Katrina produces something goodAfter Hurricane Katrina, I had no house damage though most houses on my street had plenty. I did have a magnolia tree in the backyard which had split near the ground during the storm and half of it was leaning for an hour or so. Then the wind shifted and the tree righted itself. It looked OK, but I thought it was probably not really healthy.
I also had a pine tree which had been leaning since I moved in in 1990 toward a neighbor's house. Her house had been damaged by her own pine trees during Katrina and she had all the trees removed. I decided that I should remove the pine tree and the magnolia. This left me with more sunshine than ever and some nice piles of wood chips.
I thought the wood chips might be good for compost and the extra sunshine might be nice for growing some vegetables. Now I know that wood chips take a long time to decompose. Anyway I made a couple of compost bins out of a roll of rabbit cage wire and started composting wood chips mixed with dirt. I planted some bell peppers, jalepenos, okra, squash and tomatoes. They ended up being in poor soil and the wood chips were pitiful compost, so they were weak plants. I misjudged the amount of sunlight in that spot. I got no squash at all. I probably got 2 or 3 okra pods, a dozen small bell peppers, a couple dozen small tomatoes and maybe 4 dozen small jalepeno peppers. My neighbor gave me some cucumber plants and they produced perhaps a dozen cucumbers.
My neighbor enjoyed watching me work and helped me out a bit. He's 90 years old and still gardening. He kept giving me veggies all summer. I received more veggies than I grew, but I was happy to have started a relationship with my neighbor and enjoyed his produce. We had a lot of tomato and cucumber sandwiches. I started enjoying adding jalepeno to the sandwiches. The Katrina garden was a little pitiful but I did have some nice food to eat and something positive to do.
Better Compost
The first section of my garden had been in the area where my older son played basketball. There was hard packed sandy soil. Adding wood chips and planting in partial shade was altogether pretty silly. I started cutting grass and composting grass clippings with some dirt. After I had some better compost, I started digging a new area for planting. I chose a little better. The new spot had grass growing and was in the sun. The dirt looked much better and the compost was better.
I planted yellow squash, cucumbers and okra in the second little plot. I ended up with very large leaves on the squash plants and even had modest success with enough food to make it interesting.
Fruit Trees
The wood chips made poor compost for veggies, but I thought that perhaps they would work with trees. I think they work best with "wild" type trees and vines. So far it seems that wood chips are great for muscadines.
Ph Meter
I have tried 2 different fairly cheap pH meters in my yard with total failure. I think that I will be forced to guess and over time learn what works in my area. I am fairly convinced that I have acidic soil, so I try to add lime depending on the plant's needs.
