Mulching Makes Gardening Easy

I remember the time, 20 years ago, when a neighboring fruit grower broke away from the current orcharding methods and started heaping piles of tree trimmings, cut brush and other trash around his trees to form a deep mulch. He was criticized and derided, but soon he was producing apples which won most of the first prizes at the shows, and brought the highest prices in the market. Now, mulching, in some form, is a widely accepted practice among fruit growers – those who grow small fruits, as well as those whose crops grow on trees, and more especially those who grow raspberries and blueberries.

Dust Mulches

Mulching crept into home gardens through the medium of dust mulches, which most garden writers warmly recommended at one time. Their value can still be argued about, but gradually the fact became apparent that better results could be obtained with much less labor by covering the ground between growing plants with coarse material. The mulches thus produced were found to keep the ground cool and moist, while preventing the growth of weeds and grass. These advantages have been greeted with great satisfaction by amateur gardeners, who find that they can take their annual vacations without fear that their garden will be wilted from lack of moisture or overgrown with Summer weeds.

Now, with mulching established as a common garden practice, the best materials to use are certain to be up for discussion whenever good gardeners get together. The choice is wide, since new materials are being added each year to an already long list. Experimenting with them and ascertaining their good and bad features is one of the pleasures of gardening. Just how to use them is a point, too, which requires study. No one particular mulch is best for all locations, and oftentimes materials having much to recommend them are available only hi certain places.

Grass Clippings

Probably more gardeners depend upon grass clippings than any other material, but if one has a large garden there is likely to be a small lawn, with a scarcity of clippings. However, they serve especially well in the vegetable garden, for they decompose more rapidly than most materials and add humus to the soil when dug in. Moreover, their use does not make necessary the feeding of mulched plants with additional nitrogen, something which is indicated with most mulching materials.

Grass clippings will heat, however, and it is better to apply successive layers rather than a large amount at one time. Weeds which have not set seed may be used as well as grass clippings, but a conscientious gardener will hesitate to admit that he has sufficient weeds for that purpose.

Domestic Rye Grass

Some experts suggest that domestic rye grass, or some other kind that grows quickly, be sown between the rows of growing plants. Then cultivation can be done with the lawn mower rather than the hoe. Weeds will be eliminated, rain water retained and humus eventually added to the soil. It is fair to say that this plan has not as yet been given wide acceptance by gardeners.

Peat Moss

Peat moss is rather expensive as a mulch for the vegetable garden, but is excellent in the perennial garden or the rose garden, partly because it makes an attractive ground cover. For the first season or two it may be dug in when Fall comes, but that process can be carried too far. After digging peat moss into my rose garden three years, I found that the soil was becoming so porous that it would not hold moisture as well as soil without the moss. Peat moss and other materials should be experimented with on very sandy soils before being used freely in the home garden.

Sawdust

Sawdust is widely employed for mulching purposes, especially when coarse crops are being used. Some gardeners condemn it, but many others make use of it in quantity and with satisfaction. However, they use a fertilizer with a higher nitrogen content than might otherwise be the practice. I mulch my blueberries rather heavily with sawdust, but add a little additional nitrogen to the 7-7-7 formula which most blueberry growers in my section find the best fertilizer for this crop. Reports from the South indicate that sawdust mulch introduces termites into dahlias and other plants.

While giving my personal experiences I should perhaps speak of the good results I get from mulching my roses and some other plants with coarse compost. Two compost bins are kept in use, and the partially decomposed material which I find in them in the Spring makes, for me at least, a perfect, and obviously a cheap, mulch. Few weeds appear; little cultivation is required; the amount of water required is reduced, and the compost is not objectional to the eye. It may be that some of the other mulching materials have advantages over compost in the rose garden, but they cost much more. In the Middle West use is made of ground corn cobs for mulching. Ind they prove highly satisfactory. If I am not mistaken Horticulture had something to do with the encouragement years ago of the experiments which led to the perfection of this material as a mulch.

Marsh Hay

Along the sea coast marsh hay can often be obtained reasonably, and in other places straw is reasonably cheap, although not always desirable because of the ease with which it can be set afire. For years one of my friends, who operates a very large private vegetable garden, has mulched all his crops with marsh hay. Even his potatoes are under a mulch.

Factors to Watch

Mulching must be considered a highly desirable practice, hut sometimes unexpected results turn up. Some gardeners report that they have found the roots of their plants in the mulch instead of down in the ground. Under such circumstances, of course, the mulch must be maintained with the greatest care. Perhaps if fertilizers were placed well under the surface the result would be different.

When heavy mulches have been dug under in the fall the next Spring’s crops may have a yellow appearance. Bacterial action has been upset and the plants are asking for additional nitrogen. However; it is only fair to say that when mulching material of an organic nature like grass. clippings, weeds and composts are worked into the soil over a period of years the amount of fertilizer required seems to he less than before. Any organic mulching material will improve soil texture.

The question is asked often, “When should a mulch be applied?” Not until the plants are well started, and with root crops, after they have been thinned. Up to that time, the cultivator should be kept in use. And, after all, that is ahead of vacation time.

by I Farrington

Related Articles Of Interest:

• Why and How To Use Mulches
• A Gardener’s Vocabulary
• How to Beat the Drought in Your Landscape
• Camellia Fertilizer Requirements