I heard a huge truck coming down the driveway just now and my ears perked up. Tractor Man had walked up to the mailbox with Maggie, so it wasn’t him. Turns out the Asplundh tree trimmer guys came down with a huge load of nice fine textured mulch to dump at the end of the driveway Oh, joy! Oh, …I know…geeky gardener fun, but you all here understand.

2011 Asplundh truck dumps the mulch here, then we'll use the tractor to move it.

Last week, I had stopped them as they worked on our circle up at the street and asked if they’d mind coming down our long steep driveway and dumping their load of chips down here. Worked!

2011 Truck driver and gardener, Joe

I asked these two to just let me know if they had been working in poison oak.  They said no, they didn’t usually at all.

This guy in the picture was so funny… this big hulky guy…he’s was telling me how this particular batch was chipped very fine, so would make the best compost and how to use it in the garden. Had to smile. Could just see him tiptoeing out in his tomatoes.

Mulch neatens the paths especilly with log edges

I’ve been putting these chips down on the paths we’ve been making with help from Tractor Man’s tractor.

In 2005 Deer on the lower leach line

The two, parallel 70 foot septic system leach lines, 100 feet and 130 feet down from the house place, were where we started. When the trenches were dug back in 2003 and then filled in, the leach lines became the only flat, level areas here on the place, beside the house pad.

2008 Upper leach line becomes a path of sorts

After the house was finished and we had more time for additional projects, I started laying out paths and with the tractor they were scraped flat by going around and around leveling the paths with every swath.

2010 Tractoring the new lower path

2010 Lower 40 path will get mulch this month

We now have a whole network of them going through to lower 40 and every year we do more. We’ve also been building benches beside the paths. The simple one below is at at ‘intersection of three paths.

2010 Bench built into an oak

This is the third time we’ve wangled wood chips from the work crews…I even have Tractor Man on the lookout now and we are shameless!  ‘Course today, when coming down from the mailbox where he had engaged the men in conversation about cute Corgis, mulch piles and general events of the world before they left, Tractor Man admitted to me that he had tipped them a twenty to buy their lunch, therefore embedding for longer hopefully, our address in their memories. Free mulch, free lunch.

Middle garden path

The huge truck makes mulch pile look small. It's four feet high and wide