Winter Mulch

In what is becoming an annual part of my winter gardening activities, I once again had a huge load of free wood chips delivered.

Unlike last year when the weather was fairly mild and I could easily cart all sixty-four wheel barrow loads of this organic mulch into the back, this year's delivery came at an inopportune time.

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As a reminder, this is not high-quality hardwood mulch. Instead it's the chipped remains of tree trimmings, provided by our local electric company (Ameren Missouri) free of charge. Here's the page that talks about it, and there's an email link you can use to request chips.

I originally emailed back in early December, and was told that the tree-trimming contractors would be in my area after the first of the year, so I should get back in touch at that time. Unfortunately I had forgotten about this until yesterday, when I sent a second email request.

I wondered how long I would have to wait before they contacted me to schedule a delivery, but just three hours later I heard the beep-beep-beep of a truck that was driving up and I was being asked where I wanted the load dumped. Um, that was really fast!

The driveway worked fine for me last year, so that's where it went again.

The difference this year is the temperature. Right now it's around 20ºF (-7ºC) and it won't get much higher than that for a few days (last year I was wearing only a t-shirt for the first day). Oh yeah, there's also the snow.

I should have had them put it a few feet further down the driveway, but I didn't expect it to have to sit here for days (or longer). I may have to move it to the bottom of the driveway, then wait until the snow is gone before trying to distribute it around the garden. I certainly don't relish the thought of moving it twice though.

So, is anybody else doing some mulching this winter?


(I have a craving for Frosted Mini-Wheats now.)

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