Q. What is the purpose of using mulch in the garden?
Q. What makes good mulch?
Q. What do you use for mulch in your garden?
Q. When do I apply it, and how much should I use?
Q. Do I have to move the mulch before adding compost and fertilizer?
Q. Are cocoa hulls good for mulching?
Q. Can I use mulch made from recycled tires?
Q. Is black plastic or landscape fabric a good mulch?
Q. What about Ruth Stout’s mulch methods?
Q. Do you mulch your pots and other containers?
Q. What is the purpose of using mulch in the garden?
A. Mulch (such as bucketful, above, about to be spread) serves several purposes. It will not just suppress weeds and slow moisture evaporation, but should also break down into the underlying soil gradually and thereby improve the soil’s texture. A layer of mulch helps moderate soil temperatures. Mulch serves as a buffer from soil compaction caused by rain, and helps prevent the crusting-over of bare soil that can sometimes prevent moisture from being absorbed.
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A. This can be very confusing, particularly because what’s sold as “mulch” in many cases isn’t really very suitable for performing the full range of duties that I think mulch should accomplish (above). Briefly, I look for a material that is:
- An organic substance (meaning deriving from some living or formerly living matter);
- Fine- to medium-textured so it will break down into the underlying soil…
- …but substantial enough to stay put;
- Preferably aged before I use it;
- Dark in color (if for the ornamental beds);
- Available locally at a good price, preferably in bulk delivery unbagged;
- Not a source of contaminants, pests or diseases.
To elaborate: Any mulch I use in my ornamental beds must be fine-to-medium textured and dark colored so it looks good. Forget anything that’s going to sit there and never break down, like big hunks of bark (which I call “baked potato mulch” because they look like giant spuds sitting on the ground to me), or anything that’s bright orange. I am completely opposed to dyed mulches.
One caveat: Very fine-textured materials like sawdust do not make good mulch as they cake and fail to decompose.
Why use a product that has been aged or composted before you use it as mulch? That extra step really makes a difference in the mulch being ready to do its job as a soil-improver. Wood products in particular may also rob soil Nitrogen while decomposing, unless composted first (before they’re spread as mulch).
I used to use bagged mulches, including cocoa hulls and various bark products, many years ago. I have since switched to local materials I can have delivered in bulk, sans plastic bags (and minus all the fuel used in processing and trucking of bagged stuff across the nation to my local garden center). Environmentally, it’s important to buy locally when you can, especially with bulky items.
Technically, plants can serve as a sort of living mulch as well; that’s why certain ones are termed groundcovers.
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Q. What do you use for mulch in your garden?
A. On my ornamental beds, I use is a composted stable bedding product–a local agricultural byproduct from horse or dairy farms that has been allowed to age first. It’s simply wood shavings (not too fine, not too coarse, as you can see in top photo) that farmers spread on the floors of animal stalls to absorb manure and urine, and then muck out and compost afterward to recycle it. I expect you can find a local source via your county cooperative extension office; this website give a sense of the kind of product I am talking about, though I buy from a local farmer.
Leaf mold (partially rotted and shredded leaves) would also be great, if your local landfill offers it, or start a leaves-only compost pile in fall and pre-shred it like this.
In my vegetable garden, I use straw (which is of course not dark-colored), preferably chopped. In rough areas such as along the roadside outside my fence, I will use wood chips from the power or phone company, or from a fallen tree. I will also use wood chips or bark chips on utility-area pathways (behind sheds, between vegetable rows). I pile up wood chips and let them age before using them.
For more details about pros and cons of different mulches, try the Cornell Cooperative Extension mulch website.
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Q. When do I apply it, and how much should I use?
A. I mulch my perennial and shrub beds in spring, but not until after the soil has a chance to warm and dry a bit. I also am conscious of areas where I want biennials and other self-sown plants to have a chance to do their thing; mulching these too soon may prevent successful reseeding.
You want a 2- or 3-inch layer, generally speaking, and if you use the right stuff, about half of that will work into the underlying soil before you go to replenish in fall or the next spring.
Keep the mulch a couple of inches away from trunks of trees and shrubs; never pile it up, volcano-like, against them, as that can invite pests and diseases.
Anytime I work in an area and disturb the mulch, I add a bit more rather than leave bare spots. I apply mulch to new beds whenever I plant.
Mulch is sometimes also used in winter in cold zones to help keep newly planted things in the ground, or to shield tender plants from damage (such as the graft union on roses). For that purpose, materials like evergreen boughs (which would not normally be good for mulch) may also be used.
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Q. Do I have to move the mulch before adding compost and fertilizer?
A. If you use a mulch that has the correct texture and has been composted first, this should not be a problem. I simply “topdress” (spread compost and all-natural organic fertilizer right on top of last year’s partly decomposed mulch) then replenish the mulch as needed.
The problem with most mulches, even bagged shredded bark, is that they haven’t been composted before they are sold and/or are too coarse, so they don’t break down very well, but rather form a sort of coating on top of the soil.
Good mulch, on the other hand, breaks down and improves the soil below. I don’t mean it breaks down in a week or a month, but over the course of a season or two.
If you have a thick layer of mulch that’s not breaking down nicely, and the layer is just getting thicker and thicker each year, rake some away and them add your amendments and start using a new, better-quality mulch this year on top of that.
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Q. Are cocoa hulls good for mulching?
A. I used to use bagged mulches, including cocoa hulls, many years ago. I have since switched to local materials I can have delivered in bulk, minus the plastic bags. There is no cocoa-processing plant nearby and hence no local source of this recycled product.
Cocoa hulls can be very high in potassium, which can be a problem for some plants in some soils, and they may be toxic to pets (particularly dogs) if they are swallowed. So those factors added to the “buy local” environmental argument put them on my “no” list today.
Additionally, cocoa hulls are hard to spread and either blow away or clump together if the bag got wet (sometimes they can be moldy in damp weather, too). However, they have many of the qualities I want in a mulch: They are dark in color and fine textured and look good on the beds.
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Q. Can I use mulch made from recycled tires?
A. To me this seems a real environmental no-no–yet another wacky thing that is being tried out on us unsuspecting consumers. Yes, it’s re-using worn tires…but putting them into the landscape, and nature, in shreds is as bad or worse as piling them up at the dump whole. They don’t break down and become incorporated into the soil, so they’re no good, and even dangerous. Remember that animals and much smaller living organisms interact with and inhabit the soil–I don’t think a worm wants to process tire shreds while making worm castings, or a robin wants to rustle around in the tire litter (though they love the leaf litter!).
My rule: To be a mulch, it must be organic (a living/formerly living material) so it can decompose over time and return to the soil, not taint it. The one exception to my mind re: the organic rule would be some stone materials used in certain zones and certain types of landscapes.
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Q. Is black plastic or landscape fabric a good mulch?
A. Black plastic can be used to heat up an area (such as for sweet potatoes or pumpkins) but should not be left in place as it prevents moisture from entering the soil and otherwise interferes with soil health. Roll or fold it and reuse the plastic year after year.
Landscape fabric, or so-called geotextiles, are not a substitute for mulch. They should not be used in garden beds, though they may have a role as a weed-block beneath gravel of pathways or patios, for instance.
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Q. What about Ruth Stout’s mulch methods?
A. Long before phrases like “lasagna garden” were making the rounds of the as-yet-uninvented internet, Ruth Stout (author of “Gardening Without Work,” 1961) was layering all her organic materials on top of her soil—sheet composting, as it might be traditionally called. Her tactic served to thwart weeds, reduce the need for fertilizers, conserve moisture and spare her the work of composting in a conventional heap with all the toting and turning of materials.
Her approach to gardening starts with the foundational principle of applying mulch, mulch and more mulch, and then simply moving it back a tiny bit each year a bit to make room for a row of seeds rather than all that turning and tilling (and weeding).
She said the “aha” came one spring when the plow man hadn’t come yet to till, and she was eager to get planting. She saw that the asparagus (a long-lived perennial vegetable crop) was already up and growing, right through the layers of fallen leaves and such. “I walked over and said to the asparagus, ‘We don’t have to plow for you; why do we have to plow for the other vegetables?’” Stout recalls. “And the asparagus said, “You don’t.’”
Where do you get all that mulch? The garden creates it, or at least some of the raw material that becomes it: spent cornstalks and uprooted pea vines and the like, to which Stout added fall leaves and also bought-in straw or hay (“spoiled” hay was fine, and cheaper; don’t worry about a little decay, she said).
More on Ruth Stout’s methods (plus video of her) is in this post.
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Q. Do you mulch your pots and other containers?
A. I do apply mulch to the soil surface in my containers, to help keep roots cool and keep moisture in. Depending on the plant, I may use composted stable bedding or a small stone (pea stone).
Thank you, this is a nice FAQ, except that the information about wood mulches robbing nitrogen as they decompose has been generally discarded: “Actually, many studies have demonstrated that woody mulch materials increase nutrient levels in soils and/or associated plant foliage. My hypothesis is that a zone of nitrogen deficiency exists at the mulch/soil interface, inhibiting weed seed germination while having no influence upon established plant roots below
the soil surface. For this reason, it is inadvisable to use high C:N mulches in annual beds or vegetable gardens where the plants of interest do not have deep, extensive root systems.” From http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%20Chalker-Scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/magazine%20pdfs/Woodchips.pdf (Part of Linda Chalker-Scott’s excellent web site about Horticultural myths; in turn, she is one of several Garden Professors at https://sharepoint.cahnrs.wsu.edu/blogs/urbanhort/default.aspx
Margaret, thank you for the in-depth info. Re: leaf mulch–I used it last year around tomatoes and marigolds. There was a lot of rain last season, and the area became infested with slugs. We always have some, but this time it was a total invasion. As a rule, do you think leaves are a particularly slug-friendly mulch?
Also, we used some bulk wood chips from a local supplier 2 years ago that seemed to grow all types of exotic fungus after a while. Any thoughts on that?
Welcome, Liz,. Thanks for the very good links. More reading for Margaret! :) Yes, I have read about these conflicting thoughts (so I wrote “may also rob soil Nitrogen” since I keep seeing both sides reported even now).
I think from a practical standpoint the coarse-textured, uncomposted wood products when spread on a bed are certainly not the most helpful (in that they don’t degrade and improve the soil anytime soon). I also think, practically speaking, there is a very wide range of “bark” and other wood-based mulches out there, and probably no universal conclusion that fits all of them, since they vary so in their composition. A fascinating topic. Hope to see you soon again.
@Robin: I wrote something about slugs last year, when we had a VERY wet season, too, and they were unusually problematic. My slug post is here. I think with thick mulch (like 3+ inches) and especially matted stuff like wet leaves (if they haven’t gotten pre-shredded/crumbly) or thick layers of straw and such, it can get ugly with slugs.
They also really love plants that are starting to go soft, you know, things that are floppy/weak? I do a lot of grooming/cutting back/thinning in the garden as the season evolves, pretty regularly, to keep it airy.
I normally have no problem with them — last year was one of maybe 2 years in 25 I have even noticed them much. But last year, wow. Awful.
As for fungus, it is normal (depending what wood the mulch is made of) for certain fungi to sprout from the decaying material. I am fascinated by this, as I have mentioned.
Expert mycologists like Paul Stamets would say that this is a sign of a healthy situation, in that higher plants rely on mycorrhizal relationships to thrive and on saprophytic fungi to recycle plants after they die, and replenish the soil. Certain trees and certain fungi just go together, natural companions in the environment. So if you brought in chips made from a particular tree that’s now decaying as mulch, you’ll have its appropriate partner, too. This is the stuff I really love…how all the pieces fit together, though it can look a bit odd in the garden, no? :)
What’s your local mulch contact? There’s a soil place in Philmont. Is that the same?
Thanks for the informative article. Now I need a tractor to move all the mulch though. Can I borrow yours? [Just kidding!]
I buy from Byron Clough in Malden Bridge, NY (north Chatham-ish I guess). His site I believe is here. He is wonderful; a longtime farmer who transitioned his business to this (composts, mulches, etc.). Loomis Creek uses him, too; we both have for years.
Thanks Margaret. I’ve been meaning to go to Loomis Creek. Thanks for reminding me. Another thing for the To-Do list. Drat!
Tires? Really? I don’t know much about gardening but isn’t it obvious?
Welcome, Sara. Yes, horrible but true. The pitch is that you “never have to mulch again” (because the stuff lasts forever, ugh). I would prefer to see tires recycled into flooring and such things rather than into the garden! See you soon again.
I was surprised in your mulching blurb that you did not mention newspapers. Struggling as they are, newspapers may well go the dodo bird route, but as long as they are lying around [or obtainable at the town's recycle centers], they make a great part of the mulching process. They allow in water from above, retain it from below, decompose readily and are really [in criss crossing layers] tough for unwanted plants to penetrate from below. And they don’t go to the dump.
hi margaret, i wonder what you think of pine needles. i have a lousy crabgrass situation but noticed it had a hard time growing under needles i’d piled up. the only caveat is they don’t seem to break down easily.
Great FAQ, Margaret. We’ve been mulching various ways for many years now, but you answered a few nagging questions for me. I especially liked your emphasis on buying local mulch. Around here, people often get together with their neighbors to order a truckload of mulch, then divide it after it arrives: easy on the wallet and you don’t have all the plastic bags, etc. Plus it’s often better mulch!
Welcome, Jac. Good point…I forgot to to include a link to “making a bed with cardboard” (or newspaper). Good catch. Yes, I use all my newspaper and clean cardboard that way, too. Waste not, want not. See you soon again, I hope.
I swear by arborist’s chips. They’re full of green stuff that begins to compost instantly (a pile of chips heats up within HOURS). The heavier materials stick around to moderate soil temperatures, conserve moisture, and suppress weeds. The woodier stuff breaks down eventually and promotes beneficial soil mycorrhizae. It’s particularly good for woodland plants because it is very like the duff you’ll find on forest floors. Best of all it’s FREE. Arborists are happy to get rid of the stuff rather than pay to dump it. Look up arborists in your phone book, and ask for a truck load. Personally, I just follow the sounds of chainsaws whenever I hear them. You can’t get much more local than that! Moreover, it is a byproduct of trees that were being cut down anyway. No trees were specifically cut down to produce it.
My back appreciates the woody stuff sticking around long enough that I don’t feel the need to renew it every year.
If you’re concerned about diseases, let the pile sit for a week. It will heat up to at least 116 degrees. That kills 90% of all pathogens.
I’ve got a great barter relationship with a horse farmer. I drive over and get a pickup truck full of aged bedding, and his wife gets several new potted perennials. I have huge gardens and could never afford to buy that much mulch in bags. I often use 6 or more full-size pickup truck loads for my mulching. But my plants are happy! And it doesn’t cost anything. I told a friend and she gets a truckful by trading a meal – she brings a pan lasagna and salad and bread. Everybody’s happy!
Cheers Ms M.
Question.
I remember reading (can’t remember where) a gardening tip.
You shouldn’t mulch tomato plants until the plant starts to set fruit.
If you mulch too early, the ground stays too cool and the plant will grow rather than set fruit.
What do you think?
Soil here in NJ still too wet for me to plant my peas… hopefully with this simply gorgeous weather…. maybe next week!!!
Welcome, Steve. I have not heard that specifically before, and a quick look in my various tomato books didn’t specify. I set my tomatoes out into the garden around Memorial Day or even June 1, depending on the weather, and usually mulch them in the next week or two after that.
I really do it to keep weeds down and (as summer heats up) slow the evaporation of the moisture I give the tomatoes, and I use a layer perhaps 2 inches deep, not heaps and heaps. Now you have me curious and almost tempted to experiment with some of my plants. :) See you soon again, I hope.
great mulch advice, i am excited about using some of Ruth’s mulching advice this year, i have been collecting piles of seaweed and sea hay, i plan to make holes for seed planting and just pile it high?? salt a concern, seems to be working so far. any advice is welcome, and perhaps needed. ha Happy Spring
Cheers Ms M
Tip: How I gather my “hay/straw mulch”…
Seems people now enjoy decoratimng their homes for Halloween and Thanksgiving.
Bales of straw, with pumpkins, gourds, cornstalks are quite common.
On the weekend AFTER Thanksgiving, my wife and I drive around the neighborhood in our pickup truck. BONANZA of straw bales put out for the trash!!! If the bales were on a porch…. they are completely DRY.
Currently we have 8 FREE, RECYCLED bales under a tarp in our garden, gathered last fall.
HAPPY SPRING to all!!!
As to the newspaper comment ~ I did a little research into using newspaper in the garden a couple of years ago. I saw several comments about making sure the newspaper ink was soy based and not petroleum based so I called my local papers ~ NY Newsday and The New York TImes. Both companies still use petroleum based inks. I spoke to the print manager at Newsday for quite awhile as he was also a gardener looking to go greener. He said he would never put his newspaper in the garden, particularly an edible garden. He also said that soy based inks costs more and as far as he knew, Newsday had no plans on changing their printing ink.
That being said, Newsdays own garden writer printed a story last spring on making and using newspaper seed pots. I sent her several emails asking her about the petro-ink but never did get a reply.
I think newspaper makes a great mulch underlay to help supress weeds, but please check with the papers print department about which ink they use.
Welcome, Debra. You bring up a very complicated topic, and I am not a scientist (surprise, surprise!). I think it was in the mid-80s onward that newspaper ink, which used to contain heavy metals like cadmium and lead, started to be less loaded with such toxins, though you are correct, they still contain oil. The newspaper industry has worked to have a cleaner waste stream and made big improvements (progress, not perfection, of course). Getting rid of the metals was a huge deal, and made the inks a lot safer — though I am not saying I would drink them. :)
A number of state universities (Ohio State, West Virginia I think come to mind) have done a lot of research into the safety (or lack of safety) of newsprint because it’s also used widely in animal bedding, and I have read some of those reports, too, which term it a safe material for animals to bed on (not the glossy colored stuff). On the garden side, even Organic Gardening magazine recommends newsprint for use in the vegetable garden — though never the glossy or slick printed materials, which are far less reliably free of major toxins. Who knows what’s exactly right?
If there is any doubt or discomfort, use newspaper and cardboard (uncoated, not colored) in ornamental beds and borders, and use a good-quality organic mulch (like chopped straw or composted stable bedding) in the vegetable beds, as you say.
Have you noticed how earthworms are attracted to the newspaper? I love using it under mulch in all my gardens, veggies and ornamentals.
Thanks for this informative post. One of the main problems I have with mulching is the dividing line between garden beds and grass. If I put the mulch all the way to the edge of the bed, the mower can’t get close enough to cut all the grass, leaving ta border of tall grass around the beds. Do you have any ideas for solving this problem?
@Anita: Ihave to confess that because I have not installed a “mowing strip” (some kind of paver between bed and lawn) I just have to put one set of mower wheels in the bed on the mulch. OR: Mow close to the edge, then use a weed-whacker for the actual edging. Mowing strips would be better. But my ground is so uneven, they would be impossible to install.
Margaret: Thanks for the response. That mowing strip looks wonderful, but way too much work for us. :-)
Hi ,Im wondering if I can use cardboard to mulch my tomatos.Thanks!
Welcome, Carla. Technically, yes (thought only plain brown matte corrugated stuff — nothing printed/glossy since you are growing food). BUT: You want to be careful not to prevent rain and other water from getting to the roots, so I might be inclined to not put such a thick mulch around them right now. Any chance of scoring something a little more water-friendly and also without any chance of contaminants in it (which is why I say no colored/glossy cardboard), like straw or hay or ???
Margaret,Thanks so much for your help.I will find some straw.
I agree about the dyed mulch, hate it. The red mulch is very popular here in the south, I guess people like it match the red clay soil.
I, too, like dark mulch, however, I’m cheap. I have an endless supply of partially composted hay with sheep poop (we have a flock of 60 sheep), so I just use that.
This year I will be shredding my many piles of leaves for mulch. We have 7 maple trees and several oak trees as well as various other hardwoods. We built 6 – 4′x8′ raised beds this spring and filled them with a garden soil/compost mix from this farm:
http://www.tuthillfarms.com/1/235/index.asp
He delivered about 6 yards to our home. It takes approximately one yard to fill each bed. He is similar to Margaret’s source in that they have gone into composting “big time”. A sign of the times hopefully. I agree wholeheartedly about using tires for mulch being detrimrntal to the environment. I also really dislike artificially colored mulches. The bright red mulch seems to be a requisite in the subdivisions around here.
This is great information. Any idea where such mulch is available in my area by the truckload? I live near Albany airport.
Fall mulch question: The 14+ inches of rain I’ve had in the last four weeks in my Washington, DC area garden (yes–I use a rain gauge) has been too much for some of my perennials. The lambs ears foliage, for example, not getting enough sun to dry out and rotting on the ground. I’ve had to cut back some plants prematurely when here they would normally look great well into October. Once the foliage is gone it appears crowns and roots are ok (whew!) but all the mulch is totally broken down. Do I need to wait until the ground has dried out a bit before I re-mulch for winter?
Hi, Roxann, and yes, I’d wait a bit. I feel as if there is so much potential right now for rot and fungal issues, and I want to clean up and hopefully let things air a bit before tucking it all back in. If you’re only going to topdress with a little bit, fine, but if the soil is soggy still and you want to put an inch and a half or two inches of mulch on, why not let the beds get a tiny breather first — even a week of sunshine would help right?
Thanks Margaret. We actually saw the sun here today and perhaps we will see it for the next week so I’ll wait–some areas will need an inch or more. Hopefully we won’t have an early hard freeze before I get the “tuck in” chores all done. Wouldn’t that be the icing on the cake (excuse the pun) after losing two months of summer gardening to rain?
This article has some great information. Thanks, Margaret!! I am going to share!
Lisa, pine needles are a wonderful mulch! I, too, have had success with them. And no trees are harmed in making pine needle mulch. It is great under pine trees where grass will not grow, your pine trees will replenish your mulch for you each year. The needles will mat together and do a good job of keeping weeds at bay, including crabgrass, once you have accumulated enough. I have always been told not to use fresh wood chips. You should let them sit for atleast a year before using them around your plants. Fresh wood chips will steal nitrogen from plants as it begins to break down. It won’t kill you plants, but it will slow their growth and cause them to look anemic. Fresh wood chips would be great for a garden path of sorts. Anita, try digging a shallow trench around the outside of your mulch bed to keep the mulch from dispersing into your lawn. Also, you can mow right up to the edge. You can dig it by hand or rent an edging machine that will create your “natural cut edge” extremely quickly. Installing a barrier like brick, vinyl or stone requires a lot of work, money and maintenance. If you live in a cool climate and you use a material for bed edging, that material will probably frost heave out the ground after a couple cold seasons and you will spend a bit of time repairing it or living with the roller coaster look. If you have a natural cut edge, you will have to re-edge ever other year or so….that’s where the edger comes in handy!
Thanks, Lauren, for the kind words and the additional suggestions! See you soon again, I hope.
Does anyone share my dislike of mulch? GH
I found bagged organic mushroom compost… will that work?
Hi, Gabriela. Love mulch — but not when it tries to show off! I used dark-brown, not-too-coarse textured material that feeds the soil as it breaks down further and keeps moisture in and weeds down a bit, too. It’s not something that’s supposed to attract your eye, but to enrich the soil and otherwise serve to make a healthier garden.
Great article on mulching. There was a period some years ago when certain garden people were saying you did not have to mulch if plants were grown close enough. I never did believe this and continued to mulch. I use shredded spaghnum moss on my vegetable bed, looks good and adds to the soil. I have a small raised bed so it is not that expensive to do.
I moss all of my baskets and containers with oregon moss that I order, decorative and keeps them moist.
Eileen
Thanks, Eileen (and hello!). I love mulch, and think of it as my best soil-building tool. Hope to see you again soon.
We’ve had a country garden for a dozen years in a valley that was impenetrable with brambles, thistles, and willows. It was plowed once by a neighbor then we fought with difficult heavy clay clumps that created low yields of veggies, high yields of weeds. We read Ruth Stout and started adding sheet compost of leaves,wood chips, grass clippings, hay, and cardboard and news paper, seeing some improvement the first few years. Then we began keeping a flock of a dozen or two laying hens. The straw or hay bedding mixed and fertilized by the chickens, composted in a heap for six months and then added to the vegie garden has worked wonders. We now have excellent tilth, balanced fertile soil that tests very well for nutrients and minerals. Somewhere I learned that adding the wood ashes from our stove would discourage slugs. Our neighbors are overrun with them, but we haven’t had a problem. Any gardener that can keep some chickens can have a great mulch source and be one step closer to permaculture, cuz the chickens eat most everything from the garden that we offer them.
I am so jealous, Bonita. Want chickens like crazy, but so many wild animals in this rural area, it’s really a challenge to keep everyone out of a henhouse. Most people end up with total bloodbaths here (weasels, fishers, coyotes, raccoons, fox, you name it). I keep almost building a coop and trying anyhow! :)
After hearing horror stories of chicken massacres from neighbors, I built a fortress for our chicks. I laid down chain link fencing ( scrounged from someone’s trash) so nothing can dig in. I built a sturdy building from recycled lumber ,windows, doors , and metal roofing. then added hardware cloth covering windows openings for safe venting. I latch the doors with padlocks at night, cuz raccoons are so clever with latches and hooks. I added an outdoor porch with more fencing for floor and sides plus metal roofing. We feed organic grain and throw kitchen and garden scraps in the outer yard which they compost for us. Third, I fenced a quarter acre of wooded area for their daytime pasture. Heirloom chickens seem very smart about hiding from the hawks. So far we have had good luck avoiding losses to predators. The girls are such joy and our friends who buy eggs @ 4$ /dz say they are the best they’ve ever tasted. I strongly recommend preemptive design and build to avoid the heartbreak of predators. Also introduce Jack so they become companions. Our cat Rover is a good mouser by the coop. Go for it and evangelize for more backyard flocks. Great fun, safe nutrious eggs, and terrific fertilizer for gardens.
One exception to your caution against using sawdust as a mulch: it’s great on the paths between the raised beds in my vegetable garden. Weathers to a nice dull color, feels great on bare feet, and cheap by the pickup load at my local sawmill. And perhaps because it’s mostly from pine and fir (resins?) it seems to really suppress weed germination.
Hi, Robert A. Yes, I use wood products in the pathways, too (more bark chips or shredded bark than sawdust, but same idea). I just don’t use uncomposted wood products of a coarse texture in growing beds around plants. Agree. Nice to see you.
Hi Margaret,
Although not previously an avid gardener, I bought a house with an incredible flower garden (several thousand dollars worth at least). I have Lilly flowers and Bee’s Balm, Coneflowers, and too many other flowers to name. I want to take care of this garden, in the MLS pictures I saw some cedar (I think) mulch. However, I do not know much about mulching until now (reading the article above, thank you!). I am worried if I mulch next spring, that some of the bulbs will not push through. is this a valid fear or am I WAY off base? I don’t want to do damage to what is already in place.
Hi, Tim. A good mulch (not too coarse!) applied to a depth of like 2 inches or thereabouts, not piles and piles, won’t give you any troubles. There are a few plants (peonies, for instance) that don’t like to be too far below the soil surface, but those are a real minority. Definitely keep in mind getting some good mulch that has been aged/composted first if you can.
I love all the points of view here, but count me among those who don’t love mulch. I do adore compost, and top-dress my beds at least twice a year. I also use small stones to “mulch” some of my herbs in pots (the lavender particularly seems to appreciate this). But my goal is to achieve a perfect tapestry of ground covers so that I never need to mulch again. I am getting there, little by little.
My mother-in-law saved peach pits to use as mulch. Am I alone in not finding that either useful or attractive?
I am reluctantly using mulch until my gardens fill in and the plants themselves provide most of the weed-preventative shade and I will then only need to top dress with compost soil-crust prevention.
Hi, Sharon. Love when “living mulch” happens when the plants fill in!