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Occasionally I'll get a load of arborist wood chips dumped in the driveway to spread, but by and large I reuse all my yard waste with the exception of summer grass clippings.
Leaves and pine needles from the front yard get collected, run through my chipper, and put back down as mulch every fall. I mow the back yard with my bagger in late fall and/or spring and put all that debris in the compost pile (along with kitchen waste from throughout the year and chicken coop waste).
I've done all the planting and mulching. I paid a guy to mow for five weeks several year back when I had a herniated disc.
Guess the real reason is that I like my garden the way I designed it - as soon as I hand that control off to someone else, here comes the colored mulch, the plastic edgers, the alternating colors of ground cover plants, the azaleas pruned into osomewhat spherical shapes. I mean, my neighbors bought a house with a beautiful garden and their lawn guys have done a terrible job of maintaining it - they've lost a lot of plants/flowers, and the invasive lesser celendine is taking over beds like crazy.
Then there's the veggie beds. Just rebuilt 5 of my ten 8'x4' frames for this season, and all ten of them are already full (lettuce, mixed greens, kale, chard, carrots, radishes, green beans, garlic, and some wintered-over arugula). Guess I need to do a bunch more; my seeds for summer crops just came in the mail yesterday. Anyhow, typical first year garden frame gets filled to the top with compost that's been aged for two years (that chicken poop can't go on fresh). Then it gets turned into the dirt for season #2. Most years i add a fresh layer of compost in the spring before turning.
My wife would like it if I relinquished a bit of control over the garden, but then again, she loves the flowers.
Interior, I love to paint, don't mind refinishing floors or patching drywall, won't touch electric or plumbing if I can avoid it. Have actually had better success with youtube than with paid professionals when battling uncooperative appliances like washers and dryers. ------- so I'm in a band now: album ---> http://greenwoodburns.bandcamp.com/releases Soundcloud ---> http://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns
my own stuff -->http://soundcloud.com/lonesomedstringband
avy by buckshot_defunct
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