Artichokes and Shredding.

[Palustris]

These are just one lot of tubers which I picked up off the soil after cutting down the tops. Pity I cannot eat them, they are a good size too. If anyone wants them they can call and collect! :)
And for members of Shredders Anonymous, I may have mentioned to some about clearing up the Daisy Lawn. Well this is just about 2/3rds of the material I have cut down. There is still a lot of tall grass stems to get to, but the gale force wind is too strong to stand up in at present.
This is waiting a dry day to shred, but what would you do with the bits. Compost heap or back on the garden as mulch?

[Palustris]

[Garden Manager]

Cant help with the artichokes Eric but can with the shredding.

I have a similar pile in my garden just waiteng to be shredded. All the spring prunings (buddleia, lavatera, dogwood etc), just waiting to be turned into .... what?  :-\

What i have done in the past is store them seperate from the compost and let them rot down a little before using the stuff as a mulch. I havent done this for a while because i havent had the quantities to make it worthwhile, so i have been saving it up. May use it a a mulch still or I may mix it with the compost when i need some dry material to mix with 'wet/soft' material. Whatever i do it will be put to good use!

Is this the first time you have shredded Eric? You sound as if you have just got the shredder, and have done something else with the prunings before.  

[Palustris]

Bought our first shredder at least 15 maybe more years ago. Now own 2, one which does soft material and one which does woody stuff. Usually put soft on the compost heap and wood used as mulch, I just wondered if anyone had any better ideas. As far as quantity, there are already 2 dozen bags of soft material and 14 bags of woody waiting to be used in whatever way. There is still  at least the same amount of plant material waiting to be chopped down. The buddleias and the Elders will provide another 5 bags and then there is the Forsythia to come. Ahh happy days dancing to the sound of electric shredding.

[Hugh_Jones]

Eric, with the quantity you have there I`d suggest that you compost it all separately - it all looks very dry and dead, and it isn`t going to rot down in a few weeks.  Once you start getting a lot of lawn mowings you could use some of the shreddings to mix with them though.

I had to dispose of a similar stack last week, rose prunings (including a lot of old climber material), hydrangea prunings, buddleia prunings and a pile of assorted gale litter and I`m composting the lot separately for next spring`s herbaceous border mulch.

[tim]

Make a pathway with the long stuff, like Ina does?? = Tim

[Palustris]

Probably use the woody stuff on the path through the wood, but first I have to move the Snowdrops and Aconites. More work, sigh.

[ina]

Yes Eric, like Tim said, I use the long stuff for pathways. When I cut the ornamental grasses in early spring I save it in bundles. When the strawberries are starting to carry fruits, I shove the dried grasses under the plants so the soil stays moist and the berries don't lay on the soil. After the strawberry harvest I gather the grasses up and lay them on the main paths in the veggie plot. Works really well but walking on it with slippers, before it's trampled down good, can be tricky, I've had my toes jabbed more than once hahaha.