Jason Barnes

I'll give it a shot. They've already got enough going against them. My clay soil, mostly.

If they don't work out, can you recommend a better place to get my trees for a second attempt?

How difficult is it to unwrap an re-wrap it?

I just planted some figs last year, and I've uncovered and recovered them once, and I'm uncovering them again tomorrow.

I use banana boxes with plastic bags over the boxes and bricks to hold them down, so it's not too difficult. I won't know if it worked until spring, though.

I think keeping them covered too long can cause them to come out of dormancy too early, which makes them more sensitive to milder cold snaps.

I got 3 hazelnut trees from Willis Orchards, and the roots had been almost completely cut off. They were just nubs maybe an inch or two long. The trees were 1/2 inch caliper, about 5 feet tall.

Can hazelnuts regrow roots after being cut off like that?

Trace Oswald wrote:I wouldn't mix anything. I would cover the entire area with wood chips as deep as possible.  If you have lawn clippings and other organic materials,  you can compost them and when they are ready,  just add the compost to the top,  or open holes in the wood chips,  fill with compost,  and plant in them.  You have a great resource and you're very lucky to have the wood chips available.  A great video that goes into all the details is the "Back to Eden" movie.  It's free to watch and had really great information that can answer all your questions.

Trace, I just wanted to say that the current iteration of the plan is to, if I can find someone to deliver about 30 yards of chips from the municipal mulch facility to my property, cover the area with about 8 inches of the mulch, and compost my lawn clippings on top of this area for the lawn growing season, and attempt some kind of gardening there next spring, and I thank you for your input.


That said, i would just like to say that watching the  "Back to Eden" video Is like, as if, say... I were trying to make a cherry pie, and what I really needed was a recipe for cherry pie, but instead, I watch the music video for the song "Cherry Pie" By Warrant for an hour and forty-five minutes.

Kind of like that.

Mike Barkley wrote:No real need to flip the sod. Just poke a hole with a stick or something & drop a peanut in. Crumble the shell a bit. Spaced about a foot apart. It probably wouldn't hurt to flip sod & loosen the soil first. Not necessary though.

If you leave some in the ground at harvest time they will reappear the following year.

Wow, I'll have to try those out.

So I got in touch with my tree guy friend, and it turns out he doesn't actually have a wood chipper, so all I could get from him is chunks which would be fine for hugelkultur, but there's no way I'm doing all that digging.

That said, I can probably still put the word out to local tree service companies that I'm looking for wood chips and get plenty. My county actually has a municipal mulch facility where people take their chips and brush. They're only open till 3:45 on weekdays, though, which means people have to hang on to the chips produced over the weekend, and dump them on Monday morning. There's usually someone here at the house on weekends, and weekday evenings to accept a load.

Also, we can just take the truck to the mulch facility and they will load it up for us for free!

https://www.murfreesborotn.gov/258/Yard-Waste-Collection

They even have a Hogzilla Tubgrinder, for the finest, most luxurious mulch.

Mike Barkley wrote:Jason, Tennessee Red Valencia peanuts grows directly in our clay soils. No digging required except a hole big enough for each peanut to be planted. According to the UT agriculture department website only that one variety will grow here. I have had great success using those peanuts (& wood chips) to help improve the soil. They taste great too.

You know, I was just looking at some of those. All I have is lawn to work with, atm. Could I just flip a couple square feet of sod and put a seed in?

I have an area of about 1200 sq ft that I would like to turn into a garden plot. It is about 20 feet from the south facing side of my house. The soil on my property is very heavy red clay. Just a few inches down it is pure enough clay that I could probably throw it on a wheel and make pottery out of it. That said, the grass over the almost 2 acres grows very well. I'm in zone 7a in Middle Tennessee.

I also have a friend who does tree cutting/trimming from whom I can get truckloads of wood chips. I have been watching youtube videos about mulching with wood chips and composting wood chips. I understand a little about carbon/nitrogen ratios. The current plan is to get a load of wood chips dumped in the growing area, and mix them together with lawn clippings to form a berm about 3 feet high and wide, flip it once or twice, and spread it out about a foot deep when it looks like compost. Then maybe add a few inches of wood chips on top of that, and just keep doing that until the area is covered.

Does that sound like a good plan, or is there something better I could do with these resources?