Best free mulch I've found is pine straw (needles). After researching, I learned that any issues relative to adding acidity to the soil do not materialize. Rain still penetrates and the pine straw stays in place. Since I planted 2,000 conifers in 1990, including 1,000 white pines, I have an unlimited supply.
2025 Garden season
- Thread starter SONNY
- Start date
I've never had a problem with the surface being slimy, not sure what is up with that. I put them down thick enough that if I need to spray, pick, or just check the garden I can walk out on the garden with ease, as long as it hasn't been a several inch down pour, but most times walk right out there with no problems.
I don't have that many leaves, but I do gather from neighbors and have a buddy who works for a lawn service that has a leaf pickup service. A local city used to accept them for free, compost them then sell as compost in the following spring/summer. Now they charge $50 for a 1 ton dump truck load so they bring them to me saving them and their customers a lot of money. Last fall my buddy Matt brought me 10-11 loads maybe more of leaves on this truck. Just something to keep in mind if anyone finds this works for them and have the room to store them. One man's trash is another man's treasure.
I don't have that many leaves, but I do gather from neighbors and have a buddy who works for a lawn service that has a leaf pickup service. A local city used to accept them for free, compost them then sell as compost in the following spring/summer. Now they charge $50 for a 1 ton dump truck load so they bring them to me saving them and their customers a lot of money. Last fall my buddy Matt brought me 10-11 loads maybe more of leaves on this truck. Just something to keep in mind if anyone finds this works for them and have the room to store them. One man's trash is another man's treasure.
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Bloomington wont let anybody have the leaves. they haul them out in the country someplace and burn them! I have tried for years to get some and no go! I offered to use my Billy Goat and truck to pick some up and they said its a liability thing so KEEP OUT of town!! kinda sucks. anyway sis has wheat straw once in a while and we talk her tenant out of a few bales to use in the garden. I like to leave the bales out in the weather for 1 year before using them, --- makes nice slabs to lay down and wind dont blow it away like it does dry straw or leaves. We got wind here!! year round mostly except on hot days then nuttin! lol!
before you plow,---deep rip if you can then plow deep and turn stuff under. It will winter down and be super mellow in the spring. Toss on some fertilizer or manure, compost, leaves, etc. and plow that under.
I gotta rip mine this fall after harvest. Didnt get to last year and its been super dry all year here so ground needs to be opened up so water can go down during the winter and not run off.
I gotta rip mine this fall after harvest. Didnt get to last year and its been super dry all year here so ground needs to be opened up so water can go down during the winter and not run off.
KETCHAM
501 Club
good advice....Maybe get the dairy farm to give it a good rip...Super dry here also.....no rain in a month...brown,dormant grass...Which is good cause I'm not allowed on a mower for quite a while!!!!!!!!!!!!
harvest over here for 2025. Now to clean the gardens off and rip and plow!
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Peter Person
501 Club
Cleaned out our gardens this weekend. My bride still has lettuce coming up and time to harvest the parsley.
Decent crop of Honeynut squash this year - had to bring them in as the squirrels were getting to them.
Decent crop of Honeynut squash this year - had to bring them in as the squirrels were getting to them.
D.H. Kundert
Well-known member
I didn't really plant a garden this year, but did put some pumpkins in and a few sunflowers (one made it). The giant pumpkin did well for a late planting. It came in at 115 lbs. The jack-o-lantern pumpkins took over the rest of eastern part of the garden plot and was encroaching into the yard and had to move the vines back a few times. A friend stole the head from the mammoth sunflower for a scavenger hunt he was participating in 
Time to pull the vines and plow it under.
No fertilizer was used to grow this pumpkin. Weed control was good until life got in the way and weeds surrounded the pumpkin patch.
Time to pull the vines and plow it under.
No fertilizer was used to grow this pumpkin. Weed control was good until life got in the way and weeds surrounded the pumpkin patch.
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Nice pumpkin there!! I only plant Libby canners for myself here and Sugar Pie for my sister ----- both are food grade. Started planting the canners 40 years ago when I was following a pumpkin truck and one fell off so I scooped up the seeds and been planting them every year since.
D.H. Kundert
Well-known member
Thanks Sonny! That is a good way to acquire free seeds!
Wifey wants to grow a variety of pie pumpkin (really cannot remember which one), but she is reluctant because I don't care much for anything in the pumpkin food department. I like them more for looks than anything else.
I am curious if the seeds from this one are not sterile by genetic design. My father-in-law has already expressed interest in some of the seeds if they are any good. An experiment for early spring I suppose.
Don McCombs
501 Club
My guess would be that your big pumpkin is a hybrid variety and therefore the seeds will not reproduce true to the parent. I would think that most of the pumpkin seeds available today are also hybrids to some degree, unless it is an heirloom variety.
D.H. Kundert
Well-known member
That basically is my thinking.
Except for the carrots and parsnips the garden is cleaned out. An up and down year but overall good. Want to rototill yet. Carrots and parsnips have leaves bunched around them which will fall into a mound when they die down. We dig carrots most of the winter and parsnips in early spring or February when we get a thaw. Walnuts are schucked and I can crack them on a sunny day even in the middle of the winter since they are in the greenhouse. Good gardening wishes to everybody for 2026.. Vern