The peat moss would decrease the amount of acid in the soil and would have to be counteracted through other additives.

I don't know about wood chips for the blueberries.

And I use bark for my fruit treees and they seem to love it. I have plum, pear, and cherry

I've gotten five huge hauls of seaweed and have been able to build six complete, huge, well-balanced, compost piles for spring. I've turned them once and they were smoking, but I'm resisting the urge to turn them again; I've turned piles cold before with overzealous turning.

Hey, Franklin, you should use seaweed and compost under those apple trees. Mine love a nice nourishing mulch. Oh, and thanks for sharing your space.

It is also fairly well documented that "acidic mulches" like pine straw, other conifer needles, oak leaves or peat moss do not have any significant effect on the soil pH except for a slight decrease right at the soil surface. But most can make fine mulches in their own right if one just ignores that myth that they will increase soil acidity.

Peat moss will increase soil acidity -- it has a pH of around 4.5 -- but it would need to be incorporated (not used as a mulch) in sufficiently large quantities and since most soils have a buffering capacity, reapplied periodically much the same as any other type of soil acidifer.

And I don't even want to start that broken argument about peat being non-renewable so don't go there!!

Peat moss can hardly decrease the acidness of soil since it does have a slight acidity of its own.
Peat moss though is hardly an amendment to try to increase the acidity of soil when the range is wanted to be increased dramatically.
Garden sulfur is a reliable method to increase acidity.
Aluminum sulfate is often used as an alternative to the sulfur but it has, over long periods of use, been shown to leave too much aluminum in the soil--which is not to plants' liking.
Aluminum sulfate is often prescribed to change the color of hydrangea to the low side of pH. And there again, the effects wanted need time to work.

Oldtimer's thread questions are disingenuous. He knows everything there is to know about peat. He's been discussing it for many, many years here.

So I went back to the dump today and got 17 pumpkins. It's been an interesting pumpkin year. Last year a huge amount of pumpkins were painted instead of carved. This year, out of 40 plus pumpkins that I've salvaged, only two, so far, have been carved and none have been painted. I let my friend take my truck to the woodchip pile while leaving me at the leaf pile. In addition to the pumpkins, I got four contractors' bags full to overflowing with grass clippings and chipped leaves, two bags of chipped leaves and one gourd. I'm starting a new pile tomorrow consisting of pumpkins, seaweed, grass clippings, chipped leaves, a layer or two of half composted chicken manure, and one gourd.

I'm still using peat moss from a local bog...mostly spaghnum.....love the stuff! I mix it in deeply to make beautiful beds.

I truly feel at home. A typical evening at the kitchen table with friends over a cup of coffee or a pint of beer, with some folks listening to each other and others not. :O)

My contribution? Anything organic is good under any trees as mulch. Mulch is good. Especially free stuff.

Oh, and Annpat, I did turn over a pile yesterday that was cooking like crazy. If I'd been in the USA I would have offered to cook your turkey in there!! Hope you all had a great day with family!

I'm going to get up early tomorrow to see if he can reel it in!

:-)

Lloyd

Franklin, I don't get trash in my seaweed! There's not too much trash on the shore around here in Downeast Maine---what there is is mostly fishing rope and broken styrofoam buoy pieces. I'm happy to do a little beach clean up.
For years I avoided the grass clippings at the dump, but I Just Cannot Resist Them, and according to the people here, you can run DDT through a compost pile and it comes out squeaky clean, so I finally yielded. Primarily my haul is chipped leaves. I went after some pumpkins today, high in the mountain of yard waste at the dump and found myself standing next to (almost on) what turned out to be one of two deer carcasses I would encounter. I said to Adele, "I know people---crazy people---who would compost that deer head."

I'm not a pup when it comes to making compost, either, oldtimer. I've been, directly or indirectly, making almost daily contributions to compost piles for about 57 years---my whole life minus nine months I spent in an apartment in Boston once.

I've always thought that you might live near here---in Franklin, Maine. I always look for the mountains of peat moss that must be your yard whenever I drive through that town.

If peat is all you added, then there is a very good possibility that a lab error occurred in either the initial or follow up test. It happens far more often than people think.

I have friends that I met on this forum in 1999. There's a large group of us. At least forty of us call each other 'best friends' now. We travel to each others' homes. We meet each others' families. We've become really fond of each other, care about each other. I've had 11 people I met on Garden Web visit me here in the summer five years in a row---seven of us at a time. A large group just met up in Illinois at a friend's farm. 22 of us all got together in a state park in Maryland three years ago. I go kayaking and camping regularly with my dear friend from here, Hayseedman. Sometimes he makes me go to dances with him. I know five GardenWeb women who have danced with him in four different states.

I've known Franklin since around that same time. All of his posts since 1999 or so begin with some pleasant inquiry, something like this: Would this be good for a strawberry patch? Would this be good in an asparagus patch? Would this improve my soil? Would this be good for rickets?
The opening line of his posts is always: "Hi Folks...would a mix of peatmoss..."

Then, kim, the suckers who debate him get called stupid and urged to go visit the website of the Canadian corporation who benefits from the sale of peat moss. Every. Single. Time.

I've known you for around a decade, too, kim, and while some people may find you rather repetitive and unbending, at least your motives are pure. So, friend, I am begging you, begging you, to admire my pumpkins.

The bull hesitates and the moment is lost.

Can the bull be engaged? Will we see the annual epic battle? Or will the distraction continue?

Stay tuned....

;-)

Lloyd

Well, and then while I was here, I saw kimmsr starting to wallow into the quagmire, and I felt compelled to rescue him and get this thread back to where I hijacked it.

So, seriously? Not one comment about close to 60 pumpkins? Did you hear that I said Five TRUCKloads of seaweed? Not little Brat-sized truckloads, I'm talking Tacoma-loads.

I'm fond of the bull, and I can't stand seeing him get pricked in the back with that little what do they call that thing that's sole purpose is to set up the bull? Is it called a picador, or did I make that up?

I too fell for this a few times whence I was but a waif in the peat/no peat arena. Now I just sit back and watch the show. "Let the games begin" I say.

Lloyd

;-)

Lloyd

My pumpkins are bigger than your pumpkins....neener. (Didn't see you down at pollydaze there AP, that musta hurt.)

dag, it's not fair that you get to do stuff in the winter...I need a seasonal handicap or something. Can I get a ruling from the judges??

The peat/no-peat issue has been around for a while and AP is just trying to apply a tiny "course correction" to the asteroid whilst it's still a long ways off in the hopes that we bypass the cataclysmic collision. Long story, happens every year, can be amusing now that I realize what is going on. I got sucked in a few times.

;-)

Lloyd

For Lloyd's amusement:

And many hours of ice chipping later and getting wet up to my waist:

ps, I for one love the pm in my soil and I buy it by the Cubic yard cheaply...6¼ miles away.

Anyone else?

Gary

The slimey pumpkins do clash with the recently added christmas lights.

You're a troll, dear, you like to stir the pot just to rile people up. People whom you might, after all this time, feel some affiliation with. But that's all right, I'm used to you. And if people come down too hard on you, I'm going to have to find some way to defend you.

Wayne has really hit on something. There is perhaps nothing more beautiful than a lawn full of pumpkins on a late November evening. Throw in a full moon and lovestogarden's little leaf score PALES in comparison, don't y'all think?

And Gary and berry!! What took you guys so long?!

berry! How could your pile be frozen!? In what godforsaken place do you live? You're putting bread in it, aren't you?

After turning this one, I added another case of rotten bananas, leaves, UCGs, water (hose is froze so had to use the watering can), and other incidentals. No Pumpkins though since Annpat has managed to get all of those. Pile is now resting and undoubtedly heating up again.

Oh, and yes, some bananas were good enough to leave on top for our raccoons. No polars here but we do have coyotes - big ones!

Tiffy, did you say Kodak or Kodiak?? I didn't think they were as easily trained as polar bears... My better half is a NS maritimer, born on PEI raised in Truro...when we were engaged and I went to visit the first time, I was terrified that there where polar bears up there....

I did read that NS Coyotes killed a kid not long ago...our Coyotes are much smaller...I love the maritime s, want to retire in Pictou,,,,SIGH again....is there any Walmart garden center openings up there???

I meant the Kodak camera you silly! Much easier to handle than a polar bear.

Our coyotes were bred with wolves some time ago so yes, they are much bigger than elsewhere. One young lady visiting from Toronto was killed by them a year or so ago in the Cape Breton Highlands.

Walmart? I'm sure there's one somewhere around here that could use a greeter!! :O)

I seem to be looking a little peaked, wouldn't you say?
My summer tan is fading away.
Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

signed Scarlet

So, the other night I'm dining with my mother, brother and sister-in-law and my brother mentions that he might be going to get a last of the season haul of garden seaweed the next day. I say, "If you go, I'll follow you down in my truck and get another haul myself. In fact," says I, "I'm going to make it my mission this winter to single-handedly clean up the Deer Isle Causeway." For whatever reason he didn't call me on Saturday, and Sunday, I hear a truck out front and look to see my brother topping off all my compost piles with forkfuls of seaweed. Just about the time that mortified I am yelling out the door, "Jim. Jim," he's probably realizing that he's walking through excesses of seaweed just to get to my bins. I yell, "No, keep that seaweed. I was just being greedy. I've gathered tons of it," and he said, "Well, I'll just finish off topping off your bins."

So, I'm torn between guilt...and greed. I realized today that the only way I can repay my brother equitably (far more than equitably) is with a begrudging truckload of my precious chicken manure---I obviously can't give him seaweed---and I should shovel it up now and give it to him to add to his compost piles before winter really sets in. I could give him some fairly precious (and hot) leaves/grass clippings, but he might be suspicious of municipal grass.

Oh, there I go again! Sounding so conceited talking about my HUGE FREAKIN' HAULS this fall! Again, forgive me.

Lucky gal, you look like a nice old-fashioned girl. I'm glad to finally be able to put a face to your name.

Back to your pun'kins, ---you did leave a few left in the world for seedstock didn't you?

Regarding the pumpkins, I never left the state of Maine, if that's what you're worried about.

I don't know if I'd buy expensive seaweed products, but it sure is nice having it free nearby.

Annpat, I've checked and rechecked the thread but can't see a link to your pumpkins. I'm sure they are very admirable! Loyds pumpkins are nice too, and Tiffy's compost looks great!

Dagunaugh, at the risk of looking like an inattentive idiot, what is that black stuff you are tractoring there??

I don't really know how to do a link to my photos, so I embedded the picture. I'll describe it to you:

It's dusk and the air has a tangible color to it as happens at dusk. In the background, two gray sheds, the one on the right a chicken coop, glow blue. In the foreground, the former lawn of my youth (I now live across the street) there are dozens of pumpkins (there are twice that number now) laid about the deeply mulched lawn in an artistic, if braggardly, fashion. "Oh! Look at ME! LOOK at All MY pumpkins, aren't I GREAT!!," they seem to be saying. (Some of the pumpkins have mouths.) In the Nov. dusk, the pumpkins glow a bright orange, matching the square, red glow coming from the chicken coop window. In the right foreground is an ill-conceived planting of hydrangea. It got plowed into a hoop last winter.

Next summer, that lawn and part of the road will be covered with pumpkin vines. I expect to harvest at least 20 pumpkins from it, but my primary motive in mulching that lawn so deeply is just keeping it deep and fertile. That's how I'm managing my un-mown yard now. Deep mulching large areas of it annually. Last year I covered an area all around my vegetable garden with at least a hundred bags of leaves. This summer I covered them with newspaper, seaweed, an old wool blanket and hay, enlarging my 2011 garden greatly. I successfully eliminated a rampant, invasive buttercup in that part of the yard. Before the snow, I was deep mulching an area that I'd lost to blackberries. I cut them down to the ground, covered them with used kitty litter, covered that with newspaper, seaweed, and hay, and I have expectations that I will be able to eliminate the blackberries there. I'm going to build a raised bed and plunk it in the snow there.

And the next time I go to Portsmouth, I'm bringing you, Franklin, a nice big load of seaweed. You can meet me on the interstate.

No risk in asking a question here.
I get 3 to 7 (mostly) year old compacted leaves from municipal dump. Last few years the collected leaves have gone to landfill. Before that they were stockpiled at a collection point but very few were picked up from local composters.
The collection point just was becoming a dump...as the street sweeper/washer deposited its debris there and the trash intermingled with the decaying leaf piles.
I get it, get it tumbled, moistened, and let it finish composting. Get it screened, cleaned and sell to local landscapers, sports field contractors, and several builders. The litter/trash is bagged and then took to landfill.
Its still a hobby now, kinda something to do when I'm not hauling with my dump truck.
It finishes out like a dump truck load of potting soil to the end user.
The interest I have now is getting raised bed garden plots started and use a lot here at my home..
Let me say this... My local city Public Works director says if you, me, all of us, or anyone would USE this stuff rather than let it become TRASH it would save the city $25K plus per year.. I live in a town of appx 30K people.. There must be thousands of opportunities like this for compost all over the world. Look around and see if your local town needs help with something as this.
My PW director has told me if I could not haul it away (and they load my truck free) they would when they are not busy HAUL it to me...
It is 4 miles to the site and I can get 4, 20 yd loads in 2 hours to here, have them on the ground and then be doing something else.
I could not sell a dimes worth to anyone on this board as about 50 miles is as far as I haul so please do not think I'm soliciting... My POINT is simply people reading this and people that are trying to find product to compost may find it in quanity if you ask.
It has been good for me, its saving the city money now and in the future, and now composting here seems to be of more interest because of the prolonged drought we have been in.

----So my answer to you is semi composted leaves, and my challange to you is see if there is some near you...

.....make the photobucket picture bigger... can't see what all is there..if you can.

Annpat, yes, impressive pumpkins. You just have to expand and augment your bragging picture techinque, like this

That sign brags about the yard, the shirt (Steelers-super bowl champions) brags about my team. The picture is a 2-fer.

Karen

(I got an award this year, too, which must have killed my neighbors. I got it for not mowing.)

Karen

So, of course, I figured that if'n I add enough PM, I can turn a small patch of local dirt into a blueberry growing spot. So I dumped cubic yards of the stuff, stirred it up, planted a dozen bushes.

After 4 years and no growth what so ever, half died, I moved the rest into large pots with acidic potting soils. That didn't work either.

So, all in all, spread out over 8 years and spending I dunno how much money, I'd picked a pint.

People in Maine have like whole big patches of the things that just grow wild. I mean, they rake them even. Like leaves. A natural bounty of blue berries, and here I am with some Charley-Brown-Christmas-tree-like foot high Bonsai plants with 4 berries. One of these days, I'm gonna go for a swap them some fresh cactus leaves for a case of blueberries, using a blow torch to get off the spines.

When a lad, we used to go camping in Idaho, and once camp was set, spend the afternoon eating wild blueberries and watching out for bears. Good times, good times.

I'm always surprised to hear the conditions that blueberries need in other parts of the country, because my blueberries (and all blueberries in Maine) grow on granite ledges in about six inches of the most powdery, dry, lousy looking, soil, which you can barely penetrate with a shovel. They are never fertilized unless you count the bi-annual burning to the ground they get.

They're tough plants. They get driven on, walked on and mowed with heavy, soil-compacting, equipment. ATVs do them a world of hurt, though.

Karen, I live on a lake. The DEP loves a lake dweller who doesn't groom their property---hence my award. They liked that I mulch, too. The big deal was, though, my lack of mowing, which EVERYONE ('cept me and the DEP) HATES!

Karen

Thanks for all the giggles, folks.

S(e)ussing out the situation,

Rain

annpat, I received 4 boxes labeled Maine blueberries yesterday......182 pounds. Only thing, they are bags of Azomite and phosphorus.