Mulch Ado About Nothing

Mulching sounded so easy ... it really did. You throw a bunch of leaves and vegetable matter in a pile, let it heat up (how can it not .... it's the desert duh), and turn it and then tada you have beautiful mulch. Well, maybe not.

So the leaves were easy, until my neighbor's tree died, but I got a few. The the vegetable matter, well easy too, at first. potato peels, egg shells, nothing cooked, just green stuff and the pile grew taller ... and then the ants came. Ants, unlike worms, are not welcome in a mulch pile. Oh, I forgot, location - location - location. Never next to the house. So Robert innocent of my intentions, stopped by and ended up moving the mulch pile.

Next, turn it ... oh sure ... it's taller than I am and well, maybe wider ... anyway turning didn't happen. Then use amonia sulfate so it'll heat up. Well it should have been hot, it got up to 118 last summer ... but apparently it didn't. In the fall I trimmed branches and my clever grandchildren patiently drug them to the mulch pile, where I didn't see and they didn't mulch.

Now it's spring ... and the garbage man hates me, even tho I bribe him with bottles of water and soda. My friend sets out cans of .... well, I won't do that, I prefer longnecks anyway. I make my now grouchy grandkids drag the branches to the street and, oh my there's Robert. I'm sure he'll eventually stop coming by to visit his son, but until he does he, and his truck, take the whole mess to the dump ... yeah! The pile is smaller and as I throw a pick axe into it wow, it's dark and rich and yes, it's finally, a year later, mulch.

Or you could spend some bucks and buy a fancy mulcher that turns by itself and deposits mulch in eight weeks, but look what you'd miss!