Suppressing My Weeds
I’ve been on a mission over the past couple of weeks. A very sweaty and laborious mission, but a good one, nonetheless.
I had a bit of a weed problem in my backyard. I mean, things were getting pretty jungly out there, and as I don't use chemical sprays, and I didn't want to spend an entire month pulling up weeds, I decided to order some wood chips to drown them out.
I had just recently learned about a free wood chip delivery service that's kind of amazing: https://getchipdrop.com/ This isn't sponsored by them, I just think it's a genius service, so I wanted to spread the word. Chip drop is a website that connects arborists to local gardeners, so when an arborist finishes a job, they can simply look at a map and find a gardener close by, who is looking for wood chips. The service is completely free for the gardener, but you have the option of covering the $20 fee the arborist pays, as a thank you. The amount of wood chips I got would have cost me hundreds of dollars, so I was more than happy to pay the $20 service fee.
My yard had been wood chipped in the past, but over time, weather, bugs and other decomposers broke those wood chips down into soil. And the soil that's created when the wood chips are broken down is happy soil that's ready and willing to be populated by a million weeds.
I knew this project was going to be a lot of work, but I had no idea how much work it would actually be!
The summer heat turned that wood chip pile into an oven. I got out my compost thermometer and measured it at over 120 degrees. So the day's heat and humidity was amplified even more by the heat coming off the wood chip pile, and then the heat coming from the wheel barrow as I was pushing it uphill.
While I was working a hawk landed in the tree above my head and I felt like she was saying "what the hell are you doing, lady, it's too hot out to work right now!"
Stretching this project out over two weeks allowed me to see that the first layer of chips wasn't enough to suppress all of the weeds, so I had to add another layer to what I had already done.
Thankfully the pile of wood chips I received was massive - like bigger than my car, massive, so I have more than enough to finish the job...hopefully by the end of this week. Hahaha
Hi, I’m Kristen!
I envision a world where you and I rediscover what it is to be human, through connection with ourselves, each other and the natural world around us.