Newspaper Mulch Help!

[Granny]

Thanks to the kiddo and her best friend, we got all 100 or so tomatoes plus the peppers, melons, cukes, basil and heaven only knows what else planted yesterday! The entire 1/2 acre hilltop is full up except for enough room for one short row of something at the far edge.

There is a bit of a problem though - the guy who did the "rototilling" for me did a you know what-poor job on half the hill. What he did was break the sod, not rototill, so we ended up digging it by hand. (I am too old for this!) So, I'm going to go with the newspaper mulch method, topped by the 3 bales of straw living in the chicken coop (Haven't been any chickens in there in years!) and let the 'maters sprawl instead of staking them, since I think you would need a pneumatic drill to get a hole deep enough for a decent stake.

Advice needed: How many layers of newspaper? Water first or after you lay the paper? How thick do you think I should go with the straw?

Thanks so much for all your help!

PS. As some of you know, I homeschool my grandchild. This year we happen to be studying plants, so about 10 days ago we took some supermarket tomatoes that were a little past their prime and fermented them to learn about seed saving. They came out of the fermentation pots night before last and are drying in the shed. Can you think of any reason I should not let her plant them just for kicks next year? (Other than the fact that they are just ordinary supermarket tomatoes?)

[duajones]

Why not save seeds from a variety that you like and plant them next year?

[Granny]

Oh, we definitely will do that duajones! I just thought these might be fun for her to experiment with. She tells me that she wants to learn to make new kinds of things, because she wants to make a blue rose

[amideutch]

Granny, never heard of mulching with newspaper so out of curiosity I did a search and here are a couple links. Ami
http://www.motherearthliving.com/iss...lch_442-1.html
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Homes...per-Mulch.aspx

[Granny]

Why thanks amideutch! It never once dawned on me to hit the search engine That is just the information I needed. Now all I need to do is round up enough newspaper to cover about a half-acre three or four sheets deep.

I suppose I can make a "school" thing out of it and send the kiddo up the hill to measure the garden, then calculate how much area we need to cover, then calculate the area covered by a sheet of newspaper, then divide......... oh, she'll hate me for this one

[dice]

I prefer to shred the paper first. (I have a shredder,
so this is not a big job, just time consuming.)

It does not repress weeds as efficiently as sheets
of paper, but it bulks up more, like straw, stays
put more easily once it has been wet, and it lets
water through it.

One could try bunching it up, filling a plastic garbage
can with it, and shredding it with a weedeater if
one wishes to try this and lacks a shredder. (Maybe
try it on one row to see how it compares to laying out
sheets and holding them down with rocks or dirt.)

Someone said in another thred that this works to
finely shred leaves (beware the dust).

[pooklette]

Originally Posted by Granny

As some of you know, I homeschool my grandchild. This year we happen to be studying plants, so about 10 days ago we took some supermarket tomatoes that were a little past their prime and fermented them to learn about seed saving. They came out of the fermentation pots night before last and are drying in the shed. Can you think of any reason I should not let her plant them just for kicks next year? (Other than the fact that they are just ordinary supermarket tomatoes?)

I think this would be a cool biology experiment/lesson for a child. If your grocery store tomato was a hybrid variety (which would be quite likely in my neck of the woods) then the seeds she grows out could show quite a bit of variability between plants. The hodge podge of dehybridizing grocery store plants compaired with grandma's plants which perfectly match the previous years' would illustrate some very simple genetics/biology/horticulture lessons very well.

And, they're tomatoes! Any excuse to grow more tomatoes is completely acceptable.

[Granny]

Now that is something I had not considered Pooklette! Thanks for some great ideas. We were going to do some hydroponics and tissue culture during the fall & winter until 'mater season rolls around again, so maybe I'll have her use some of these seeds for hydroponics. Guess I had better do a little research on dehybridizing stuff.

[Gimme3]

Granny.....Kudos...on the... Real schoolin of a Child...)))

A tomato wants Tilth, an constant soil temp an moisture, more than anything else you could do for it. It dont matter, at this point...whether you throw it the water before or after the newspaper mulch. What matters is did you create a basin for the water to coolect in, an did you give it the best Tilth you know how to do.

In a few days...ill try an show ya, via Pic on this Thread...a Simple way...to provide Support for a Tomato, without spendin a wad.

It dont matter how thick you put the newspaper...on the surface, as long as you created a natural basin around the Plant..in this here Dry Year...))) If ya didnt do that...go back an do it...First...)))

[Granny]

Hey Gimme3. Teaching the kiddo is a blast - keeps me young, keeps her smart. Nice way to spend my semi-retirement.

We are not having a dry year so far up here in Vermont, but yes, we did create basins around each plant. I see no point in watering the weeds instead of the tomatoes.

Re the tilth of the soil - this is not the best I know how to do by a long shot. I had a local guy rototill it in two pieces. The first piece he did an OK job on - not as deeply tilled as I would like, but could have been worse. The second half was worse - mostly what he did there was break up the sod. Guess he figured that I, being female and not so young, would not know the difference. (BOY do I hate men like that - like the mechanic that charges you 3X as much because you are a girl!) He will not do our rototilling in the fall. I figure that in a few weeks rototillers will go on sale or someone will decide they really don't want their's anymore and I will be able to pick up one cheap.

Luckily that second piece went entirely to tomatoes, cukes & watermelons, so we dug planting holes about 18" by hand. And luckily, this piece of land has been used for a garden for 70 years or so, at least until 5 or 6 years ago. You could still feel the springiness in the soil under your feet when you walked across. Beautiful, rich dirt with New England's main crop (that would be stones) mostly previously harvested. We did add some composted manure as we planted, but most of the amendment will go in this fall, after I have a chance to get a better job done tilling it. Have a monster compost heap cooking by the chicken coop now.

Meanwhile, the girls had a real nice experience pretending to be pioneers & early settler women All that digging gave them a perspective on pioneer life that Little House never could - not to mention a new appreciation for our local hero, John Deere.

So, this year's will not be the "best" garden there ever was - but we'll get plenty of produce, have lots of fun, maybe lose a few pounds and learn a bunch.

Dying to see your idea for a Tomato support. We built a pea fence out of downed branches & twine (kiddo learned to saw, whittle & tie a half hitch for that one) - getting the wooden stakes any further than 6 inches or so into the dirt was NOT fun. Like I said, not the best rototilling. And the pea fence is on the good half.

[maupin]

Hey Granny--First, it's always great to see a post from Gimme--he encouraged me when I first started with heirlooms.

I wet 2-3 whole sheets of newspaper, as they have a tendency to blow away if dry. I then cover with a thick (5 inches or so) layer of fresh grass clippings. This anchors the paper nicely, and the paper keeps the heat of the grass clippings from burning the roots of young plants. I periodically add more fresh grass clippings over the summer. I till in the entire paper/grass clipping mix in the fall, as it is a terrific C/N mix and improves soil tilth.

[Granny]

Yes, everyone was a great help maupin. The girls brought home great scads of newspaper, a friend arrived with bale after bale of straw and we spent a couple of days mulching and strawing. Everything looks great up there, stuff is starting to come in and Granny is not falling on her head trying to keep the weeds pulled. I'm VERY happy with this method.

[amideutch]

Granny, glad everything went "OK" for you. I'll bet the kids had fun as well. So now all you have to do is post a few pictures of your project and final results. Ami