Pine Bark Fines

I'm preparing for next year's container gardening soil.  Part of the mixture is referred to as pine bark fines which is basically ground pine bark.  I've read a bunch about it on the internet and it's benefits, but I'm not going into that today.  Instead, I'm showing you how I procured some in an attempt to lower costs.  Yesterday, Donovan, who was in town on Christmas holiday from college, and I went driving around.  I literally looked for downed pine trees.  Well, found some and loaded up as much as I could find.  The pic below shows the amount gathered and the end result after I ran it through the shredder--3, 18 gallon totes.  So, my efforts garnered 54 gallons of crumbled pine bark.  A good thing.  Next, I'll go to Home Depot and get a couple bags and compare to see if I actually saved some $$ or not.  Any way it goes, it was worth the effort to me.

Composting Leaves

I picked up leaves several weeks ago from the city of Jacksonville.  Since, I've shredded them a little at a time finishing up today with a big push of 40 or so bags.  Total bags shredded were about 80.  For anyone reading this, leaves are a great amendment to a garden adding nutrients, organic matter, and increases soil tilth.  If leaves are left whole, they take a couple years to compost down.  However, shredded, they break down much faster.  Leaves can be cold or hot composted.  Cold composted leaves are mostly carbon (dried) with little nitrogen added.  From my research, I understand that fungi go to work on cold compost piles and the finished product is often referred to as "Leaf Mold."  If you add a nitrogen source to the dried leaves and it's mixed in, bacteria get fired up and the leaf pile will heat up and you get a hot compost pile which breaks down much faster than the cold compost option.  Benefits and opinions vary widely on the internet which is better.  For me, I want it broken down as quickly as possible so I can use next spring in the garden so I'm adding coffee grounds and other nitrogen sources.  Below is a quick video on the pile I built.  I'll do a follow up on it in the future.

Four More Fruit Trees Planted

So, as part of increasing my Orchard fruit and providing good cross-pollination, I planted 4 more trees today.  All were bare-root trees ordered from Willis Orchards out of Georgia.  I wanted the Elberta variety peach in my orchard so I got a 2' whip.  I'm in no hurry for it to mature because I already have 5 producing peaches.  Early spring, I had bought several pear and one plumcot from Willis Orchard and all leafed out.  Figured it was safe to give them another shot and I needed a pollinator for my Plumcot hybrid.  Since I love plums, I settled on two more varieties vs an apricot as pollinators and to give me some great fruit--the Santa Rosa and the Elephant Heart, both being 5' branched bare-roots. I also love Cherries and thought I'd give one a try even though it might not produce here in Arkansas.  It is a self-pollinating compact variety, Stella.  I took a snapshot and labeled there location below.  I put cages around the newest trees hoping to keep the deer and/or rabbits from chewing on them.