Mulching the Garden--Questions

[2boys1homestead]

I see you follow the Oldworldgardenfarm. Just found them myself. Like their style. About equipment, we have and I have used them all. I have a 52" tiller on one tractor. I could till every year. But!
I personally detest hoeing weeds, no matter how advanced the tool is, I still have to stand out there and use it. So mulch does it for me, plus enriches my soil and I don't need to build compost piles.
Carol

I love The Old World Garden Farm, they just put up a pumpkin cookie recipe today, I'm can't wait to try it out!

 

[av8torcrj]

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[2boys1homestead]

There was an old gal named Ruth Stout who promoted a heavy mulch system of gardening. She use to garden naked, just kicked back her layers of mulch, dropped her seeds then stood back and watched it all grow. There was a great video of her online but I can no longer find it. Anyway, I tried the method, minus the naked part, and found that in this neck of the woods a thick layer of straw mulch was a magnet for voles which ate most everything and slugs. The soil, however, became like a moist, soft chocolate cake after a season of cover.
We now garden on top of hilled rows and make every effort to keep the soil covered when not in use. Something I'm doing this year is placing manures and decomposing leaves between the active rows ( in the paths) and in the spring will till those paths and bring that compost to the top of the growing bed. This is, in part, to only have to move these heavy components essentially once.
I too was fascinated by the Eden method and experimented some with the wood chips. Quantity and availability has been an issue. Bottom line, I know soil health is critical to the success of our market garden. I'm working to build soil that is so fertile you can walk by with a seed in your pocket and it will try to germinate. I'm not quite there yet.

You'll get it! I checked out Ruth's book from the local library, I'm going to be reading it this week. I'm going to attempt lasagna gardening, although I might replace straw with a fine wood mulch, the straw just seems to attract things from what I keep hearing. Who knows, maybe I'll develop my own method and be better for it!

If I have a nice privacy fence, I may garden naked. Just saying. Lol

 

[av8torcrj]

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[2boys1homestead]

That's a great attitude. Personally I don't believe anything until I try it myself. I too enjoy developing new ideas and better ways of doing things. I was told corn didn't " transplant " well. While I was thinning my crop of sweet corn this year I couldn't bear throwing away the sprouts I was pulling up. I transplanted them and yes, they looked like crap for about two weeks and never grew as tall as their undisturbed counterparts, but they were ultimately just as productive.

If you have nothing to lose, breaking the rules is a great way to learn. Plants don't always follow the rules and neither should you!

This always happens, I get the most itchy for a garden in the fall and it's going to eat at me all winter!

 

[carolb5]

If you are thinking Lasagna, or permanent mulch, fall is the best time to get you beds ready. Gather and place mulch now and it will setttle and mellow and be ready when you are. This saves me so much time in the spring when everything needs done yesterday. I don't have woodchips, but lots of horse poo and chips, a perferct match. I was also told not to use hay because of weed seed. We grow our own hay so I use it. No more weeds. I think the soil is loaded with weed seeds. Use what ever is free and easy to get. Have fun!!

Carol

 

[SweetSilver]

I love the mulch in the garden, and anything that covers the soil has been ultimately successful. Pshaw on wood mulch not breaking down. I have rehabilitated gardens by using 2 *feet* of wood chip waste, and in no time it was great soil. We are in the Pacific NW where such a pile breaks down quickly and stays quite moist. Moisture is what you need, not added nitrogen.

Slugs? SNAKES! We did find deep hay mulch attracted slugs, but the snakes eating the slugs weren't far behind.

I like to keep the ornamental garden well-mulched. A very few plants really hate mulch. I have killed bee balm with hardly anything at all. Rock roses will whine and complain a while, and irises might experience some rot, rhododendrons don't like too much in a single year, and not too heavy, please (I have have been known to mulch with logs!) But generally most plants outside desert plants are fairly forgiving.

One limitation is that heavy mulching of certain summer crops kept our soil moist, but prevented our barely-adequate NW summer sun from adequately heating up the soil for crops like tomatoes and squashes. I liked Ruth Stout's methods, but it didn't translate into the same success. She lived in a place where the summer growth season was intense. Weak NW summers just can't reproduce the results in the same way, and I was in full sun at the time. Just so you know.

I generally use a lot of hay in our chicken run (they do a great job of cleaning up weed seeds) and I harvest and use that.

 

[Rosa moschata]

Rainwater contains nitrogen, and in the PNW, you get lots of it. If the OP doesn't get that much rain and compensates with irrigation, there won't be as much nitrogen to get the mulch decomposing as quickly, hence the need for adding it as either fertilizer or "green material." In any case, it's better to get a bed ready in Autumn for Spring planting, rather than planting directly in freshly-laid mulch.

 

[SweetSilver]

When I do plant in deep mulch, I create a hole that extends all the way to the soil, fill in with extra soil and plant in that. Always, always connect with the soil and don't mix the layers. Of course, if the mulch is very deep it can create *some* heat but usually, even at the depths of 2 feet that I have used (not around existing plants, BTW, but to create an entirely new planting area. I would never mulch any planted area with 2 feet of anything) there is not much heat created that would adversely affect most garden plants.

Perhaps the hardest thing I have seen with mulch is the hydrophobia and runoff cause by natural mats of mycelium. The fungus is in the wood even before the tree is cut, waiting for the moment to begin the process of decay. Usually, if the garden is well planted with plenty of vegetative cover, this won't be a problem. But in some gardens where there are swaths of exposed mulch (you know the "gardens" I mean-- 10 plants and acres of bare soil or bark) the mats can make getting moisture to the soil difficult. Soaker hoses laid under the mulch instead of on top can help solve this problem, but keeping the garden robust and the soil surface shaded virtually eliminates this.

 

[SweetSilver]

Thanks for pointing out that rainwater contains nitrogen. I did some looking around online, and that's something I never really thought about before. Something for further study...

Yes, the ability to use mulch materials almost with abandon I recognize is very particular to our region. I generally dislike advice that doesn't take regional peculiarities into account-- be it weedy plants or mulch or anything.