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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Monday, November 09, 2009
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shazzy
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Joliet, IL
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Entry 212 of 227 |
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finally finished all patch work for the fall tonight. the patch was cleared and the soil was tilled over 3 weeks ago, but this year i wanted to get some more leaves incorporated and this meant waiting on the maple leaves to fall. 75 full brown lawn bags of maple leaves were stored and stockpiled in the solarium to stay dry. then i was finally waiting for the patch to dry out from all the heavy rains in october. so saturday and sunday, each planting spot got 25 bags that were shredded fine with both a shredder and then follow up with mulching lawnmower until finely grounded up. then they were tilled in with calcite calcium, sulphur, K mag, and humic acid all purchased from greensmith's. then i paid an out of work friend to use a deep spader.
http://www.groworganic.com/item_GDO500_Deep_Spader.html
this thing is a beast but works great. he subsolied the entire patch for 8 hours today and will be hurting tomorrow for sure. but it is cool to see this thing penetrate 18", then rocked back in forth with all your weight standing on top of it, and then pulled backwards and down to lift and raise the soil 6 inches. i then threw down a territorial seed company fall cover crop mix of 50% winter rye, 20% austrian winter pea, 10% hairy vetch, 10% crimson clover, and 10% annual ryegrass. very late i know for a cover crop, but the soil temps are warm from this indian summer we have had lately and hopefully i can get enough of the cover crop to germinate and root and grow some before the cold temps arrive. the sprinkler is running for the last time in 2009 as i type as no rain is predicted for the next week and i need to get the germiantion process going. temps look fine for the next 10 days with no freeze or frost predicted. but being chicago, that can all change in a hurry. it will be interesting to see how this late of a cover crop takes. 15 yards of ted kruegers organamix compost will go down early next spring.
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