Spent last week weeding and mulching

[sewfarsewgood]

Yes friends here in southern Texas - spring and the hot Texas summers are just around the corner. My plum trees are coming into bloom and the Confederate Jasmine is blooming too.

Was lucky this year to find all the compost I want for free at our local fairgrounds and also had a neighbor clear about 15 acres of land and decide to chip all of the cedar. My neighbors and I benefited by getting free cedar mulch. Have loaded, unloaded and spread almost 60 cubic yards of cedar chips this past week. I will have very happy trees this summer as most have at least 6 inches of mulch out to their drip line.

The moral to this story is as a gardener, you have to keep your eyes peeled and take advantage of all the free items like compost and mulch that you find. We collect and compost all of the free leaves, grass clippings, and chips we can find. For instance our local source for hay, straw, and feed needs to have his storage barns cleaned out. He is going to scoop out all the compressed and already composted alfalfa hay droppings and load it into my trailer for me to haul off for nothing. This will make a wonderful addition to my compost pile. Takes a bit of work when I get home - but the future rewards will be worth it - alfalfa is so rich in nitrogen and all the other good stuff. I will probably get 5 or 6 16 foot trailer loads.

[Gene]

About the wood chips I put them to around the shurbs and plants I put them in the flowerbeds next to the house these are pine or oak well any way had a man tell me I shouldn't put them next to my house because termites would get in them and move to eating my house up. Talk about scared this will make you stop and think do termites like cedar chips

[sewfarsewgood]

Nothing likes cedar chips, in fact cedar oil is used as an insecticide for fire ants. Additionally, I am building my own house and ALL the wood used in my exterior walls is treated lumber. Termites were a concern and they are welcome to try eating the treated wood.

[Ann B.]

Having spent the summer of 2000 with the back side of my house being torn down and rebuilt, while we lived in the north side and climbed over furniture to get from one side to the other, I can tell you from experience that termite damage is bad news.

It appears that the termites entered through cracks in the fireplace brick which meant tearing down the front of the fireplace (inside the house) and replacing the brick. Have you ever lived in a house with a 8' wide X 14' high brick fireplace being busted apart? It took a year to get rid of all that dust, not to mention the dust from the sheeting they had to replace after replacing all the studs and headers with treated wood.

To make it worse, it was hot and they had to remove all the windows and the sliding glass doors. Not FUN!

Termites are dangerous creatures. Be careful mulching too close to your house even if you use aged cedar. The termites will not feed on the cedar, but they will make themselves a very happy home underneath.

In fact, there wasn't any mulch on the back side of the house, and they still managed to turn 2X12's into dust.

Take Care!.

[sewfarsewgood]

Eastern red cedar is what you all are so lucky to have out there in the Carolinas.

Here in Texas we have Texas Mountain Cedar which is really a juniper.

They are so numerous here in Texas that the state is thinking of putting a bounty on them. Plants grow under juniper all the time - IF they can get light and water.

The reason the state is thinking about a bounty on them is that a 10 foot tall cedar takes up 35 - 40 gallons of water per day - 365 days a year. Do the math and figure out how much water is wated by this invasive plant that is not native to Texas. I probably have 300 more cedars to clear off my 7 acres. 300 times 30 gallons is 9000 gallons of water per day times 365 is 3,285,000 gallons of water per year. Staggering numbers aren't they??

[sewfarsewgood]

Ann,

Yup they will live under the cedar chips - its why I built the framing of my straw bale hoouse out of treated lumber!!!!!! and no they won't eat the straw. :D

GAry J

[Ann B.]

Smart MOVE!