Where to live - suggestions please

[Bird]

<font color=blue>Do you treat the wood chip for insects?</font color=blue>

I never have; just spread them on the garden and till them in. Of course, it's really the wrong time of year 'cause if the weather's suitable, I'll start planting garden in the next 10 days, so I wish I'd had all those wood chips to till in last Fall, or at least late Summer after the garden was through producing.

 

[TerryinMD]

Bird,

You put your woodchips into your garden and then plant!!!??? My understanding is that the woodchips remove nitrogen from the soil which can raise havoc with your plants.

I've seen people spread sawdust in the fall and then till it in. That way you have a chance of some of the wood breaking down in the soil prior to planting.

Tell me your secret.....

Terry

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>woodchips remove nitrogen</font color=blue>

Terry, I've heard that from several sources, so I'll assume it's probably true, but I've never been able to tell it had any detrimental effect on my garden. The first year for this garden spot (6 years ago), I tilled in many trailer loads of wood chips in the Fall, but I also had a lot of rabbit and cow manure added to it, too, so maybe that balanced it out. Then one year I tilled in wood chips too late for them to decompose and the only problem was avoiding getting splinters in my hands setting out onion, tomato, and pepper plants. So for that reason, I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do this year. This tree pruning crew has some old equipment and their big commercial chipper left a lot of stuff that's bigger than I prefer. In the past I would have just run it through the little chipper/shredder again, but it belonged to my brother and he sold it this morning (along with his Kawasaki Mule and spray rig)./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif He's already listed his place for sale with a realtor and started disposing of some of his "toys", while I haven't intended to make any serious efforts to sell mine until about May.

 

[RPM]

Re: Where to live - overflight

ejb,

A thought occurred to me as I read the latest messages in this thread. How are you planning on evaluating the area you move to? I was thinking about my recent move - I used maps and also satellite imagery from the web to check out the area and look for nasty things that may be hidden over the next hill or behind the woods.

If you're seriously weighing a few different areas and are planning trips there you may want to consider hiring a local pilot and getting an aerial view of the place. I'm sure there are some pilots on the board who can attest to the different perspective.

Patrick

 

[utahmule]

One more suggestion from out West. We stumbled on to Cedar City, UT by chance and after five years it'll take something cataclysmic to get me to move.

Four seasons, dry heat in the summer, a ski resort 45 minutes away, Lake Powell 2 1/2 hours, Las Vegas 2 1/2 hours, Salt Lake City 3 1/2 hours, So. Cal 8 hours.

Very affordable cost of living, including land. Commercial air service, blah, blah, blah. Check out the website for more info, feel free to ask.

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.cedarcity.com/>http://www.cedarcity.com/</A>

 

[TerryinMD]

Bird,

Adding the manure with the chips in the fall makes more sense. Especially in your neck of the woods. All the little critters are still closer to ground surface performing their natural duties.

Sorry to hear that you're going to sell your place. Heck, just treat it like you're going to stay. That way, you'll have something to work with and gardens have a nice way of enhancing a property for sale.

Terry

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>just treat it like you're going to stay</font color=blue>

That's for sure!/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif I really want to sell it, and it's a cheap place, but I don't intend to just give it away, and I don't intend to advertise or make any serious efforts at selling until the grass greens up good, trees have leaves on them, flowers are blooming, etc., and I bought all my garden seed day before yesterday./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[dmccarty]

Bird,

If you don't mind me asking, where are you going to move after selling the property? Did I miss this conversation in another discussion?

Later...
Dan

 

[Bird]

Dan, if we sell this place, we're not sure just where we'll go;haven't done any shopping for a new home yet. Most likely rent for awhile at least, and nearer relatives on the north side of Dallas.

 

[unaka]

In reading all these posts, I've seen only one mention of Western NC. I live in the EXTREME Western NC mountains, outside of Murphy, as far west as you can go without hitting Tennessee. We are a forgotten little place. Heck, most North Carolinians even think the state line stops in Asheville, which is two hours east of us. The population is about 28,000, very rural. We are two hours from Atlanta, two hours from Chatanooga, and two hours from Athens, GA. Our property taxes for this year for a little over 100 acres was approx $800. There is good and abundant drinking water here, we have four seasons, and the weekly crime report in the local paper takes up as much space as about two classified ads. Large tracts of land are still available for anywhere from 2-5k per acre, but developers are snatching them up and dividing them. There is a nice lake here, Hiwassee lake, which unlike a lot of lakes has only 7% of it's shorelined developed, so it's still a very enjoyable lake, and not too run over with jet-skeets (oops, I mean jet-skis).
The rest of the shoreline is National Forest.

I'm surprised more people haven't discovered our little paradise.

good luck with your search

unaka