Now it's my job to shovel the chips into a wheelbarrow and move them to the garden in the backyard, down the driveway, up the bumpy stepping stones across the vinca bed, under the locust tree, past the pond and the new vegetable garden to the almost-bare ground in the ornamental beds. After years of heavy mulching year after year, I know my ground needs no amending. It's alive, and it will start to eat these chips as soon as they land. They'll last maybe three years and hold off weeds most of that time. Plus they'll keep the ground more moist and cool in high summer. Best of all, they recycle the sunshine and carbon and nutrients that the tree captured for its growth. Still, there's no free lunch. Kevin burned a gallon or two of gasoline, adding carbon to the atmosphere. But almost all the carbon that the tree took from the atmosphere and built into wood will return to the soil not the air. Maybe this means a tiny bit less carbon in the atmosphere. I almost never let yard waste leave the yard. I chop or snip everything into small pieces and mulch the garden with them. I think my system takes carbon out of the air and moves it into the ground, judging by the way my soil has grown darker and more friable over the last eighteen years.
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