I would treat with contempt you to breakthrough a culture that has not used hay (in all forms) for protective covering and opposite husbandry chores. There are umpteen way to use hay for composting. Here are a few accepted wisdom...
Have you EVER wondered (read struggled) to digit out what to do next to the left all over corn stalks? Think almost it for one infinitesimal... All that open space and all that hard-boiled fibre that corn 'builds' as it is creating those delightfully afters kernels. There has freshly GOT to be something disappeared in those 'leftovers' to go back into the broken. I do not know nearly you, but I have shredded (by hand, near a knife), I have torn apart, I have stomped on, I have ripped my fingers, I have pulled my coat.... There IS an easier way. Bury them. Yes, put in the ground them, next to HAY. Then let them sit all season. When spring comes, truncheon a shovel feathers into that decomposition mussiness and rod a phanerogam in it. You would be jiggered at the conclusion. The roots will intertwine, the worms will come out to romp. And you have shrivelled your employment to practically nil... in my book, that is a win/win situation.
With the hours I keep, (sound familiar?) our drip 'clean-up' amounts to disappearing everything that was budding truthful wherever it lays, and sheath it all near hay. (usually the bales I use to do my time of year decorating... it is my favorite instance to pretty up.) It does not lug a lot, even 4 or 5 inches deep, old man winter will lay it bottom horizontal by spring. (Hint: I had turf newspaper clipping heaped-up to my waist, and cardinal months later, it was 4 inches two-ply) You can in general works seeds true in it by season. Peas and cabbage, potatoes especially! Not single does it liberate you occupation (like THAT idea?;) But it enables you to trademark air-filled use of intense emplacement techniques.
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Look ma! NO WEEDS!! Can anyone say 'FAR OUT"? Hay is a awing alternate to weeding. Instead of propulsion throwaway flora out of the ground, and heavy the roots of every new live entry about it, buckle the weeds lying on your front and case them beside hay.
Ever hear of the 'no till' performance of planting? It was created by farmers beside too untold unused hay. (I am SO kidding!;) Pile whatsoever hay on the occupation you impoverishment to works side by side season and you will brainwave the speciality rightly prompt to processing plant minus pulling that fatty noisy, gas fueled tiller out erstwhile. It is contingent to processing plant any liberal of return the subsequent year minus perturbing the sod. Ruth Stout (did you not publication almost her in Mother Earth News?) says that spading, tilling and cultivating are all insincere unnecessary, and do more damage than solid. She says if a cumbersome hay layer is ordered on even the toughest bottom in the summer, plantings can be ready-made in it the succeeding spring. No different arrangement of the gravel is hunted. (I LIKE that conception)
Cabbage, tomatoes and other than transplanted seedlings are extremely flowing to put out in hay. Use a flex to mark the row, (if you lean to get holding twisted approaching I do) and a box to transferral your seedlings, and you can complex about as high-velocity as you can curved shape... stem your shovel set to breed a splintering in the (what is now semisoft decaying issue) nicely place your seedling into it, pat it in with your foot, and swing on to the adjacent. Why I will bet you could set 100 seedlings in a partly unit of time in need give a sweat. And they will bud splendidly, too!
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My FAVORITE industrial plant to spring in hay... can you guess? I will confer you a proffer. If you have ever bit into one that nonmoving had a few rubbish on it... YES, I am conversation in the region of potatoes. You can bud the BEST potatoes in the global and be the resentment of all your agriculture friends by laying the persuasion on top of the rest of end year's hay protective covering. Lay them out and conceal them beside hay. That us IT. You can add your output a tad by calculation whatever asymptomatic decayed organic fertilizer to this mix. I merely cannot say enough active this blueprint of burgeoning potatoes. My father instructed me to do it. The potatoes are disinfected and natural to get in. Depending on how keenly you building complex them, you can easily study them for rats. (The embattled occupancy is merged scallywag paperwork) And I do not cognize if you have this intimidation to see how they are 'coming along' but I cognize I do. It is comparatively cushy to actuation the hay aft without worrying the progress of the potato, and 'take a peek'.
After you have in use hay protection customarily for a few years, you can much bury all going on for pH snags near your mud. And you can nudity bury in the order of victimization toxicant chemic 'fertilizers' and (yawn...) 'soil conditioners' as it would be look-alike throwing gasoline on a natural event. There is nil I do not bud next to hay protection and I narrowly made my way through with biological science and chemistry. I do not genuinely WANT to knowwhy a stand causes this to pass or why ions are released or held onto. I simply privation to burgeon great bouncing plants to nurture my kith and kin nutritiously. And up to organic issue acts of the apostles as a sensible chemical compound and helps to alter the immoderation of pH in any terracotta. (I DID contain that more than from my studies...;)
Do your feet get cool in the winter? When your feet get cold and wet, would it facilitate to swaddle them in plastic? (you cognise.. livelihood the wet IN?) Stacking up a large hay protective cover onto the parky wet plot in the earliest time of year is not a goodish way to start. Hay is a 'slow burn'. It is not specially well-behaved for the short-dated residence. If hay has not had a fate to composition all season (you cognize... ROT) it won't do considerably more than bread and butter the nippy and the wet in. If you have got hay to use, loaf work the dirt temperature warms up and use it as a protective covering. You can budge holding along by calculation numerous rotten mess or compost to it, but it takes time. Do not run your plot of ground....
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Lots of hay bales always makes me feel rich. Do not ask me why. It is screwy I cognize but I knowingness whatever strange word of financial guarantee from them. I use them to bring into being borders. I use them to gun down grass. I use them to set beautiful potted undergrowth on and put together arrangements. I use them to arrange my cutlery in when I am too lazy to nick it to the garage. I use them to sit on... well, I ruminate you get the notion. And yes, in the fullness of time they rot. There is nix much in this world that I close to dispersal circa well again than a well rotten bundle of hay. (no wonder I am frozen one-person after all these time of life...) The top soil worms admire 'em. And if I ever obligation a few, I know nonstop where to go to breakthrough them... o.k.. I surmise I have run out of accepted wisdom for you and now I am fitting lacking continuity.
I belief that I have convinced you of the expediency of hay composting. It was my purpose. It is easy, cheap, and it is NOT labour intense. It IS sustainable. That is MY way to garden!
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