On the Merits of Mulch

I left off last week writing about my adventures in hauling scrap metal and building fence halfway through my week of vacation. I’m back in the newspaper office now, and it’s a good thing because I can use some rest. Let me tell you how the rest of my week went.

Thursday morning I decided to take a break from the fence work and spend some time in the garden.

Long time readers of my column know that I’m a big proponent of mulch. Nature abhors barren ground. You never see bare soil in nature, outside perhaps the most inhospitable desert environments. If you disturb the soil, scrape away the grass or weeds growing, plants will soon colonize the area. Grass spreads in from the undisturbed areas. Weeds pop up from seeds long-dormant in the soil. Wind blows in seeds from other plants. After a shower or two, the area will turn green like it was never disturbed. Many times, I think, vegetable growers want their gardens to look like a wellmaintained corn field – neat rows of crops separated by bare soil. But the farmer must spray herbicides or drag a cultivator through the field to keep the weed pressure down. It is true that weeds steal moisture and nutrients from crops. But weeds also shade the soil and their roots prevent erosion by keeping the soil in place.

Instead of patterning our gardens after the farmer’s corn field, I think we should look to the forest for inspiration. Trees in the forest drop their leaves, which cover the forest floor. Dead trees fall down and decompose with the leaves. This natural compost traps moisture in the soil. It breaks down into nutrients that feed the plants, eventually becoming part of the soil. The compost layer also provides a habitat for beneficial microbes, fungi and earthworms. A healthy forest replenishes the compost continuously as leaves and dead plants fall to the surface.

It’s been about a year since I mulched the garden. I weeded the garden last week. Here and there I noticed a few bits of woody material from the old mulch. But most of it has decomposed and become part of the soil. Two weeks ago I planted a few fall crops – broccoli, cabbage and mustard greens. Even though the temperatures have cooled off, they’ve really been struggling. A few died during transplant shock. I’ve been watering them about every other day. But strong winds lately just sap the moisture out of the soil. I decided it was time from another layer of mulch.

I grow a fairly large vegetable garden. If I had to buy bags of mulch, it would probably cost a thousand dollars or more to cover the garden. Thankfully, those of us in Fayette County can buy some pretty cheap mulch from the Fayette County Recycling Center. They sell it for $5 for a scoop with their Bobcat loader, approximately ¾ of a yard, or $15 for a scoop with their big loader, about 2.5 yards. I picked up two loads last week. The first one was two small scoops and the second was one big scoop – about four yards altogether. I spread all of it out in my garden about four inches thick – one wheelbarrow load at a time. I can already tell the difference.

Those broccoli and greens I planted two weeks ago burst to life. The tomatoes and eggplants I left in the garden from the spring started setting fruit again. The mulch makes the garden look so much nicer, too. Some folks who used the County mulch have told me it introduced weeds into their gardens. I’m sure that’s possible. But the mulch I picked up last week was well composted and still quite hot. I’m fairly confident the compost heat has killed most of the weed seeds in the mulch. But in my experience, the mulch makes weeding so much easier. The layer of mulch helps to prevent compaction. Soil stays looser, making it easier to pull the weeds that pop up. I use a stirrup hoe or hand spade to dig out any stubborn weeds and then cover the soil back up with the mulch.

My wife Janessa is experimenting with planting seeds directly under the mulch. This week she planted a row of beets and a row of carrots from seed. She scraped away the mulch to reveal the soil surface. She then broadcasted the seeds on top of the soil, covered it back up with mulch, and watered it in. I’m excited to see how it works.