Mulching is one of the best things you can do for your garden. A generous layer of mulch over the soil surface will suppress weeds, retain moisture, and provide and soil enrichment as it decomposes.
Mulch also helps protect the soil from erosion, moderates the soil temperature, and makes the garden look neat and tidy. Mulching has some disadvantages as well. It can smother your plants, tie up nutrients, add unwanted chemicals, grow fungus, and slow water penetration.
Keep the mulch a few inches from the plants, so they are not smothered.
I reached out to my gardening friends and asked if they would share their advice and experiences with using mulch in the garden. This resulted in a collection of seasoned knowledge of various mulching methods for vegetable gardens, flowerbeds, and landscaping. Discover mulching methods that will work in your garden and heed some mulch warnings too.
Mulching Tips and Techniques:
- 5 Ways Organic Mulch Help Your Vegetable Garden – Grow a Good Life
- 7 Ways to Prevent Soil Erosion – Tenth Acre Farm
- Buckwheat as a Cover Crop and Weed Suppressor – Schneiderpeeps
- Gardening Basics: How to Apply Mulch – North Coast Gardening
- Mulch and Compost – Homestead Lady
- Mulch: A Winter Blanket for Your Garden – Niki Jabbour, Rustic Magazine
- Mulching Flower Beds – Sensible Gardening
- Mulching in the Garden – Tenth Acre Farm
- Our New Vegetable Garden and Mulching Techniques – That Bloomin’ Garden
- The Theory Behind Back to Eden Gardening – 104 Homestead
- Using Wood Chips in a Vegetable Garden – Learning and Yearning
Laying a soaker hose beneath the mulch provides water directly to the soil. The mulch prevents moisture from evaporating.
How to Find Free Mulch:
- How to Use Free Mulch in Your Garden – The Prudent Garden
- Save Your Leaves: Don’t Throw Away Gardening Gold – Empress of Dirt
Garlic bed mulched with shredded leaves – FREE
Some Cautions About Mulch:
- 5 Things You Should Know About Wood Chip Mulch – Reformation Acres
- Are You Killing Your Trees With Mulch? – Learning and Yearning
- Sour Mulch: I Learned This One the Hard Way – Learning and Yearning
- Why I Hate Landscape Fabric – North Coast Gardening
Bush beans mulched with straw
I hope you gained some knowledge from these experienced gardeners about which mulch you should use in your garden.
The most important point to understand is there is no one method that fits all gardens. Each type of mulch has pros and cons, making it suitable for some situations and not others. Regardless of which method you choose, you should mulch. So which mulch is right for you?
[sc:ArtOfGardening ]You May Also Like:
- How to Build a Square Food Garden
- Planning Your Vegetable Garden: Mapping the Garden Beds
- Simple Seed Germination Test
- How to Save Bean Seeds to Plant Next Year
- 7 Tips for a Low Maintenance Vegetable Garden
[sc:gglnews ]
Larryn Griffith says
Hi! Thanks for the post with all this info. It’s a lot to digest but very well worth the effort. A book was brought to my attention recently, quite possibly by one of your recommended blog postings but I don’t quite remember, called “Gardening Without Work – For the Aging, the Busy and the Indolent” by Ruth Stout. It was written back in the 1960’s and is an enjoyable, humorous read — all about the joys of mulching and her years of positive experience with it. I highly recommend it to your readers. Thanks again!
©Rachel Arsenault says
Larryn, Thank you for your comment and for recommending Gardening Without Work – For the Aging, the Busy and the Indolent by Ruth Stout! She is a huge inspiration and advocate for deep mulching the garden.
Lorraine Barksdale says
I not only mulch with leaves, trimmings, etc., I bury all of the vegetable and fruit trimmings from the kitchen. I have done this since 1972. It takes about six weeks to deteriorate in our soil. I also have a barrel composter. Busy, busy. Lorraine
Surf City, CA So. California
©Rachel Arsenault says
Lorraine, I love the idea of burying the kitchen scraps directly into the garden. Your soil must be healthy.
Thomas says
Mulching is definitely something I need to be better at. I learned the hard way this year how easily strawberries can rot if in contact with the soil. Won’t make that mistake again.
Margaret says
I love, love, love mulch – thanks so much, Rachel, for this compilation of posts. I’m really short on time right now, but I’ve bookmarked this page so that I can give them all a read in September when things calm down a bit.