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WNYPCRepair

composted mulch

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WNYPCRepair

I had the ditch in front of my house filled in in the fall of 2014. The county used fill that had everything from rocks and blacktop to car parts in it. I'm not kidding. Among other things, I dug out a 2' section of driveshaft. They also left it about a foot lower than it should be. 

So, I was facing buying enough topsoil to cover 120' x 10' x 1'. Not cheap, and a lot of work. My neighbor was having some trees cut down last spring, and I asked the guy what he did with the mulch from his chipper. (Mulch is a stretch, by the way, it's pretty large chunks.) He asked if I wanted some, and how much I wanted. I told him he could drop as much as he wanted, multiple truck loads would be fine. I think Squonk was here about the time I finished spreading it last summer. 

I went out today to aerate it for the second time. I just take a fork and lift slightly to get some air down in the pile, and let it loosely drop back down. This is what it looks like, less than a year later. As a matter of fact, it had to be the end of June, because I finished right after my wife broke her knee. It is full of nightcrawlers doing their magic, turning those wood chips into nice rich dirt. 

 

You can see from the pictures some of the gravel that was in the dirt they left, and the size of some of the mulch. 

My plan is to dig down and add some topsoil in spots and plant bushes, then cover the whole thing with real mulch. I also hope to find a couple more companies to drop off more, so I can start covering the swampy parts of my lawn in the back. I had ducks swimming in my back yard yesterday, I need to bring the level up about a foot in spots. I hope to get some landscaping companies to drop off grass clippings to mix with it and speed the process.

 

 

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farmer

Isn't nature amazing, given a little bit encouragement and time it can heal up most things, even behind us humans. :coffee:

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WNYPCRepair
4 hours ago, farmer said:

Isn't nature amazing, given a little bit encouragement and time it can heal up most things, even behind us humans. :coffee:

 

 

I was kind of amazed how quickly it turned to dirt, honestly. I expected a couple of years. The second picture had a small amount of composted horse manure mixed in, and is much richer. Unfortunately, I ran out of it for the biggest part of the ditch, but it still made some pretty rich dirt quickly.

 

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