Eco Whole yard landscaping using wood chips

Looks great, Kay!  I'd love to do the same here....

You're growing a key lime tree?  In NC?  How's it doing?

AtlantaMarie wrote:Looks great, Kay!  I'd love to do the same here....

You're growing a key lime tree?  In NC?  How's it doing?

Remember I'm in Zone 8 over at the southern end of the coast.  I use a small space heater in a plastic hobby greenhouse.  As long as I can keep it near 40F, they survive the winter here and continue to grow.  Although the last two winters have been colder for longer than normal.   

 I  bought the sprouted seeds from an online nursery/seed store (can't remember which) 4 years ago.  All 5 grew.  The calamansi seeds came from a fruit bought at an Asian market 3 yrs ago.  About a dozen grew.   A local nursery grower that sells a lot of  citrus said 5-6 years and I MIGHT get fruit.  But he showed me how to keep them pruned down to about 5-6 ft high.  He keeps his in an attached garage and prunes down enough to get them in and out of the garage door for the winter.  I don't know if I REALLY expect to get limes, but the plants are pretty.

My advice if you want one is to buy the grafted ones at the nursery.  I'm thinking of adding a Meyer lemon and an orange tree to the mix.  But right now I have way too many citrus of the same type.

Kay

Wood chips make excellent growing medium and can be used in a square foot garden, as I can attest.

John Kohler from Growing Your Greens had these two excellent videos concerning this topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXEcjWE_Xjs&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEkFFRjDkvs

I love seeing your progress, it's so neat and elegant looking :-)  NICE JOB!  

I just sent my husband for a load of chips (we just are too hit and miss around here to wait for free loads as we're in the boondocks).  They really help with our water conservation. 
Keep us posted with new pictures.

wow kay. It looks awesome!

Well, Kay finally got fed up.  When I moved back here there were 6 cases of out of date beer (Dec 2014) sitting in the L/R floor.   I have patiently been waiting for 3 months for them to be disposed of.  Today I popped the caps of 3 cases and wet down the wood chips in the front yard.   I'll put another 2 cases(4 six packs) in the backyard and 1 case in the compost piles.  Don't have the molasses and ammonia to mix with it for that feeding spray, but the beer is going, going, gone. 

Kay

I hear the sound of great weeping

Actually, I know someone who feeds her roses with beer and Epson salts once a year.

I'd think that'd work pretty well...!

walshevak wrote:Well, Kay finally got fed up.  When I moved back here there were 6 cases of out of date beer (Dec 2014) sitting in the L/R floor.   I have patiently been waiting for 3 months for them to be disposed of.  Today I popped the caps of 3 cases and wet down the wood chips in the front yard.   I'll put another 2 cases(4 six packs) in the backyard and 1 case in the compost piles.  Don't have the molasses and ammonia to mix with it for that feeding spray, but the beer is going, going, gone. 

Kay

This is a crime against God and man! I can almost see the construction workers and Teamsters weeping! The flailing of limbs and gnashing of teeth! O destruction! O calamity! Lost children of terrible destiny, who will be drunk for us now?

Easy, Marc, easy. There's plenty more where that came from.

Marc Iverson wrote:

walshevak wrote:Well, Kay finally got fed up.  When I moved back here there were 6 cases of out of date beer (Dec 2014) sitting in the L/R floor.   I have patiently been waiting for 3 months for them to be disposed of.  Today I popped the caps of 3 cases and wet down the wood chips in the front yard.   I'll put another 2 cases(4 six packs) in the backyard and 1 case in the compost piles.  Don't have the molasses and ammonia to mix with it for that feeding spray, but the beer is going, going, gone. 

Kay

This is a crime against God and man!  I can almost see the construction workers and Teamsters weeping!  The flailing of limbs and gnashing of teeth!  O destruction!  O calamity!  Lost children of terrible destiny, who will be drunk for us now?

You did notice that the beer went out of date last Dec.  My son works for a distributor and got it right after it went out of date.  Drinking in Jan or Feb would have probably been ok, but July- not a good idea.  But I understand plants still like it, so not a total lost.  Feeding the compost pile.


Kay