Chop 'n' Drop

I’ve had mixed success with my vegetable garden over the years. Every fall and spring I add compost and sometimes manure. This year, in addition to applying finished compost, I’ve adopted the chop ‘n’ drop technique. It turns out that some of the plants in my garden that are over-exuberant, which I regularly pull out and used to put on my weed pile, are actually dynamic accumulators, meaning they draw nutrients from deep in the soil and store it in their leaves. What I do now is I remove parts of lemon balm, borage, and goldenrod plants, and lay the slightly chopped pieces directly on the soil, so that it also acts as mulch. This technique should help conserve soil moisture, attract worms, add nutrients, and distract insects from my veggies, while helping to tame the overly rambunctious members of my plant community.

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