I hate blueberries........

[WillsC]

11 months and 3 weeks of the year I love blueberry plants. There is one week a year where I absolutely hate blueberries.........and this is sadly that week. I have 3 BB beds, about 300 plants total. It will take an entire week to mulch them. Normally I do it in the winter but the mulch was LATE in arriving this year. The front bed is round, it is the circle in the middle of the driveway and is by far the hardest one to do. When done the piles of mulch you see will be reduced by about half.






'

[Inkfin]

Send me all the blueberries when they ripe, if you hate them so much.

[WillsC]

No By that point my hate for them has faded. It was almost too late to mulch. The berries are now still green and hard, once they start to swell I can't mulch or I would knock a LOT of them off so the mulch arrived just in time, but it is free and delivered so I can't complain too loudly. If the mulch had been two weeks later I would have had to wait till after the harvest to mulch and by then it is in the 90's here and I would really have hated them........i'm not a spring chicken anymore and it is a LOT of work.

[WillsC]

Btw the bees swarmed, twice

[Inkfin]

Did you catch the swarm?

[WillsC]

That would be NO x 2

[figgary]

A lot of work Wills, definitely, but mulching pays off. Less watering, less weeding, less mud, healthier soil and plants. As you know, well worth it. Good to hear that you have lots of bees, also. A sign of a healthy environment. Must be a lovely spot you have.

[WillsC]

I have a LOT less bees now Inkfin tried to help me but I just had too much on my plate at the time to get the other hives done. But the swarms are good for the bees and nature so it is ok and there is always next time. Sometimes priorities just make us do what we have to not what we want to.

[Gina]

I"ve got a load of mulch arriving Friday, but not for the blues. I got the ground around all the bb pots mulched very thickly late last year. Well, almost all of it.

Our mulch (from the city) is free too. Usually when I call for it, it takes only a few days for it to arrive. This time, almost 3 weeks. Because of the drought, everyone wants it now.

Good luck spreading the mulch. It can be a real pain.

[WillsC]

It is tiring. The front end loader fills the garden cart 3 times.so fill dump, fill dump, fill dump then go get another load with tractor. Repeat until tired. I will finish the front bed tomorrow and move on, the other two BB beds have straight rows and are much easier to do as I had a brain and made the rows wider in those.

[SmyFigs]

Yikes! A ton of work there! I have two blueberry plants...that's it.

[Harborseal]

As someone who moves 7 Cu yrds by hand, I don't feel sorry for you AT ALL.

[Sarahkt]

Mulching 300 top-notch blueberry plants? You poor dear.

[Sarahkt]

Haha! Seriously, do you have a strong neighbor or son of a neighbor you should bribe with figs, blueberries, or money to help you? The best neighbors are the cup-o'-sugar ones.

[WillsC]

If the plants did not have berries on them I would hire someone to mulch them but with the berries on you have to be careful so I will just do it myself

[Sarahkt]

At least you'll be motivated staring at your sweet reward blueberries while you do the work!

[The_Gardener]

You could donate some plants to me, so it'll be less mulching work for you.

[Visceral]

Maybe host a "Mulching Techniques for the Advanced Gardener" seminar this time next year. If you charge enough, you might have to turn people away. That's what Tom Sawyer might do anyway.

[WillsC]

I was thinking Hershell needs to design me a mulching machine......where it would suck up the wood chips and I could just then blow them in to the spots I want.

[Kelby]

They exist, sort of like a leaf blower with a feed for mulch.

[Harborseal]

Those already exist.

http://www.usedblowertrucks.com/model/eb60-3/

http://www.apolloequipment.net/equip.../blower-trucks

[strudeldog]

I keep begging the electric company for loads like that but get shot down, last fall were trimming by my drive but am told it's spoken for. Yes I offered money.

[awildcatb11]

Just simply send me all those offensive little rascals I will deal with them for you. Larry

[WillsC]

I keep begging the electric company for loads like that but get shot down, last fall were trimming by my drive but am told it's spoken for. Yes I offered money.

Did you ever call the electric company? Generally there is a waiting list. I am kind of lucky in that regard. One of my neighbors is a VP at our local electric company so he "may" help in assisting me to the top of the list at times He gets mulch also but he has no tractor so I move it for him with my tractor so one hand washes another.

[strudeldog]

Yes called several times. A few times I have been told they will make a note of it, Mostly I am told when I see them working ask if I can have it dumped, Maybe I need a new neighbor. I can pick up from their facility and I do but the amount I would like and the distance I have to travel Never amount to a fraction of what I could use.

[Clyde]

+Most municipal trash dumps segregate and shred or grind tree cuttings to give away so they don't have to use landfill space with them. You have to haul your own though.

[Gina]

In my city, the separated green waste is ground (as Clyde said) and is free. We can either pick it up in our own vehicles, or arrange a delivery in theirs. Locally, the choice is either a semi truck (for ranches), or a dump truck. The delivery fee for the dump truck is $40. I forget how many yards, but it's a large pile when only using a fork and wheelbarrow. I'm having a load delivered tomorrow. It was a three week wait instead of the old 3-4 day wait. Guess everyone wants it now.

I wish they'd do compost. They were supposed to but I guess the funding wasn't there.

[m5allen]

You like doing this stuff Wills, admit it.

[WillsC]

I will admit nothing. You live close, grab a pitch fork and come help me I have a nasty Florida Betony weed problem in the back bed. Hershell said I should just sell the house and start over, that it would be easier than getting rid of that weed. I am going to mulch the back bed DEEP in an attempt to smother it. That weed has awesome crunchy and tasty tubers though and why they call it rattlesnake weed.

[WillsC]

The python problem is more a south Florida thing. Not sure they could survive here but perhaps they could. In any event "so far" it is a non issue in Central Florida.

[Harborseal]

They will adapt.

[strudeldog]

I used to eat Betony all the time, Brings back fond memories of a mentor @@@@ Duerling He was a central Floridian as well. I only really got bad sick once believing on what wild edibles I could eat trailing him through the woods.

[WillsC]

Well I have a reprieve from the mulching as I lost a hydraulic cylinder seal. A year ago I had to replace the seals on the two bucket cylinders, should have down the other two lift cylinders at the same time I guess. So now I have a large paperweight till the new seals arrive.