I still think you are the expert!

Thank you for all the "welcomes." I've been lurking for quite a while now, so I guess I'd better spiff up and become a bit more social. Ya are all such great people here.
Paul, I know what you mean by that huge Smith's store. I use the little carts you can drive around. They're fun! I do feel a little guilty for using them, but if we are old enough to have grandchildren, we're qualified. ;-)
I think I'm going to start in the spring with the favorite flower beds and dig down to bare dirt to put on the pellets, but as I get tired of that, I'll at least have my favorites done and do the rest just on top off the mulch and give them a good spray with the hose which should wash them down quite a bit anyway.
Dorothy

Dorothy - Welcome! I'm relatively new here, too.

FYI ....

I wasn't able to find the pellets, only the cubes. They were very hard and compacted. I found that if you soak them in a nylon knee-hi stocking in a 5 gallon bucket of water, it expands them and makes the alfalfa very loose and fluffy. (I get the cheapo stockings for .50 at Wal-Mart.) I then cut open the stockings and dumped all the alfalfa out into another bucket and used that to spread it around my flower beds as a top dressing. I used the alfalfa "tea" to also fertilize my plants. I think that is the way I am going to use some of my alfalfa. My plants have reacted very happy with that method. If I had been able to purchase the smaller pellets I would have probably buried them in the top of the soil around my plants.

Would my current method work just as well or is the alfalfa more for the earthworms?

Becky- Your current method will work just as well. You are still putting down the alfalfa , it's just already broken down. Plus you are using the tea which is good. The alfalfa does more than feed the worms even if you have soaked them.

As your plants have indicated, they love what you did so no reason to change it unless you want to.

Addition of almost any organic material such as leaves or aged manure will encourage worms.

I got over to Tractor Supply yesterday and I got my first bag of Alfalfa cubes. I have worked a few new beds for my Spring arrivals and now I am going back out to work in some of the cubes. I tested PH to be about 6.7 in these 2 new beds I took a soil sample to the Co-op yesterday as well and should have the results in about 2 weeks. I can't wait to see what a difference the Alfalfa will make .

Your flowers will reward your efforts.

Dorothy

Theresa, I plan on visiting your place this summer. I am sure it will help them be even more beautiful.

Really looking forward to your visit Teresa . We just got the greenhouse up .

Excellent!! I will send a Tmail.

I had to resurrect this old discussion. I read this last fall and decided to try the pellets. Wow, it worked great!! Being a rather lazy person, I just tossed a bunch of alfalfa pellets on top of the mulch as soon as the snow melted. I have never had such big great looking daylilies, hostas and others. Everything is so healthy and happy looking. No flowers yet, so I can't say anything about that, but the greenery is great! Unhappily, the weeds love it too, but everything has its drawbacks.

Finally picked up some pellets today. anxious to see if it helps.

There must be a lot of people using them here. I checked the internet for Tractor Supply Stores in our area and all of them were out of them. I will keep checking! Wait until the neighbors see us with a bag of horse pellets--they will wonder where we're keeping the horse.

I know what you mean. One of the girls asked why I bought horse food! I told her it was for my plants.

I just found this on the website of Tractor Supply:

Standlee Premium Western Forage Premium Alfalfa Pellets, 40 lb.

It's $13 and change for 40 pounds.

Is this what everyone recommends. I have to say there was a bewildering array of choices on their website. Per the website, it's currently available a the store nearest to us.


http://www.tractorsupply.com/e...

That looks correct to me!

Yes that's what I buy

So glad I found this thread! I need to get some alfalfa pellets... like today!

I finally found the pellets after searching for weeks. US$7.50 for 11 pounds of lucerne (= alfalfa) pellets. I found them in the guinea pig section of a local produce store. This might be expensive.

How much do you put per clump? A handful?

Hope they get their stock replenished soon. I need some sooner rather than later!