Much ado about Mulching

Mulching.

You live and learn. I first started using mulch in the garden beds about 10 years ago. I used a layer of used carpet between the rows in the garden, ugly but really worked well, and some donated wood chips in the flower beds looked nice and reduced watering, too. It cut down on the weeding enough to make me want to do it again.

When we started the garden in the new house the budget was tight. I realized I couldn't afford much mulch. I thought I would get really smart and use lawn clippings and leaves to mulch with, they were free. I didn't realize that the mulch wouldn't get hot enough to kill the seeds from the weeds that are everywhere in our yard.

So I basically seeded weeds in all my garden areas then got too ragged with arthritis to tend to them. Then the hip surgury. Then the heart attack. Three or more years of seeded weeds took over everything. The results has been messing with me all year but I'm gaining on it!

This weekend we decided we had saved enough money to spring for some mulch. The mate and I got up Saturday and rolled off for our first square yard. The little S-10 did a great job hauling it home.

It was hot out this weekend so we waited till late in the day to spread the mulch. About 5:30 we started shoveling, weeding, shoveling, and raking. It only covered about half the first area we were trying to protect.

We went back for another load on Sunday morning. It sat there till almost 7:00 pm as it was over 90 degrees out there. We were moving right along and making good time when I hit a bunch of ground bees, wasps, hornets or whatever you want to call them. I was reaching for a stubborn bit of crabgrass to yank it's nasty little roots out when I got stung. I yelped, jumped backwards, hollered "get back!" to the mate as he told me the same all before my eyes had taken in the fact that there were 20 or thirty bees in a holding pattern over the corner of the house.

I booked inside, washed it with baking soda, sprayed it with Benedryl spray and took an allergy pill of the same. The mate watched to make sure I got it doctored properly and I thought I got the stinger out so we went back out to finish up.

The bees had calmed down and things were back on track when a fat little grey mousie hopped out of the mulch and ran down the wall of the house. Now, mice and other rodents are just about the only thing that make me react like a "typical" girl. I can handle snakes, spiders are no problem, but show me a tiny mouse - I'm on the highest accessable piece of furniture or handy human shoulders I can find.

So I screech and jump back again. I watched it hopping down the length of the flower bed to disappear in the next big hunk of mulch. GREAT!

I have one 10 year old long haired tortoise shell tiger that believes the entire planet was built to display his royal, kingly beauty to it's best advantage. We named him Timone to remind him he is "meerly a cat" but it doesn't seem to work. He believes he exists to allow humans to find joy in his presence and worshiping him. Approached with a friendly offer of petting or sacrifices of tender meats and cheese, he will allow you to actually touch his royal self for your pleasure. If you are especially reverent he will denign to purr for you. He weighs about 14 pounds. He's a great hood ornament, not much for mice. He will hunt under bait at the bird feeder and I have seen him with the occasional kill of one kind and another but he's really too royal now to hunt. There was no point in bothering him to catch the little nasty.

We just picked up a young female a christmas or two ago hoping to get a better mouser. She is a beautiful black short hair with a gray under fur named Mystique. Quiet, fast, lean and smart, we had great hopes for her. She does stalk, lurk and hunt. She will hunt for hours. That's the good news.

The bad news is she has a monkey on her back. She's a catnip junkie. She mostly hunts new stands of "bud" and what I call "rug aliens". These are the little, invisible aliens that are no more than 2" high who live under the throw rugs.

After scoring a new plant and mauling it into submission she lurks by the throw rugs until an alien peeks at her. She proceeds to totally destroy his current hiding place, ripping it up and inverting it while carefully leaving one corner curled under for us to trip over. Then she lurks at a new rug. With no rug in the flower bed fetching her to catch the mouse was fairly pointless.

I have seen her catch mice. I just think they were accidently hanging out under the rug with the aliens and, being slower, got killed.

So the mate finished the mulch on the side of the house and I went to mulching under my yard swing. He joined me and we finished the second load off under the swing tree.

I just want to mention that we had home grown peas and venison steaks for dinner. I steamed the peas and the mate grilled the steaks and it was sooooo good! It takes longer to peal peas than it does to cook and eat dinner but was SO worth it!

He is off to get a third load today. For Fun tonight I get to pull poison ivy and mulch Warf's garden. I will get some photos up soon.