Monday, April 26, 2010

Weekend Project Free organic mulch


My next door neighbor has a beautiful garden which I always want to sneak a peek to get inspiration from. Her garden has wonderful little path's with mulch all over her yard so I asked her what it was and how much it cost. To my surprise she said her husband can get it free anytime for anyone. So this weekend this wonderful pile of organic mulch was dumped in front of our house. I was excited!
My weekend project was to use the mulch any way I could. So Friday I put our new wheel barrel to use and mulched away. When we bought our home it had fresh bark dust everywhere. It looked nice but I really have never been a fan of bark dust. I saw sliver hunting in my near future. And after a few months when the weather was really nice, flea's decided to infest our home. We tried everything we could to get rid of them naturally. Eventually we were eaten alive so bad that we had to get the heavy duty industrial strength toxic stuff. Well now the flea's are gone and warm weather is almost here again which makes me paranoid. This weekend I decided that I would cover up all that bark dust with this organic mulch. Since the organic mulch had a mixture of different wood branches and pine needles, it should deter any flea's and weeds.  And here is the end results
 Notice my home with its shwanky (is that even a word?) double doors. Yep its an original 1967 home with original just about everything. This really doesn't look like much work but I swear it took me all Friday to do this.  I think it took about 30 wheel barrel loads just to do the front yard alone. Soon I will be relocating my strawberries under this front pine tree because strawberries thrive off acidity soil.  Currently my strawberries are located under the two bedroom windows you see in the picture.  Strawberries are perfect for sidewalk garden area's because the sidewalk's contain them so they wont travel.  They have pretty little white flowers and are green all year round. Maybe you have an unsightly area near your sidewalk? I take strips of mylar (recycle a mylar balloon?) and tie them around my strawberry plants. Birds love strawberries and will eat every single on of them if you do not put something shiny down to scare them. They do not like anything shiny. I will be using green mylar this year to blend in with the plants.
What about you? Did you have any free updates on your yards or landscaping? Have any idea's? Share with everyone!

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