Gardening is largely an ongoing process of creating a healthy environment in your growing space. Compost is good for adding nutrients and important soil organisms. Mulch serves a number of purposes. It can keep the soil warm for early planting and it can keep the soil cool in hot weather. Mulch helps prevent germination of weed seeds and retards the growth of weeds from roots. It also makes weeds easier to pull because the extra moisture keeps the soil loose and encourages shallow roots.
Over the course of the growing season, plant-based mulches break down, adding organic matter to the soil. When the frosts come, the mulch can be raked up and composted or it can be tilled into the soil.
I use three sheets of wet newspaper under a deep layer of mulch around my tomatoes and peppers. The newspaper is effective as a weed barrier and breaks down fairly quickly.
Some sources of mulch are risky: wheat straw may come from a field that was sprayed with an
herbicide that can linger and damage my garden; city compost may contain clippings that have been sprayed with various chemicals; wood mulches break down very slowly, so they contribute little in the way of nutrients over the growing season and they encourage fungi that aren't beneficial..
Even a small garden can use a good deal of mulch every year. We are fortunate to live on a piece of land that produces more mulch than we can use. Or at least more than we can collect.
One of our important purchases when we moved here was an 11 horsepower chipper/shredder. In the fall, Kathy begins raking oak leaves from the yard and the woods around us until we have mountains of the brown gold. The shredder reduces leaves and other material into fragments much smaller than we get from running over leaf piles with the mower. There is an almost endless supply of leaves to be had--more than we can rake, and we have to stop raking in the woods when the poison ivy starts to leaf out.
There is a huge pine tree down by the ravine that drops a deep layer of needles every year. I rake up half, about four wheelbarrows worth, and leave the other half for our nesting bluebirds. There are plenty left to feed the soil around the tree. I tried using the needles whole, which worked fine, but I find I prefer them run through the shredder and mixed with leaves. It makes them easier to spread and makes a denser mulch.
Old dry branches are too hard and dull the chipper blade quickly, but fresh cut green branches run through easily and produce a nice size of chips for additional mulch and compost.
We have a large area we mow between us and the neighbors to the south. I mow with the discharge into the unmowed grass so that I end up with windrows that are easier to rake up. Each mowing fills the large wheelbarrow with clippings that are ready to apply in the garden. The grass breaks down quickly and releases nitrogen, so I use it around corn and on areas that have been harvested. Grass and weed seeds can be a problem, but as long as I put on a good mulch next year, it should be okay.
I also mulch between garden beds to keep the weeds down and reduce the compaction in areas I regularly walk. Mulch keeps my garden happier, so it keeps me happier. Next year I plan to change from beds to wide rows, except for my tomatoes and peppers, to make it easier to mulch around onions, potatoes and other large crops.
It's only about a month until the leaves begin to fall and it will be time to start stockpiling mulch again. That will be the beginning of next year's garden.
Over the course of the growing season, plant-based mulches break down, adding organic matter to the soil. When the frosts come, the mulch can be raked up and composted or it can be tilled into the soil.
I use three sheets of wet newspaper under a deep layer of mulch around my tomatoes and peppers. The newspaper is effective as a weed barrier and breaks down fairly quickly.
Some sources of mulch are risky: wheat straw may come from a field that was sprayed with an
herbicide that can linger and damage my garden; city compost may contain clippings that have been sprayed with various chemicals; wood mulches break down very slowly, so they contribute little in the way of nutrients over the growing season and they encourage fungi that aren't beneficial..
Even a small garden can use a good deal of mulch every year. We are fortunate to live on a piece of land that produces more mulch than we can use. Or at least more than we can collect.
One of our important purchases when we moved here was an 11 horsepower chipper/shredder. In the fall, Kathy begins raking oak leaves from the yard and the woods around us until we have mountains of the brown gold. The shredder reduces leaves and other material into fragments much smaller than we get from running over leaf piles with the mower. There is an almost endless supply of leaves to be had--more than we can rake, and we have to stop raking in the woods when the poison ivy starts to leaf out.
There is a huge pine tree down by the ravine that drops a deep layer of needles every year. I rake up half, about four wheelbarrows worth, and leave the other half for our nesting bluebirds. There are plenty left to feed the soil around the tree. I tried using the needles whole, which worked fine, but I find I prefer them run through the shredder and mixed with leaves. It makes them easier to spread and makes a denser mulch.
Old dry branches are too hard and dull the chipper blade quickly, but fresh cut green branches run through easily and produce a nice size of chips for additional mulch and compost.
We have a large area we mow between us and the neighbors to the south. I mow with the discharge into the unmowed grass so that I end up with windrows that are easier to rake up. Each mowing fills the large wheelbarrow with clippings that are ready to apply in the garden. The grass breaks down quickly and releases nitrogen, so I use it around corn and on areas that have been harvested. Grass and weed seeds can be a problem, but as long as I put on a good mulch next year, it should be okay.
I also mulch between garden beds to keep the weeds down and reduce the compaction in areas I regularly walk. Mulch keeps my garden happier, so it keeps me happier. Next year I plan to change from beds to wide rows, except for my tomatoes and peppers, to make it easier to mulch around onions, potatoes and other large crops.
It's only about a month until the leaves begin to fall and it will be time to start stockpiling mulch again. That will be the beginning of next year's garden.
Our commercial duty Brush Master chipper/shredder is the workhorse of our mulching operation.
Shredded oak leaves make the best mulch I've ever used and are a great additive to the compost.
Grass clippings work very well and add nitrogen to the soil.
Fresh clippings bound for the garden.
Stephen
All photos are copyright 2017, Stephen P. Scott
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