I started some garden clean up this morning. This is a before picture. Over the last few weeks, as summer wound down, I have not been as active in the garden, so some of the weeds took advantage of that to grow a lot. It looks like a mess, but taking it one raised bed at a time, I was able to do a pretty good job of clean up in just a few hours this mornng.
This is a picture aftewards. It may not look that different, but I cleaned up beans, cucumber vines, zucchini and corn, which were clearly done this season. I left the peppers, tomatoes, eggplant and flowers.
I filled up the compost bins, so didn’t have room for the corn stalks. I’m still thinking I may try to tie these stalks into a nice bundle to use as decoration on the front porch, along with a pumpkin or two (which I’ll need to get from my sister hopefully), and maybe some mums or asters.
You can see that the compost bins are quite full now. Big weeds and lush bean plants will do that. Some years, I dig long trenches in the garden beds and bury some of the stuff I’d normally put in the compost bins. But, I miss out on a lot of good compost that way. So, I’ve just about convinced myself that I need a chipper shredder like this one. Wouldn’t that be a nice garden toy, I mean tool, to have? Sure it would! I had a gas powered one but it was heavy, loud, and hard for me to start, so I sold it to my sister (with full disclosure!) This electric one looks like just exactly what I need!
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That’s the chipper that I wanted, too. Hubby came home with a gas-powered model that takes branches up to 3″ in diameter instead. Yep. The wild thing about chippers is what’s written on the side: in our case, a 14:1 ratio. Fourteen bags or bundles or piles of stuff get chipped down to one. Satisfying, but really humbling.
I also lust after a chipper/shredder. I’m waging an aggressive campaign against our honeysuckle bushes and it saddens me to send all the organic material to the city instead of chipping it for my own ocmpost.
funny, I’ve been daydreaming of a chipper/shredded myself lately! As my vegetable garden winds down as well, the weeds…I read with great interest about the one you have looked at!
I clicked on the link to see the chipper and that thing looks like it would chip a house. I think every gardener who is dedicated to the cause, should have all the right toys, I mean tools. Since you obviously take gardening seriously, you should have one! I am still working on figuring out how to have a compost bin with neighborhood rats running around. I wouldn’t be able be able to put anything except yard scraps. So not sure it would really be money well spent.