At 12:46 AM 4/8/98 -0400, you wrote: >Cynthia, that sounds like an enormous job all for one summer.. >Is it a new house for you, or a new hobby? Do you work it all >alone? How much property is there? And when is your last frost date? > >My garden's been in about 12 years or so, and we are still cutting back >the borders of the lawn. If we don't, then Jimmie's Weed Whacker >whips off the lower branches of all the shrubbery when he's trimming >the lawn, and it all looks awful.. Faced with that job again now, I am >wondering just what is a sod cutter? The landscape boys have lawn >trimming down pat: they sharpen their straight-edged shovel to a knife >edge, then place the shovel on the grass at a 45 degree angle, give >one thrust, and go ka-choong, ka-choong all the way around in about >60 seconds! We tried that, and managed to get the shovel to penetrate >the soil in 60 seconds ... > >I don't mind hauling it away to the compost -- it's the digging which >kills me. > >Here in zone 6, it's too cold to plant anything except the earliest >stuff such as peas. We're still cleaning up from the winter mess >of leaves, pine needles, and broken branches. Oh yes, it is lawn >cutting time, nevertheless -- when Jim does it on time, we let the >grass fall, but often he's late, and that means he's got to collect >it all, and cart it to the compost. More work, of course. > >Does anybody have experience with adding lots of pine needles to >the compost? We get swamped with them every fall, and last autumn >was the first time we included them in the compost. They have NOT >decomposed even one tiny bit! > >Penny Stamm, NY > >_____________________________________________________________________ >You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. >Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com >Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] > Penny: Take your pine needles, row them up on the grass and run over them with the lawn mower. If you have a bagging lawn mower it's even better. They tend to mat if they're not chopped up. Of course the matting helps if you use them as a mulch for acid loving plants. Our azaleas, blueberries, and hydrangeas are mulched with pine needles. George