Mulch

How many uses are there for Mulch? I'm finding out.

It all started with our local Fire Chief stopping by to take a look at how difficult it would be to keep my house from burning down.

His assessment was that it would be very difficult due to the "ladder fuels" aka sage brush, juniper and pinion which were covering the slope up to the house.

3 teenage boys + one trimmer + one chain saw = poodle junipers and sage stumps

(This plan works best if you hire 40 year old women to walk behind the teenage boys and pick up after them. It's considerably easier to get them to cut things down than to pick things up. Moms or Goats- either would have worked...)

Of course that meant I had piles of sagebrush and juniper.

We spaced the piles about 50' apart (in case of fire) and they sat there over the winter. 

There are multiple choices about how to get rid of piles of brush. You can burn it which is the traditional way of dealing with brush piles. You have to have a burn permit and burn when there isn't a burn ban. This is always a risky business.

What I really wanted to do was make it into biochar with one of the new biochar tents from Carbon Cultures. The portable kilns are experimental and they're pricey; but it's a great solution for helping out my dense clay soil. I haven't ruled this one out yet and I may try it - after someone else does the first test drive.

There's a third choice, you can chip it.

Two teenage boys + one chipper + one pickup truck =

Mulch, a lot O' Mulch.

You can throw mulch in old perk holes below the septic tank

You can fill erosion tubes with mulch...

... a lot of erosion tubes.

You can mulch apple trees.

You can Mulch potatoes.

You can Mulch tomatoes.

You can Mulch the Groasis Waterboxxes (and then throw rocks on top of the Mulch)

You can make a Mulch Basin.

Mulch chairs.

Mulch Art.

Mulch volutes

and... a flying straw bale kickstarter...

Of course there is a wikipedia of Mulch... and Juniper Mulch debates... and Mulch blogs. I have no idea if this sage/juniper/pinion Mulch will help or hurt but so far it's doing a great job on the potatoes, it seems to be helping the tomatoes and the apples are spouting little leaves around the base of the trunk.

Yes, I still have a pile of Mulch, but it's a smaller pile.