September 12, 2013
I am planning on adding two new crops to the garden next year. Strawberries and sweet potatoes. I prepared the beds by covering them with manure when I cleaned out the chicken coop this summer.
I am planting in the sweet potato bed right now for lack of room but I was able to find a free source of horse manure recently and went ahead and covered the strawberry patch and the newly prepared potato patch.
(strawberry patch covered in chicken and horse manure)
(potato patch covered in horse & chicken manure)
I am always watching L2Survive’s YouTube videos where he goes and talks to Paul Gautcshi. I love learning from him! One thing I learned recently is that he uses wood shavings (about 6 inches) in his coop. It soaks up the ammonia smell and makes a fine, very rich compost. He says to spread it very finely over the garden. Truthfully, I’m just looking forward to the lack of smell 🙂 Our coop doesn’t smell horribly but I love the smell of the wood shavings! I’ll post a pic when I get it all spread out 🙂
I saw an Asplundh truck the other day & they said they would be more than happy to bring by some mulch. They never showed up 😦 I guess they were not able to find our house. We don’t need any more mulch but I was excited anyway.
It hurts me to spend money in general so buying things for the garden tends to be put on the back burner. Especially since I’m saving up for expensive crops like strawberry sets and sweet potatoes! Are you getting any free things for your garden?
I am linking up to Simple Lives Thursday. Check out what other people are doing to save money (among other things)!
Gardening Without... 
Hi, We do get free compost and mulch from a waste management site. The compost is suppose to have been tested to be safe for the garden. We don’t have truck but put it in totes in the car! Because gas is so expensive we try to pick some up when we are that way for other things but at first we made special trips. Nancy
we always get laughed at when we come to pick stuff up in the van…filled with carseats 🙂 everyone in our county has a truck so when we come w/rubbermaid containers, we always get a chuckle 😉