Linnea2, "I just have these large areas of Mugwort that I can't mow." Well, with a shredder-chipper you will still have to pull the Mugwort and feed it to the machine, and that in itself will be a lot of work for you. Even though the shredder chipper is on wheels to move around from one worksite to another, it remains stationary while you feed it to produce the shredded product. And then you will have to manually put the shredded product into a compost pile or bin. I wouldn't want you to be under the illusion that the shredder-chipper does all the work for you. Basically it just shreds whatever you feed into it and discharges the shredded product partly under the machine and partly out in front of it. While I am shredding, every few minutes I use a hoe or shovel to pull the material out from under the machine out into a big pile in front of it. After I finish a shredding session I transfer the material from the pile to my compost pile(s). I use a big red plastic one-bushel basket to help with that. I can carry a bushel of shredded product on my shoulder. I have my compost piles near my shredder-chipper so I don't have to carry the product very far. Finely shredded material has a lot of surface area, so it composts rather fast. I have a , which is the predecessor to the MacKissic 12PT10 that dmullen has. Mine has a 9hp Briggs&Stratton INTEK 4-cycle gas engine, while his has a 10hp B&S engine. Otherwise, I think our machines are the same. My engine starts on the second pull when cold and usually on the first pull when warm. Starting it is no problem and, for me, an electric starter would be superfluous. But they are available at extra cost. Like dmullen, I purchased several optional screens for my machine so I can choose what texture my shredded product will have. For rapid composting, I put as much material through my " screen as I can. It produces a very fine, fluffy product, completely unrecognizable from what was fed to the machine. Our machines have a single flywheel-mounted chipping blade and 24 free-swinging hammers in a hammermill section. The hammers keep bashing the material until it is small enough to escape through the holes in whatever screen is mounted. Because the hammers don't depend on a blade cutting action, the hammermill is a very versatile shredding machine. You can even feed material like oyster shells, acorns, or even clay pots -- things you would never think of trying to cut with a blade. Your fibrous Mugwort might give a wrapping problem if you feed it directly to the shredding chute. I had a bunch of wild grapevines (they were 20 to 30 feet long) to feed my MacKissic, and at first I started feeding them into the shredder chute. Parts of the vines started wrapping around the hammermill rotor, severely slowing the rate at which they were shredded. So I stopped feeding them to the shredder chute and then tried feeding the vines, one at a time, into the chipper chute. The vines went in rapidly and the chipper knife cut the vines into short sections which fell into the hammermill section where they were rapidly pulverized through the ¼" holes of my screen. The resulting product was soft and fluffy enough to fill a pillow with. Totally unrecognizable as having come from wild grapevines. It made a great addition to a compost pile. If your Mugwort is fibrous enough to "wrap" the hammermill rotor (like my wild grapevines did), I would simply feed the Mugwort in through the chipper chute. I am not familiar with Mugwort, so I don't know the best technique to shred it. But if you have a lot of it, you should be able to produce a lot of fine-textured compost from it. If you have some existing old Mugwort piles, you can also put them through the hammermill (but wear a face mask to avoid breathing mold spores). In fact, I would probably toss in a little of the old rotted Mugwort while the new Mugwort was being shredded. That would "marry" the two materials together and effectively "seed" your shredded Mugwort for rapid composting. Or you could toss a little rich soil or leafmold in with the fresh material to inoculate it with microorganisms for the compost pile. Soil or dirt doesn't hurt the hammermill. MM

Monarda/Bee Balm is a great plant for the garden, attracting bees, butterflies and hummingbirds, but, as member of the mint family, it does spread very enthusiastically by underground runners. You may want to plant it in a deep, bottomless pot, or where it won't get into other plants. The little plants that pop up are easy enough to pull out, but you don't want to disturb the roots of other plants in your garden.

Covering a plant with something to keep that plant from getting the sunlight it needs to grow will cause that plant to die and as the food reserves stored in the roots are used up attempting to grow with no more food being manufactures by photosynthesis those roots will also die, and provide additional nutrients to the Soil Food Web, which will feed the plants you want to grow. There is no real need to remove most "weed" roots unless what you have is something like Quack Grass which seems to live almost forever.

Alright people. I can hear you cheering here in Lexington. "Dill Forest" I have a small one, that's the least of my worries. At least the butterflies can use them. Weeded the small raised bed of Tomatoes and used newspaper to mulch. Cleared out an area that alaready has asclepias-es or asclepia-i and transplanted other pollinators.from the perennial bed. Redesigning that and pulling stuff out so the workers can get around later. Cut back the huge rhubarb so I wouldn't trip and break something. Looking at my poison ivy and feeling annoyed that I got it. Despite washing with tecnu it rashed up and is so itchy. I think I will douse myself in deet-spray and go weed for 10 minutes. Marie So here's a question As I said I'm re-doing my 20 year old perennial bed. It probably won't be touched until mid August. Could I put down the weeds I pull, cover wth newspaper, wet and wait? Will it add anything to the fertility of the soil or is two months not enough (or does it also depend on the size and toughness of weeds i.e. rhubarb)