If you want to improve the soil structure then something like Nature's Helper (fine, aged bark chips) or another 'soil improver' would be better than vermiculite. The vermiculite is a permanent solution, so in one way, it's good, but it will NEVER break down and will be there for years to come. The benefit from adding OM, which will eventually be broken down by the microherd in the soil, is that it will all eventually improve your soil, making it more permeable and more fertile. The vermiculite will most likely do nothing, long term, for the improvement of your fulvic and humic acids. I would check to see if there is a municipal source of compost, and see if they will deliver - if they won't, then borrow a pick-up truck, if you don't own one, and get a few loads. It should be free, or nearly so, esp. if you pick up. I know there is a commercial operation near here where a freind got a pick-up load of mushroom compost and top soil for about $30 (about 2 cu. yards). Have you been adding the manure and compost to your garden beds for the past few years? I repeat what I wrote earlier - if you have been adding 4" or more of OM each year for a number of years, then you probably should have pretty good soil by now. If, however, this is only the second year or so you have been adding, then, yes, you could probably add more. One source of free or nearly so, OM is the local tree services, and the companies that trim the powerlines - they end up with truckloads of chippings, and are usually happy to dump one or more loads if you ask. The main draw-back is that the chippings are fresh and pretty coarse, so you have to be able to let them sit for at least a year - 2 is better - before using them. They do make a decent mulch, 'though you have to pick out the bigger pieces. If nothing else, it's a good "brown" additive to your new compost pile. You might also see if you can get the "spoiled" hay or straw. If nothing else, and for the future, see if you can get the bales people have used for fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving decorations. By the time that they have sat out in the rain for a few weeks, they aren't really usable for either feed or bedding. Most people would probably give them to you, rather than have the garbage collecter take them, if their garbage service will even do so. I kinow nothing about the cotton by-products, they aren't locally available, so will let someone else comment on that.

I'm going to take a bit of a different position. first, I won't disagree with Dan. Bermuda needs fertilizer in the hot months. It is probably when it needs it most and is best to apply it. But, cool season grasses really don't benefit from being encouraged to grow in the hottest months. While I also don't disagree that organic fertilizers won't "burn" like chemical ones can, especially easy to do in the hotter weather, most cool season grasses are on the verge or going dormant. Of course, lots of water can keep them green, but, most of what I have read suggests that fertilizing cool season grasses, with any kind of fertilizer, is counterproductive to long term health of the grass. I try to fertilize once in early summer, then three times in the fall. While giving it a reasonable sized shot of organic fertilizer during the hot months is probably not the worst thing you can do to your cool season grass, in most cases, its probably not the best either.

It is hard to find a good place to garden at most homes, I think. I only have one choice to garden in the ground and that is my fenced backyard. My neighbors have told me that at some point it was all garden, but I am having a hard time getting it ready to garden again. Someone planted virginia creeper along the north fence line and that stuff is awful. It sends out runners both under the ground and on the ground surface for 5 or 6 feet. The vine is pretty, but it is a nuisance plant as far as I am concerned. On the south fence I had climbing sweet pea vines, and on the west I had something that was kind of briar looking, but no thorns, and a spot that always had poke, no matter what I did. It has all been killed but I am still working with root problems. One year my neighbor saw me in the back yard and came over to visit. He knew I had been trying to clean up the fence without cutting down the Virginia Creeper. He sat there awhile and then he picked up my nippers and headed for our fence. He cut for just a minute and chopped some large stuff. He came back and sat down and we watched one of the vines just "croak", right then and there. He was so worried about it, and I was thrilled. That plant had covered half of the fence and it was the half nearest the planted area. Then he got married and his wife didn't like it any better than I did, so we have gradually taken it off the fence. Of course, the roots hadn't all died so every year I was pulling up roots. Although I covered the entire area with RoundUp last spring, I am still fighting old roots and they get hung up in the tiller. Once when Bill (gonefish'n) was alive he saw a picture of my garden. He told me my garden looked great but that he would be worried about having a tree so close to the garden. What he couldn't see in the picture was that I had three trees just around my fence line and two of them weren't mine. That winter the ice storm broke so many limbs on the tree west of me that the neighbor had it taken down. Aww, too bad. A couple of years later, my neighbor that cut the vine, had a tree split during an ice storm, and the half that fell landed in my garden and was so huge that it almost touched the three fences and the house, so now that one doesn't shade my garden. Aww, too bad. The one left is a smaller tree and is mine. Dealing with the roots is kind of a mess, but I sure like the shade when I am working and need a place to rest. Now that I am old, I seem to use that more often. LOL I have several areas of my garden that are shaded by two of the neighbors storage buildings in the late afternoon, but the plants have had enough sunshine by that time anyway and it offers them a little protection from the intense heat in mid-summer. I can work many hours of the day in my garden by just starting early in the spots that get no shade and working my way to the shade as the day progresses and the heat intensifies. We built a small chicken house that has a pen on the bottom, and a house above and they can go up a ramp to get inside where the roost is. It is narrow and sits with it's back to the neighbors shed. I bought the lumber today to extend the run 16 feet down the fence line from the coop. It will only be 3 feet wide but will provide a barrier from the grass that creeps in from next door. It will also cover the area that has the poke patch that never ends. Since I have had the chickens, they trim back the few plants that have come up since I sprayed. This 3 x 16 part is only going to be a couple of feet high. It will only be for daytime use, and at night they will be back in the coop. Some love the roost upstairs, but the Sultans like the ground, or the ramp. It has wire on the floor but it is vinyl coated with about 2x4 openings. You can't see the wire, but it is down there to keep out other critters. We still have a few things to do to the chicken coop, but they are living in it anyway. They get out to run for an hour or so everyday in the garden, so it has worked out OK for them but they are growing fast. We still have to put the metal on the roof and build the nest boxes into the end. The metal probably will get put on when my neighbor is home since he has a plasma cutter that makes things a lot easier. Besides that, I can't do the metal by myself. We have it, but just haven't gotten it on. So far the rains have been light so they are only getting a few drips down through the roof. For the run, I am building 8 foot sections with lumber on all sides and wire in the center. Maybe I can finally keep the grass from creeping in by letting the chickens keep it cleared. Most years that I have had a garden here, I have planted about half of the backyard because I still had lawn on part of it and then because of all of the roots it was hard to go up to the fence with anything. This year I started to reclaim it all. Most of the grass is gone but I still have other things coming up, so it's not done yet but I think it is to the point I can plant it and just mulch heavily and weed it for awhile. We are talking about changing our fence so that it goes all the way across our back property line and comes out far enough to enclose our sheds and things into the backyard. Some of it has buildings on it but I could probably plant some of it also. It would include the area where we had the cedar trees taken out this year and where I plan to have a greenhouse someday. Someday is far away, because this is the year of the kitchen. Diane has "the year of the corn", "year of the bean", at our house we have the "year of the renovation" of this or that. I hope we aren't too old to enjoy it by the time we finish. LOL Anyway, the moral of this story is, that eventhough the land may be flat, you still can't plant in all of it. I am blessed that the back yard soil has been improved and has almost no rocks, but that is not the case in parts of the yard. I have one flower bed that I wonder how anything grows in. I guess the roots just work there way around the rocks. I also have a septic system and a large leeching field. I plant in containers also, but my big old nursery tree pots are probably seeing their last year this year. I have lots of smaller ones, but the big ones are about gone. My DH asked down at solid waste if they ever got feed tubs. They told him they did, but they all fought over them and took them home. LOL I don't have fruit trees and really don't have room for any. I bought two small blueberry plants in the spring and grew them in containers until a few weeks ago. My DH dug the holes for me and we just kind of dropped them in the ground with all the soil and peat that was in the pot. Just after we planted them, we had a huge rain, so they seem to have settled in nicely. What does all of this have to do with planting corn, and stealing Diane's thread. Only this -- I think I finally have cleared enough area that I can plant a small patch of corn. HeeHee Diane, like you, I am going to be planting corn for grinding instead of sweet corn. I bought a pack of yellow Hickory King dent corn, and if I like it I am going to try the white one the following year. Either that, or switch to the one that George grows.

Xeric, where do you live? I dont see any reason at all why you shouldnt plant them now. With most perennials, you can plant them anytimeeven during the winteras long as the ground isnt frozen. The main problem with planting when its really, really cold out is that since they wont start growing, you dont know till spring if theyve actually made it or not. When planting at this time of the year, put them in and then water them really wellSLOWLY and DEEPLYso the soil BELOW the roots is well watered. Then dont water again over winter unless the soil down at the level of the bottom of the roots is drying out. If we get a long, drawn out and dry fall, you may need to water again before winter really sets in. Rather than trying to divide them now, put the 4" plants in as one plant and then wait till they start growing well in spring and then go thru them and dig small rooted "plugs" out of the middle of them to transplant where you want them. Pink Chintz should be pretty easy to successfully plant now. Also, as Bonnie said above, if theyre planted now, the roots will be growing pretty much all winter, anytime the soil isnt frozen, so theyll get a really, really good start when they start to grow next spring. Were glad youre here, and dont be afraid to start your own thread when you have questions. Any fall/winter posts are welcome on this threador any posts at all for that matterbut youll usually get more responses if you start a separate thread and people can see from the title what youre asking about. And if you start a separate thread, you can also have replies sent directly to your mailbox if you choose. I got back from my trip last nite and found that the temp had only gone down to 36 while I was gone! Even last nite, which was a little bit colder, it only went down to 34. Guess I really didnt need to cut my tomatoes down after all, but with as cool as the days are going to be this week, and with as cold as the nites are getting, they wouldnt have developed anymore fruit anyway, and they can ripen slowly in the garage as well as outsidewhere Id need to keep worrying about them freezing. Since cukes dont "keep" if you "hang them in the garage," and since I wasnt quite ready to give up on them yet, I did cover them. Theyre easy to cover because of the "framework" provided by the trellises theyre on. Just uncovered them about an hour ago, and theyre looking the same as when I covered them. I already have a bunch of cukes in the fridge, and there a lots of little ones on the vines, so the longer I can leave them outside, the longer Ill have them to eat! I covered a couple summer squash vines that have small ones on too, in hopes that they may keep developing, but that may or may not work. It sure is nice out here today! Its 60 in the shade on my deck, and Im sure its much warmer in the sun out in the yard (but my thermometer on that side of the yard needs new batteries!) BP and Dafy, its really nice to see the two of you around here! We miss you when youre not posting. My perennials, which were, in large part, ignored this year, are looking typically "fallish!" Buds are just starting to open on the Hillside Pink Sheffields" Dendranthema, and Im not planning to cover it this year, so it probably wont have time to develop its usual fall splendor! If Im around when were gonna get a hard freeze, Ill cut them and bring them in to enjoy indoors! The many dried flower stems on my Acanthus are going to be wonderful winter interest this year. Theyre visible in this pic behind the flopping (not enough sun) Agastache! From Garden - 2009 July to Fall Im hoping for a nice mild winter so I can get the tomato area turned over this year and ready for spring, and maybe even do some perennial "rearranging" over winter. Skybird