Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

I recently moved to a new home and need to start all over again with preparing the soil in my garden.  The soil has a lot of clay in it and I need to work in some other stuff like peat to loosen things up and provide some drainage.  I also have a lot of old records to shred, and it occurred to me, why not work all of this crosscut shredded paper into the soil.  It is, after all, cellulose.  But what about the ink and is there any other stuff in there that may be harmful to my vegetable garden?  Any opinions or experience with this?

Richard

http://glossary.ippaper.com/default.asp?req=knowledge/article/236&catitemid=35

http://www.humeseeds.com/gypsum.htm

I put ashes on my garden, but not paper with who knows what as ink mixed in.

My opinion.

Welcome aboard.

If you add a lot of peat in the form of baled peat moss, be sure to check the PH of your soil, as peat moss trends to lower the PH rerquiring lime to bring it back up. Sand is great stuff for loosening up clay, as are composted leaves from last fall.

Maybe try burning the papers and then adding them to your garden.  We have also just started making our land 'suitable' for growing anything.  We've used cow and horse manure, peat moss, and mulched leaves.  Our ground is also clay like and we needed to create drainage.  Snowshoveler has tilled the mixture into the ground with some new top soil.  Good luck in finding the right solution for your garden and happy gardening.

Sherri

The Peat Moss and Sand work great...but for some quick organic material buy some buckweat seed. It grows very fast and is kinda hollow shafted so it tills in easily.

You could probably get two to three crops of it in this planting season. It also grows so dense that it will shade out all the weeds. You let it flower for a couple of days and let the bees work it a bit and then till it in. A coulple of days later plant another crop.

In the fall, plant some winter rye to protect the soil during the winter and turn it over by hand as soon as the weather permits in the spring.

Nothing like cover crops for quick organic material...right on the spot.

You can get these seeds from Johnny's of Maine.

                                                                                                                       Dan

Hi... and welcome to the forum !

Records... Hmmm... dunno' if they are hand written... printed... ??  I know most newspapers used a non-toxic soy based ink... other printed materials... I dunno'... Bleached paper uses chemicals in processing... I've used shredded newspaper in my Organic gardening practices.. (non-ceritified home garden)... If in doubt (I am...) throw it out !...

Dave...

You know what I do? I use my blower vacume mode and pickup/multch the leaves off the lawn and then I spread the multch in the garden. My plants seem to be happy about it.