Economy and wood chips...

It seems to burgeon in the soul of almost every gardener... economy. "I know that I could buy that plant, but I'll get a start from my neighbor..." or perhaps its "if I compost, then I won't have to buy good dirt from the nursery..." Ways of cutting costs and getting the same thing for less is a good thing. I'm going to pass along a new economical measure I just learned.

We have an area that always gets overgrown extremely fast and I wanted to kill the grass/weeds/morning glories and then keep them from coming back as best possible. Wood chips seemed like the best way, but they are $20 a yard at the local landscaping place here, so I looked on craig's list and was planning on posting a want ad. However, there was already a person on there offering drop off of wood chips for free! He dropped of 7 or 8 yards and I was able to cover then entire area without spending any money. Of course there are a few drawbacks. The wood chips were from a tree they had cut down and chipped up which means that since it was a pine tree, there were a lot of pine needles. I probably wouldn't use it on a nice flower bed or an area my kids would walk, however, for this particular area I wasn't particular at all. It worked very nicely. So, like Red Green used to say, "If the women don't find you handsome, they should a least find you handy!" Next time you are in search of wood chips, check around before you buy and you may be able to save!