Re: [gardeners] Good groan and moan

penny x stamm (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Thu, 18 Mar 1999 23:20:30 -0500 

Margaret said:  

> I use grass clippings for mulch in
>the veggie garden.  Let your children do some of the eatin' work, and
have
>fun.  Go make some angels in the snow, but make sure someone is around
to
>help you up. <VBG>  Margaret, who's partial to cranes and winches

AMOF, my baby is 40-y-o. They flew the nest many a moon ago..  but in 
the days when they were growing up surrounded by the fresh goodies
from the yard, they were all not interested. Their preferences were
always
Chinese dinner or mom's pot roast with trimmings. 

Saw my first snow man in about 15 years yesterday..  The last two years 
we haven't gotten much snow, but when we do, the kids in the neighborhood

seem to hibernate. Forty and even thirty years ago, some of the boys
used to ring doorbells to shovel the driveway -- mine cost $15, and was 
a devil of a job, about 4,000 sq ft. Nowadays, the guys with the jeep and
plow blades don't even pay any attention to us -- they start at 7:00am
clearing away their regular customers, and have even been seen out 
there at 10:00pm, one night! Across the street I watched with
fascination,
as two Mexicans hit the front sidewalk with an uncommon fury, as if they
were killing snakes -- and a third was behind the wheel of the jeep,
tearing
apart the macadam on their 200 sq ft driveway. And WHOOOOSH! they
were gone. My Jimmie, being a more mature sort (harumph!) trots out
there before he has swallowed his whole breakfast, grabs the shovel, 
bends over, and attacks the snow slowly and methodically as if he were
shoveling coal. He never straightens up. Truthfully, he's nuts..  

We do have a mulching mower, and we also do have a large lawn, but
Jimmie says that he doesn't like the job that the mulching mower does,
so he went right back to catching the clippings. I won't let him throw 
them away, of course, so I help him dump the barrels way down behind 
the spruce trees, in a windrow. In time it gets very smelly, naturally, 
since we do not turn it, but strangely enough, the neighbors who moved
in there in back put up a huge gymnasium for their youngsters, and
yet they never use it -- never!  Therefore, obviously the compost smell 
doesn't bother them. 

When you use your clippings as a mulch in your veggie garden, how
thick are they?

And say, how did you know it takes a derrick to get me up on my
feet....???  

Penny, NY zone 6

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