Mulching

[BigOBear]

I've never mulched anything but I feel I should. From reading here it seems a lot of folks use straw in your gardens. I also read that some of you use hay. And still some that get theirs from the piles that tree trimming crews leave. What is everyone's preferred garden mulch? I'm assuming you put it in the garden early on. I'm also assuming you want the plants growing some so you don't cover them up before they get started good. Are these assumptions correct? Thanks in advance for the mulching advice.

[Anon001]

Yes, those assumptions are correct. After the plants are up, I put a thick layer of hay between the rows and up to the plant.

The reason I use hay is because I always have extra left over after the winter and because I ave enough ground that I don't have to buy hay, if I make my own. I usually prefer bales that are a couple years old. They will have some decomposition already occurring.

Another thing I like to do is scoop up the "soil" where from the hay lot. It is already composted for the most part because the bottom side of the big round bales is already rotted or "composted".

I use about one ton of hay. My garden is 100 ft x 100 ft and I plant about 80% to 90% of it each year (best guesstimate). This allows me just a bit of wiggle room from one year to the next. I don't use the small square bales of hay fro the garden. Those bales are kept covered and used in the event I have a sick animal that has to be quarantined, which is rare, or if I want to feed the goats in their pen if they don't get turned out for the day, which is also rare.

My round hay bales are usually in the neighborhood of 1000 lbs to 1200 lbs and it takes two bales to cover my garden.

There are many benefits to mulch. It helps inhibit weeds, keeps the ground a bit cooler resulting in it not drying out as quickly, and it helps amend the soil.


Paul

P.S. If I had to buy hay or straw to put on my garden, I would probably think twice about it.

[Gracie]

Paul,

You must have a huge garden...good for you! Sounds like you're not gonna' run out of canned veggies no matter what hits this ol' country of ours. Do you distribute your hay by hand...I think of 2 - !200 pound bales of hay, and would just stand there and look @ them dumbfounded. DH and I covered about 3/4th of our garden by hand last year, and the plants and we sure did appreciate it, as you said, keeps the weeds down, ground doesn't dry out and enriches the soil. My question is, you mentioned you'd think twice before buying the hay, that is what we do...are some varieties not good to use for this....

[bee_pipes]

Most of our land is wooded. In the courae of a year we gat a ton of downed branches. The neighbor has impressed on me the need to keep the branches policed up in areas you travel through frequently so you can spot snakes. We have an old wet spring we dump refuse like this into. After a year or two of dumping branches and mulching gardens it seemed like we were throwing away something that might be useful so we picked up a heavy duty chipper. Now we chip the downed branches and actually do a lot of pruning at the woods edge. Don't know that running a chipper is the best use of gasoline, but we have an abundance of branches and uses for the mulch.

We also go by the local newspaper office and pick up unsold editions of the local paper. The papers are spread on arden beds and around fruit trees as a weed shield, and the mulch is dumped on top. It only works for about a year before weeds come up, but the soil was so poor when we started that the layers of paper and mulch have done a lot of good in building the soil up and adding organics to it.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/sm_weeding_blueberries.jpg

On problem with straw, hay or wood chips - they are carbon and can leach nitrogen out of the soil as part of the composting process. Like Paul said, stuff that is already partially composted is better - more nutrients, lees of a draw on nitrogen and seed has been cooked.

We also have rabbits that produce a lot of manure that is low notrogen - doesn't need to be composted like the hotter manures - chicken, horse, etc - generally we will fertilize with manure before putting paper and mulch down. The mulch does a much better job of holding onto moisture from rains and decreases the liklihood of the soil drying - again as Paul mentioned.

Regards

[Pokeberry Mary]

I'll add my 2 cents I guess..

I use mulch --almost anything I can find. Pinestraw--but it shrivels up when the heat comes--so you need a lot.

I sometimes put down 6 or 8 sheet thick wet newspaper under neat mulch.

I use wood chips, leaves (partly composted) some straw and whatever I can find that will work. I mulch up to the plants then take my hands and make a little open circle a few inches out around the stems so it doesn't get too close and cause problems.

I have lots of my garden in containers--I always mulch my containers. If I want them to look nice I use moss or wood chips, if it doesn't matter so much-- then I generally use old leaves since that's what I have the most of here.

I think folks don't always think to mulch containers but they dry up very fast in the heat so it is a must-- I like to use things that will break down and be part of the soil in the future. I keep big piles of leaves--mainly ok--and I also keep compost bins, we also have some of our own pine straw here with the woods--but I buy a few bales usually for my 'pretty' area.

[Anon001]

You must have a huge garden...good for you! Sounds like you're not gonna' run out of canned veggies no matter what hits this ol' country of ours.

It's 100 x 100.

Do you distribute your hay by hand...I think of 2 - !200 pound bales of hay, and would just stand there and look @ them dumbfounded.

I use a pitchfork, pull it loose from the bale and distribute the hay with the pitchfork. It's still a lot work, but easier than doing it all by hand

My question is, you mentioned you'd think twice before buying the hay, that is what we do...are some varieties not good to use for this....

The reason I wrote that is because, I don't know that I could justify the $40 to $50 expense. If I had to buy it, I would think of something different, such as wood chips. There are a lot of cottonwoods here and a lot of it dead on the ground. It decomposes as quickly as anything. I would most likely use it.

Paul

[DM]

I MUCH prefer to use "fresh cut" grass/hay, as it lays better on the gardens, and stays put. It's MUCH easier to put in the gardens than dry hay too...

http://fototime.com/AB29390B8BED6FA/orig.jpg

I cut it myself, here on my homestead, and i only cut what i can use that day, so it doesn't dry out too much before i pick it up...

Anyway, i like wood chips the least, because they take the longest to break down, are are much slower to put in place. I want to till my mulch under every fall to feed next years crops, and i want it all composted by the following spring. But, if that's all i could get, i would use them.

Although it's true that woody stems and chips use nitrogen to break them down, once the stems are composted out, they release the "N" back intro the soil, so the "N" isn't lost.

DM

[bookwormom]

I'll take anything I can get. Leaves, woodchips, straw. spoiled hay, grass clippings. My favorite is grass clippings, but I have no source for them anymore. and I just don't have enough of any material. I would like to mulch heavier. We do what we can.

[sbemt456]

We normally dont mulch anything other than tomatoes. Last year I mulched with shredded paper. Hubby brought their old shredder home from work and I shred all the junk mail that comes in all year, store it in the corncrib till the next garden season and then mulch tomatoes. I have done the same this year. Only this year we obviously didnt get enough junk mail and newspapers here. :sad:
I have always hesitated to use old hay for fear of adding more grass and weed seeds. But I had one of those "ah ha" moments. We usually dont cut hay till it ripens here. That WILL change with the next cutting of hay. I will have it cut in the orchard area here long before the seed heads mature on the grass. Then by dang I wont be worried about mulch. I am liking the idea of mulch more and more after spending every evening last week till after dark weeding the garden because we got behind with the rains.

HAve a great day!

stella

[AlchemyAcres]

I MUCH prefer to use "fresh cut" grass/hay, as it lays better on the gardens, and stays put.

I also prefer fresh cut grass hay. No (or very few) seeds and high in N.
I cut it with a scythe and distribute it with a pitchfork.

That doesn't mean that i don't also use other things, but the grass hay is preferred and used most of the time.

I do it a bit differently with containers......I mulch them with newspapers covered with PH adjusted finely ground pine bark.


~Martin

[randallhilton]

Mulch makes a huge difference in how much watering we have to do in the Texas heat.

As urban homesteaders we don't have access to much hay but we do have several trees which seem to never run out of branches to prune. Lots of grapes, shrubs etc. So we use mulch all over the place, even make walkways with it.

I have one of those Troybilt chippers which gets lots of use. We use last year's chips for this year's mulching. We also get it free by the pickup full from a nearby tree service. The stuff we get from them is coarser but it's "steamin hot" when they get down in the middle of the pile - meaning it is well on its way to compost.

[BigOBear]

Thank you all for sharing. I'm definitely going start mulching.