If I use the chips for mulch I can sprinkle some blood meal on top. This spring I will be using a base of shredded fall leaves before the wood chips. I got lucky, the leaf dump/ compost site has been a bit slow to move the dead leaf piles out of reach. My car is filthy inside. My poor pooch has to ride in the hatchback with garbage bags of leaves crowding him, some get ripped by his claws. At least he gets his ride and 2 plain burgers from Mc D or BK, he won't mind.

Well the tree service guy just showed up and said it wasn't a camphor tree after all, it was a carrot wood tree, which from some research is also listed as an invasive tree in Florida. The chips were a little bigger than what I would have wanted but I guess you can't look a gift horse in the mouth. But seeing as we don't have any mangrove swamps in southern California it may not be an invasive tree here. I will be on the outlook for any seeds.

BIOREMEDIATE your soil! Paul Stamets - Bioremediation with Fungi "In 1975, a military jet fuel leaked over 80,000 gallons of kerosene based jet-fuel into a lake in the suburbs of Charleston, SC. Many people tried to manage the oil spill but it was to no avail. It was almost impossible to stop all of the fuel from being soaked up by the very permeable sandy soil and reaching the ground water. Soon all of the ground water became contaminated and had many toxic chemicals in it. The ground water then began to reach all of the residential area and everyone in the surrounding area knew they were faced with a serious environmental hazard. It was almost impossible to remove all of the contaminated soil and ground water so the only other option was to introduce microorganisms and fungi that could consume all of the toxic chemicals and turn them into harmless carbon dioxide. Because of this introduction of the microorganisms it allowed for any further contamination to come to a complete halt. It even helped to remove 75% of the pollutants that harmed the soil and ground water. This introduction of microorganisms and fungi to an ecosystem or specific area is known as Bioremediation. What is Bioremediation? Bioremediation is a process in which indigenous or inoculated micro-organisms (e.g., fungi, bacteria, and other microbes) degrade (metabolize) organic contaminants found in soil and/or ground water, converting them to harmless end products. Nutrients, oxygen, or other amendments may be used to enhance bioremediation and contaminant desorption from subsurface materials. Bioremediation also allows polluted drinking water to become safe enough for humans and animals to drink. It allows for us [humans] to have a safer drinking source and not be too terribly concerned with the toxins that could be potentially be harmful. Bioremediation is usually classified under 2 types of conditions. Those being aerobic and anaerobic..."

It's not really a question of which is most nutritious as which has nutrients that are more readily available and those are in leaves. If one looks at what Ma Nature does we would find that she uses a combination of leaves and wood to maintain nutrient leaves where she is in charge. The slugs appeared because you created an environment, cool and moist, that they like with that leaf mulch so yes the leaf mulch could be why the slugs appeared. However, they would have appeared if you used straw or anything else that would have created a cool, moist environment. kimmq is kimmsr