Garden Beds

Okay, I couldn't resist. It was such a beautiful afternoon yesterday, my class was cancelled and I had to buy chicken feed. The chicken feed only comes in because I was at the feed store and they have straw. Since I have heavy, heavy clay soil and stupidly gave away my rototiller after my divorce, I decided it would be easier and better to do raised beds without being enclosed.

I have been saving all my yard waste for a while now in anticipation of digging it into my new vegetable garden, but instead of spending hours and hours that I really don't have right now, we will be trying to Lasagna garden technique.

In case you have never heard of lasagna gardening it is a process where you layer stuff to about 2 feet high and then just plant directly in it. So far, I have a layer of straw, the bottom of the chicken coop, shredded bills courtesy of my parents (they seriously had bills from the Baptist kindergarten they sent me to over 30 years ago), a layer of leaves and some horse manure. I still need to add about another foot of stuff, so I'm not sure if I will try to repeat the layers or go scavenging in other peoples yards...

Free Chipper

I have been wanting a chipper for many years. Yet, the price is just too exorbitant to justify my desire. In the city I live, I have to pay to drop off my yard waste, they turn it in to compost and then I have to pay to buy the compost. Seems like the city is making out on that one. Personally, I would like my own yard waste to stay in my yard and feed my plants.

While talking to my neighbor about pruning and waste, he mentioned he had a chipper that he hasn't used for several years. Last month I became the lucky recipient of a free chipper! He said it had been sitting in the rain for a while and was all locked up.

On Christmas, my dad, my brother and his dad all gathered around the chipper in my garage and tried to figure out what was wrong. First thing they found was a large metal padlocked jammed in the blades...go figure. Once that was taken care of, they got the engine started but only if they continuously poured gas directly in the carburetor. Realizing that this would not be a good, long term solution and $111 later, the chipper runs beautifully - except it wont chip anything.

Explaining this to Darrin just brought confusion:

"Did you get it running?"

"Yes, but it's not chipping."

"But, it's running?"

"Yep."

"Then how's it not chipping?"

"You'll just have too look for yourself to understand."

After he tried chipping and realized what I had been trying to say, we took it apart and found that the blades were so dull as to not be considered blades anymore. After much struggling to get the blades off, we decided to try to have them sharpened instead of spending $65 on new ones and just adding more stuff the landfill...

So, I now have freshly sharpened blades and a chipper that was taken apart several weeks ago, ready to be reassembled this afternoon and finally chip and the trimmings I have been pruning for the past several months!