Reuse Your Garden Trimmings

Bob Bauer

June 18, 2016 (Last Updated: March 06, 2023) | Reading Time: About 1 minute

June 18, 2016

Every year for Fathers Day I ask my wife for a couple bales of straw and every year she gets me four. She knows it won't go to waste because whatever doesn't get put down in the summer for water retention goes on in the fall to keep the ground insulated during the winter. I'll have earthworms tilling my soil under 4" of straw all winter long. Grass clippings are plentiful this time of year but they tend to mat and reduce the air circulation in the soil if put on too thickly. I used to have a landscape professional drop off his daily haul at my house on his way home from work back when we lived in the city..

He was glad to do it because he said it saved him a trip to the dump. I pulled up the pea vines today and found a nice place for them along the fence line behind the melon mounds. It looks a bit messy now but in a few days when they dry they will compliment the greens of the melon leaves..

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