Turn your back on a field for a few days, or in my case a few weeks, and the weeds can get ahead of you.
The onions have been in the ground for over a month and have (presumably) set their roots and are now ready to be mulched. But not before I weed once to create the clean slate I want for my study.
So I spent a few hours doing that before beginning the process of mulching.
Straw mulch was put down a few days ago on the areas designated for that, and because the space is much smaller than I originally planned for, I used only three full sized square bales for the entire area needing straw as compared to the 10 I thought I'd need. This resulted in a mulch depth of about 1 inch.
Straw mulching is great, but it does takes time and money, too. The hope of every would-be mulcher is that the time and money put in now will pay off in spades later.
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Straw Mulching |
Then the less glamorous mulch, the Spent Brewer's Grain (SBG) went down today. SBG has on the plus side of the equation that it is:
- a nice price tag (Free to any taker)
- good levels of nitrogen, potassium and micronutrients
On the other hand, it is:
- Heavy, wet & messy to handle
- Stinky (if held for a few days before applying)
- Hard to calculate how much you'll need for a 1 inch application
A total if 165 lbs of dry grain will result in 297 lbs of wet grain. (That calculation is based on a
homebrewer stating that 10 lbs of grain will absorb 1 gallon of water, which weights approximately 8 lbs.).
Though it seems like a lot of grain, it only actually covered two of the four treatment replications (Row 1 + 4) to a depth of 1". Luckily the brewer I am working with will be brewing again next week, so more will be available then.
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Spent Grain ready to become Mulching Material |
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Mulch of Straw (Foreground) and Spent Brewer's Grain (Background) |