No More Peat Moss/ Worm Habitat/ Help for Those Choking on Asparagus

Peat Moss is expensive. I have seen it sell for over $10.00. I could go out to Wendys and eat for that amount. Also a bag of peat moss doesn't last long using it in the soil I have here at my property. I live where there is nothing but clay soil and it really needs organic matter. I decided to try wood chips instead of peat moss. Canada, I'm sorry to say, can keep their peat moss. I can't afford it any longer and wood chips work just fine.

I put wood chips in my biochar can. It really makes great biochar. The wood chips that do not turn into biochar doesn't bother me. I put the whole thing as an additive to my soil mixture.

I use a wood chipper that I bought at Sears. It tore up in only a few months due to chipping dried hard oak wood. After I fixed it, I now only chip thin hard branches or green wood. Green wood is easier on the blades.

I went to use it the other day and it conked out on me. It's the ethanol gas I use that wrecks the carburetor. I found a great video that showed me how to get my equipment going after using ethanol. https://youtu.be/v3bXpgOgo98

This is how my soil looks naturally.  It has a bunch of clumps and rocks. I first sift the soil through a wire screen and removed weeds and rocks. I then add the wood chip/biochar to my soil mixture in a wheelbarrow.

Can you see the black biochar? When mixed, the soil will not clump into mud clods. All I have to do now is add manure. I use rabbit manure.

Remember the bale in the trench?

I removed the bale and looked underneath. The worms were making a home out of the moist bottom of the hay bale. They ran for cover but I did catch a few with my camera.

Teaming with life is what you want in a hay bale habitat. That is why I bury my bales. The worms can work on all sides of the bale. Straw bale gardeners cook the bale with fertilizers and I cook the bales with earthworms and microbes. 

HINT: I eat a lot of asparagus. I can harvest them all the way up to June. I love asparagus. Have you ever had an unfavorable reaction to eating asparagus? When you eat it the stalks squish in your mouth and then the skin that is more like leather  nearly chokes you to death. You end up spitting out the skin and declaring that you hate asparagus and will never eat it again. It happened to me. It was a bad experience.

I now use a potato peeler. The top of the asparagus is usually tender but  halfway down is the tough skin. Use your peeler and skin the offending part of the asparagus. You will begin to love asparagus, and perhaps save yourself from choking.