Strawbale gardens

[canesisters]

Thanks for the suggestions.
I thought about that, I thought about dragging it into the coop and letting the girls pick it clean, I've thought about leaving it and planting over it. But it's shredding into threads of whatever tarps are made of.. some sort of nearly unbreakable threads that look like cassette tape.... Not willing to risk the chickens, or the barn cats or my future lawn mowing sanity over it. The strips and scraps and chunks are in the back of my truck and will be dumped tomorrow. They can compost in the landfill. I've spend all the time I'm going to on it. Moving on to a tarp-free BTE style garden.

 

[seedcorn]

Light it up.....will burn HOT.

 

[ducks4you]

DD's need to remove two areas of landscape fabric and I have a feeling it's going to be the same kind of mess.
Cardboard has become my FAVORITE gardening buddy this year!!!!
I still have a lot left from my stash. What I don't use to cover weeds will burn really good.

 

[thistlebloom]

2018 update
Let me go on record here and now and say that the tarp was the WORST IDEA EVER!!!!!!
I have spent a good chunk of the last week trying to get it out of the way of this year's garden.
The sawdust over top of it composted BEAUTIFULLY into about 4 inches of beautiful, dark, lovely soil... the proof of it's goodness is the DENSE weeds growing on it. I can't use the compost which is essentially weed sod now. I can't move the thing because it weighs roughly 50,000,000 lbs!!! I've had to resort to rolling it up (AFTER digging and digging and digging to FIND THE EDGES) and cutting it into strips about a foot wide in order to be able to lift and drag them.
DO NOT - I REPEAT - DO NOT put a tarp on the ground ANYWHERE and leave it if you have ANY interest in gardening. You WILL eventually want to use that spot and you will curse the day you ever picked up the shiny new tarp package at the store.
View attachment 25485

Just look at those sharp edges!!! You'd think that I'd used a sod cutter!
See that roll on the left? That's compost-weed-sod.....

Poor you!
Although I have to admit your post cracked me up Cane. But I feel your pain trying to budge that insanelyheavyshreddingplasticthreadcompost weedcarpet. I think your solution was the best. Get it off your farm for good and be done with it.

Those ubiquitous blue tarps are a particular hide chapper for me. Our neighbor at our former home always had one flapping in the wind in his backyard. Wasn't ever effectively protecting anything, just tied down tight enough on one side so it could whip in the wind and disintegrate into long pale blue strings that ended up in my yard, for me to deal with.

Now you have a nice clear area for your next garden, and I wish you the best!

 

[flowerbug]

i came up with another idea...

if you have a barrel that will hold it. roll it up, put it in there and let it dry out, then stomp on it like you're crushing grapes or beat it up with a baseball bat. those shreds of plastic will be recoverable and won't be spread around for other animals to get into and the humus will be recoverable. probably too late for you, but maybe others will run into this problem at some time...

i know what material you're talking about. it's used for feedbags and tarps. last one i had i stored in my trunk of the car just in case i had to crawl under on some dark and stormy night out in some backroad. the mice chewed through it and ruined it.

 

[seedcorn]

Just light it up....... what you lose in carbon will be made up for by lack of stress and back aches.... burn it down...

 

[canesisters]

Yall... really.. just stop. It's garbage. I don't want to grow veggies in melted-tarp-goo. I'm not going to put any more effort into working to separate chickweed from tarp just so I can then put effort into killing chickweed so that I can end up with an extra 50lbs compost. Lesson learned. Moving on. Tarp + compost = bad things.

 

[ninnymary]

Yall... really.. just stop. It's garbage. I don't want to grow veggies in melted-tarp-goo. I'm not going to put any more effort into working to separate chickweed from tarp just so I can then put effort into killing chickweed so that I can end up with an extra 50lbs compost. Lesson learned. Moving on. Tarp + compost = bad things.

Totally agree with you Cane. It's plastic which is made of chemicals and I wouldn't want it on my veggies.

Mary

 

[thistlebloom]

i came up with another idea...

if you have a barrel that will hold it. roll it up, put it in there and let it dry out, then stomp on it like you're crushing grapes or beat it up with a baseball bat. those shreds of plastic will be recoverable and won't be spread around for other animals to get into and the humus will be recoverable. probably too late for you, but maybe others will run into this problem at some time...

i know what material you're talking about. it's used for feedbags and tarps. last one i had i stored in my trunk of the car just in case i had to crawl under on some dark and stormy night out in some backroad. the mice chewed through it and ruined it.

I have to appreciate your ingenuity Flowerbug...., but really, who has that kind of time, not to mention expended energy.

 

[flowerbug]

I have to appreciate your ingenuity Flowerbug...., but really, who has that kind of time, not to mention expended energy.

you notice my first answers were to just hang it up someplace or put it on a slope and let nature/gravity do the work? i only call in the bigger guns when i can't figure out some easier way to do it... (trying to stop, honest, but someone else is trolling me here so gotta answer!!!!! heeheehee)