Chop and Drop - PEP BB gardening.sand.chopndrop

I suspect there's a difference between soaking food scraps in water for a few days and putting leaves and branches on the ground near plants.  Nature is chop and dropping all the time so I'm pretty comfortable with it myself.

Hello :) This is my first attempt to post materials for a PEP badge. Do I just reply to the post like I'm doing here and post the photos, etc.?

Yes, Deanna. Use the BB button instead of the submit button though. (might have to click the three dots ... to make the BB button appear)

Yup, it's just like a normal reply but there's a different submit button that says "submit for BB certification" so click that when you are all ready.

Thanks so much for the help, everyone. :) I've been saving these chop and drop pictures for a while and am looking forward to finally sharing them. Love this community!

I measured this section of the lot to 7x30 ft so 210 square feet. I used the chopped material - mostly vetch to mulch around my apple, apricot, and blackberries there. It was just enough to give them all a nice mulching.

As the summer here gets hot and dry my young peach tree can use all the help it can get to stay hydrated. I chopped a bunch of weedy growth along the back fence and piled it around the tree, the area has a lot of clover and nasturtium so I wait until those have gone to seed. This time of year most of it was drying or dried out, and the neighbors sweetgum tree contributed a few leaves.  The mulch ended up around 6-8" thick, pulling it from a space about 5 feet wide and 50 feet long, it made a circle around 9 feet in diameter for the tree. Until the crows start digging in it for bugs!

Hi,
I have a permaculture vegetable garden on about 700 square feet.

Ive been chopping and dropping regularly from the beginning to keep a good layer of mulch everywhere.
For the purpose of this BB, I took a pictures of plants in front of the house that we needed to trim and drop them in the biodiversity zone.

I have also a fertile zone with 160 square feet full of comfrey that I Chop (shred) and Drop once every 4 to 5 weeks.

And finally, the hill in the back of the house has been chopped by the city to prevent fire and waiting for the sheep to come eat the dried chopped straw and plants. I harvest time to time some to drop in in my garden.

Hey!

I chopped and dropped an overgrown raspberry patch. The sections in the pictures are the far right and middle pathways of a 3 rowed section. Each row is ~4ft wide×20ft so this picture is roughly 80 sqft.

I cut the deadwood down and kept it in a separate bucket to spread underneath the chopped weeds. I included all of the pathways cuttings into the rows. Given the overgrown nature l and chopping far into the right for extra green material it should meet the requirements.

Edit to address edge case, 7/7:
Sorry, these raspberries have been abandoned for a few years so the weed density and deadwood were very thick. I added more from a pathway discard pile, and cut down 100sqft of new material next to the far right row and spread in over an a 10x5ft area.

As an edge case tax, I spread a large discard pile, around an apple tree. The pile was generated from clearing about 200sqft of pathways.

I completed my chop and drop BB while mulching both sides of my 7’x6’ hugelkultur bed section at the center of the sun scoop (42 sq ft + 42 sq ft = 82 sq ft total). I added conifer bows from trees that I limbed myself. I chopped knapweed, vetch, clover and wheat with a small hand held scythe and applied it to the hugelkultur bed for diversity. I also created a 12 ft trail up the back side of the bed and I mulched that as well.