Mulch (annuals)
Mulch.
A topic so important I made it the second post here, after "Why am I doing this?"
If I can impart just one piece of wisdom to the world about gardening, it's this, "Mulch."
Why?
There are a lot of reason, but weeds, by far are the biggest one for me.
I grew up with my mothers garden behind our garage, I grew up weeding it, and when it was plants coming up out of that pristine black dirt man did that garden look good... and for the few hours it looks like that just after it was finished being weeded every one involved looked terrible, exhausted and filthy...
I now have my own garden behind my own garage, and it's regularly over run with weeds, in part because I don't follow my own advice.
Mulch lays on top of dirt, plants need dirt to grow, if weed seeds can't get to the dirt, they can't grow.
More over, if they do come up, mulch keeps the soil moist, and makes pulling weeds easier as the soil let's go of the roots more easily...
Organic mulch will also breakdown into fertilizer for your plants, and it can be tilled in at the end of the season as a soil amendment. (more on that later)
Mulch gives a consistent appearance that dirt just doesn't. Mulch just looks nicer.
Alright. Everyone sold on the benefits of mulch?
Good. Now there are still a lot to know about it...
Let's start with Annuals, and I'll talk about Perennials in a different post...
Annuals are the simpler of the two, organic mulch that breaks down over the course of a year, and can be tilled back into the garden bed, it's simple, it keeps weeds down, it keeps soil moisture up, and frequently it's free!
If you have to rake leaves in the fall you are raking up mulch... pick them up, put them in a black plastic garbage bag, twist the end shut (loosely) store the bag upside down (so water can drain out) with a small slit cut the part facing up (so steam can get out) and leave them so the sun will hit them through the winter.... you'll end up with a bunch of dry leaves in the spring ready to go down as mulch.
Grass clippings work, and is also free
if you having a bagging lawn mower and grass to cut. (a healthy lawn with no weeds in it is a great thing here, don't want to be putting weed seeds down in the garden.) Grass has another advantage, it breaks down fast for it's nutrients, mostly nitrogen, and at the beginning of the seasons, plants want a lot of nitrogen. Our most successful broccoli crop was mulched with green grass (I didn't let it dry out first, I've read you can burn your plants, to much nitrogen, by doing this, but the broccoli in my garden loved it, did it again this year (see photo) I'll update once it starts to produce.)
Straw from straw bails you can get at a garden store works.... coconut husks mulch can also work, both are kind of costly, but if your soil needs amendment to have more air space, or more water retention capacity, both can be great choices as they just get tilled in to the soil at the end of the year. Coconut mulch has one other benefit, it usually come in coco-bricks... it's about the size of a brick but expands to 5 times the size when wet, and it just looks great (see photo).
So since I only talked about annuals and mulch for them, I guess next time around it's got to be about perennial mulch.
A topic so important I made it the second post here, after "Why am I doing this?"
If I can impart just one piece of wisdom to the world about gardening, it's this, "Mulch."
 |
| Green beans with straw mulch |
Why?
There are a lot of reason, but weeds, by far are the biggest one for me.
I grew up with my mothers garden behind our garage, I grew up weeding it, and when it was plants coming up out of that pristine black dirt man did that garden look good... and for the few hours it looks like that just after it was finished being weeded every one involved looked terrible, exhausted and filthy...
I now have my own garden behind my own garage, and it's regularly over run with weeds, in part because I don't follow my own advice.
Mulch lays on top of dirt, plants need dirt to grow, if weed seeds can't get to the dirt, they can't grow.
More over, if they do come up, mulch keeps the soil moist, and makes pulling weeds easier as the soil let's go of the roots more easily...
Organic mulch will also breakdown into fertilizer for your plants, and it can be tilled in at the end of the season as a soil amendment. (more on that later)
 |
| mulch from oak leaves that fell off my neighbors tree last fall. |
Alright. Everyone sold on the benefits of mulch?
Good. Now there are still a lot to know about it...
Let's start with Annuals, and I'll talk about Perennials in a different post...
Annuals are the simpler of the two, organic mulch that breaks down over the course of a year, and can be tilled back into the garden bed, it's simple, it keeps weeds down, it keeps soil moisture up, and frequently it's free!
 |
| cauliflower growing with grass clippings for mulch. |
If you have to rake leaves in the fall you are raking up mulch... pick them up, put them in a black plastic garbage bag, twist the end shut (loosely) store the bag upside down (so water can drain out) with a small slit cut the part facing up (so steam can get out) and leave them so the sun will hit them through the winter.... you'll end up with a bunch of dry leaves in the spring ready to go down as mulch.
Grass clippings work, and is also free
 |
| Coconut husk mulch in planter barrels |
Straw from straw bails you can get at a garden store works.... coconut husks mulch can also work, both are kind of costly, but if your soil needs amendment to have more air space, or more water retention capacity, both can be great choices as they just get tilled in to the soil at the end of the year. Coconut mulch has one other benefit, it usually come in coco-bricks... it's about the size of a brick but expands to 5 times the size when wet, and it just looks great (see photo).
So since I only talked about annuals and mulch for them, I guess next time around it's got to be about perennial mulch.
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