Last week we had a load of free wood chips delivered by a local tree company. They deliver whenever you request, when they are in the area. I was told I could have all I want! I told him I could probably go through 4-5 loads per year. Maybe more.
We actually had 2 loads delivered back in 2014 and we went through it quickly. It broke down in our fruit garden and around trees after about 1-2 years.
I calculated how much it would cost me to purchase each truck load from a big box store and the amount I came to was $1,107.74 per truck load that they deliver. So in total I've had over $3K worth of mulch delivered now.
You might be wondering why I named this post with a dollar amount in it! Well, we figured out how much all this mulch would have cost us if we had bought it at a store such as Lowe’s or Menards.
Lowe’s has 2 cubic foot bags for sale for $4.49. Notice that is cubic FOOT. Now we had 17 cubic YARDS delivered in each truckload so that is 34 cubic YARDS of mulch. There are 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard (3*3*3). 34*27 = 918 cubic feet of mulch / 2 = 459 bags of mulch from Lowe’s. 459 * $4.49 = $2,060.91 * tax rate of 7.5% = Total of $2,215.48!
I want to start building the organic content in our soil and I think these free wood chips will be the bulk of the building. There are some concerns with nitrogen depletion at the soil surface, so I'll have to see how it goes.
The plan is to start putting down 3-5 inches per year and adding when ever it gets low. We are also still composting and I want to get some red wigglers soon as well.