robynanne said:
that brings up an interesting question for me. I have wood mulch over my berry bushes and hay over my tomato plants. The berries I obviously leave growing, but overtime the mulch will break down and I'd need to keep refreshing it. Do I just pile the new stuff on top? Rake off the old stuff before putting on new? Then I don't know what I'd do with the old stuff though..
I had been intending on raking off all the hay and tossing it into the compose but now that I write this - I don't like to compose things that have been in the dirt under tomatoes. I might just rake up the hay and burn it this fall.
The berry bushes I would just keep putting new mulch over the old.
My roses where the soil is not disturbed by burying I just put new mulch over the old when I used to use eucalyptus mulch and the same when I still used cypress; I do put some Serenade or Sonata on to kill disease but the mulch will just rot away into soil quicker than you think.
Depending on how energetic I am; I either dig a hole, at least twelve inches deep and bury the tomatoes or put them on my cold compost pile and let them sit there till spring when they get covered with leaves. I let the pile usually sit for two to four years. The pile is only about six by four feet wide by four feet high and you will be amazed how much stuff you can pile before it is permanently full.
I fill it in spring with some of the leaves that covered my roses and by this time of year always drops from one to two feet, although I do hop on to stomp it down till it will stomp no more and I usually use a compost boost product.
I bury my potato plants and on some occasions put the tomatoes in the same holes.
When I bury either potato or tomato, I scrape with a flat shovel all dirt within about two feet into the hole before I put the dead plant in and stomp it down before covering.
