shredder
-
Recycling Annual Plants
Many of the plants currently in the garden are annuals, so after a season of growing, they disperse their seeds and die. This is an intentional part of my strategy, so that I can have a seasonal wildflower meadow in the front yard, and plenty of wildlife-friendly plants in the back yard to fill in Continue reading
-
Shredding A Few Excess Plants
I am limited in what I can compost here because I only have space for a small tumbling composter. That takes care of all of our household kitchen scraps and some of the garden waste. Tumbling composters don’t get hot enough to kill weed seeds, so there are some times when I will discard plant Continue reading
-
Clearing This Year’s Bumper Crop Of Sunflowers
In this first full year on the property, I let annual plants take the lead as I considered what more long-term plans could be for the garden. Annual plants fill space to capture water and reduce soil erosion, and encourage wildlife visitors (birds and insects). When they are finished and cut down, their decaying roots Continue reading
-
Closing Down The Wildflower Meadow For The Year
By mid-October, the only things still standing in the wildflower meadow were a few Spotted Beebalms aka Spotted Horsemint (Monarda punctata) and Beach Sunflowers (Helianthus debilis), one Silverleaf Nightshade (Solanum elaeagnifolium), and one Yellow Sneezeweed (Helenium amarum). As each plant in the meadow has come to the end of its life, I left it long Continue reading
-
Working On The Tall Grass Area
Early on in my time here, I set aside a portion of the back garden to be an area for mid-height native prairie grasses and the one I particularly wanted to grow was Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). I introduced that by plant and seed. Sometimes I plan one thing, but nature, increased knowledge, or random Continue reading
-
Shredding Before A Storm
This week a tropical storm was forecast to hit Texas and so I hustled to finish the current shredding task. I had Firewheel and Sunflower stalks that were already cut and drying out, and I didn’t want to get them wet again so out came the trusty shredder. This time I put the resulting mulch Continue reading
-
Paying It Forward In The Wildflower Meadow
Once the majority of Bluebonnets and Firewheels had finished blooming in my native wildflower meadow, they were cut down to the ground and the stems moved to the back garden to dry. A few days later it was shredding time. By then I had accumulated quite a lot of material, due to cutting down most Continue reading
-
A Gift For The Garden (And My Hands)
The “green mulch” approach of growing annual plants to fill my space this year means that I am generating quite a bit of biomass when it comes time to cut those plants down. In the short term, I have been able to lay cut stems on the ground as pathways but I will eventually run Continue reading
About Me
Nature Lover.
Inquisitive Observer.
Student Gardener.
I invite you to join me on my journey to convert my sterile (from a nature point of view) new house lot to a healthy and diverse ecosystem, as I make discoveries, mistakes, and hopefully progress. I am not an expert or professional. The project started in February 2023 and the location is Seguin, Texas, USA.
Rewilding My Lot 