A RED CARPET FOR A GREEN THUMB
Carol Larson recycles carpeting as garden mulch; Niki Rini uses kerosene to repel mosquitoes; Cathy Bowers cooks dough balls with leftover dough to add to a salad, dip or jam; Howard Luloff shares a recipe for homemade cereal.
COUNTRY LORE
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Deep-pile those weeds away.
Gotcha Covered
An earthly answer to a gardener's heaven is just under your
nose...er, your feet. Any way you roll them out, rugs do an
outstanding job. They kill weeds, let in the water, are
readily available, and extremely cheap.
For a typical row garden, discarded carpeting can be
stripped into 30-inch widths and rolled out to create an
edge and pathway between crops. Use a sharpened fishing
knife, tin snips, or an Exacto knife to slice 30-inch
strips of old jute-backed carpeting. To add longevity to
the carpeting, first cover the soil beneath the carpet with
black and white, soy-based newspapers and let 'er roll.
For the typical row garden, lay the row string, sow the
seeds, dress with your favorite fertilizer, water, and do
the next row in the same fashion. While the color and look
may draw comment, the result is a saving of hoeing time,
water, and back pain.
Similarly, when setting out hills of squash, cukes, or
melons, I use a large single square rug and cut holes in
the surface with a pattern to accommodate the plants or
seeds. This provides both spacing for the vines and the
mulch for the soil surface. I handle my tomato cages by
laying a 30-inch strip, placing the cages and plants in a
row, then use a healthy amount of newsprint to cover the
three-foot space between the cages before laying the next
row of carpeting.
Keeping one jump ahead of the trash pick-up is the easiest
way to obtain your reusable strip mulching carpet. Striking
a deal with a local carpet layer and requesting remnants of
old carpets salvaged from recent installments is also an
easy source.
The strips can be saved from season to season by rolling
them up and storing them in piles near the garden. Mine
have lasted for four years. The pieces that succumb to
nature and defy pick-up, I rake together and deposit at the
base of fruit and ornamental trees for a permanent mulch.
But beware—don't allow this mulching to become too
thick or it will invite rodents to nest and use your tree
for fast food.
—Carol S. Larson
Harvard, IL
Kerosene Defeats Mosquitoes
When the Frenchmen started to build the Panama Canal, they
were defeated by a tiny but formidable opponent: the
Anopheles mosquito, which had (and continues to have) a
habit of carrying malaria. It turned out that the French
actually brought the trouble to their doorstep. Aesthetics
demanded that they have a moat around their cottage, which
was unfortunately a perfect breeding place for this
mosquito.
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