simmered with garlic, butter and herbs, I do not suggest this as a blanket solution to the problem, by way of clarification.
They do help break things down, but unlike most helpful bugs they prefer the produce. I have just never seen them like this. We usually have to take countermeasures against them every year, but this year is we're just swamped.
I'm gonna do some work out there this weekend. Think I'm gonna get aggressive with the DE because I think I'm also having some trouble with woodlice. Do some tactical earth salting around the beds
I'm trying used coffee grounds and some other stinky or dry stuff like lavender they (supposedly) don't like around the plants I can't cover up well. But the most effective strategy - by far - has been my weeding tool. I go around and simply split all slugs I see in half and do it every day and especially when it rains. Others around me are drowning in snails this spring - I have very little in comparison. Another thing I do is to collect all large snails (Weinbergschnecken) and put them out in strategic places where slugs lay their eggs. Snails eat their eggs. Or so the AI tells me 😅
Thanks for the advice. I've tried coffee grounds, essential oils, copper wire, it all does little to stop the slime trails. The snails, tho... I may have to look into that. I worry about backing myself into the Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly corner, but something's gotta give
Do you get rabbits? This is my first year gardening and have had issues with them. I considering raised beds like you’re doing but I’m not sure if they’re tall enough to keep rabbits out.
I couldn’t tell you but absolutely should, I should set a camera up. Couple years ago we got voles, but the cucumbers were fine last year.
We are right by a natural preserve, so lots of wildlife, but the bunnies/rabbits (some domesticated became wild iirc) seem to be more prominent in other communities.
We’ve had deer in the front yard, but my backyard lilies have been fine, there’s a small gap under my gate that smaller stuff can get in, like rabbits, beavers and raccoons. All the trees in the community have little cages to stop beavers.
I was worried about the soil, it’s from last year and was outside, so I was thinking the nutrients had been leached out. I don’t think it’s gonna recover if it’s shock, so I was thinking it was worth the try to plant it with some transplant nutrients and if it shocks or gets frosted it is what it is. I’ve got others for these reasons.
I started hardening them this week, and it’s been rainy, but I’ve kinda gotta start now for next week. So could be multiple things. The adventures of gardening.
Watermelon don't really like being transplanted. Best to direct sow. Of course, your zone is a problem for that, but this guy I'd give up on. The window you have to hope it recovers is pretty small.
I'm trying some watermelon transplants myself. Seeing if I put them in young if they'll get over the shock faster or not. They've only been in a week, but they're definitely looking a bit sad. Good color, but the growth is still slow, leaves curled a bit. I'll get some pics when I get home.
*(I'm still working on doing melons on purpose. My kost successful guys have been volunteers)
You get it haha, yeah could be spent soil, or it’s been rainy while hardening, so multiple things. I was hoping maybe there was something specific, but if it’s try transplanting it with some nutrients and sending it, worth the shot.
Not sure on your location as from the picture it doesn't look like you're in the USA. However some places have restrictions on gathering water from your roof due to the materials used to clad the roof being poisonous. I would just double check that as I wouldn't want to consume any fruits or vegetables that have been grown in water that wasn't safe.
I would also use a water butt or gatherer rather (totally covered from sun light) than hosing directly into a plant bed as if it's raining. The plants will already be getting watered from the rainwater so you want to store the rainwater for use later.
And then there are even further rules on storing water in some places - in Colorado I'm only allowed ~100 gallons of rainwater collection storage because someone else owns the water rights to the land my house is on.
This is bewildering. Are you really subject to regulations that forbid you from storing and using rain water as you see fit? Because you must buy water from a third party?
Is there a reason behind this other than capitalism?
Yeah I can’t even think of a secondary or tertiary reason.
Unless it’s to stop people from storing it and using it inside? But even than… so my thought on that one is overall maintenance.
In my city you get charged 30% iirc of your water use for sanitary use, so that pays for waste water treatment and maintenance of sewer lines. It’s not a full 100% because people water the yards and other stuff, and it’s not feasible to measure waste discharge.
So the only reason I could think of with, is so people aren’t getting around water fees and therefore sewer maintenance fees.
But it’s probably capitalism instead of trying to maintaining infrastructure.
Water rights in the Western US are wild. I wrote a small rant above if you're interested. There is very legitimately not enough fresh water to go around from rivers like the Colorado to support continued agriculture and population expansion. (I blame agriculture 10x more than population, but that's my hot take)
Oh yeah shit downstream water would be huge. Retaining that water prevents it from being available from watershed.
I’m right next to the Rockies and we get glacier melt and snow melt. So it’s weird seeing those restrictions elsewhere where we don’t have them but being basically the same geographically. BUT we were on water rationing last year to save the reservoir level, but the city also provides a rain barrel program, and no limits as far as I know/saw.
Wow, great to see a government encouraging it instead of saying you can't do it! I'm also right next to the Rockies just far south of you in Colorado, and we get very different messages.
It is weird. Like if every house had 200 gallons of storage, that could add up to a small dam's worth of storage at almost no cost to the government. It makes more sense to me to encourage houses to store it.
It really might come back around to blame capitalism - since like 90% of water is used for agriculture here maybe the downstream money makers are the ones yelling the loudest.
I think we are super blessed where we live. The government actually seems to care about the environment, does stuff about it, pushes for code compliance like no other, and has some of the best resources I’ve seen. You’ve got water data, tree data, a state of the art composting facility with free public compost, programs out the Wazhoo.
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