Mulch

Feed me, Seymour!

Our fall garden is doing very well this year. In fact, this has probably been our most productive garden in a long time, and I think a lot of credit goes to our increased use of mulch.

Although we have a wonderful long growing season, lasting from August to May, our growing season is smack dab in the middle of our dry season. During extremely dry years, we’ve looked at the water bill at the end of the month and wondered if the garden is worth the increased expense. Honestly, it wasn’t. We could have easily bought all organic produce with the money we spent on regular watering. Something had to change.

One reason we water so much, besides the lack of rain, is that our soil is mostly sand. When the rains come, the water simply beads on the surface and evaporates quickly when the warm sun appears. If you scratch the surface of the soil while it’s still sopping wet, you’ll find that the soil underneath is as dry as a desert. Whatever water does manage to seep beneath the surface takes the express train right to the aquifer, bypassing all of the roots along the way.

Originally, we tried to combat our soil and water issues with manure. We’d have a trailer of manure from a local horse stable delivered a few weeks before planting time. We’d spread the manure over the garden, letting it compost for a week or two, and then till it under, adding nutrients and water-retaining organic matter to the soil. Unfortunately, that was only half the problem, and we still found ourselves watering almost every day.

I never took the benefits of adding mulch to the garden very seriously. I always felt that mulching was another expense. Even going to the free brush site for mulch was a lot of work, loading up the truck, hauling it to the backyard, and spreading it across the garden. I rationalized that my family and I had already done the work of hauling the manure to the backyard. What could mulch actually do that the manure wasn’t already doing? Besides, we’d already hauled a truckload of mulch to cover the butterfly garden and ornamental beds. I cannot tell you how much I didn’t want to purchase and cart another truckload of anything!

My other problem with hauling a truckload of mulch home was that I didn’t need all of the mulch at the same time. Transplanted seedlings need mulch right away, but you don’t mulch directly sown seeds until they’re sporting true leaves (the second set of leaves formed). I can assure you that we do not have the space to store a pile of mulch for a couple of weeks.

Dried leaves make excellent mulch.

As I was working out in the yard one day, I realized that my mulch solution was all around me. Our rabbits and chickens already provide a beautiful supply of manure-laden hay and pine shavings that I usually composted. Plus, we have a large deciduous tree that drops plenty of leaves each year, which also usually ended up as compost. Why not use it all as mulch and let it compost right in the garden? No, it’s not the prettiest mulch you’ve ever seen, but sometimes practical trumps pretty. Besides, the lush, green plants obscure the mulch in the end.

As the growing season progressed, I saw a big difference in the health of our garden and in the amount I needed to water. We could go 4 or 5 days before the plants started looking thirsty. Also, mulch blocks the weeds, which is why you don’t mulch freshly sown seeds, and as the mulch breaks down, it seeps nutrients to the soil. Finally, when we till at the end of the season, the mulch adds nutrients and water-retaining organic matter to the soil for the next planting. My little bit of laziness in refusing to mulch was really robbing my garden of nutrients and costing us in water. I can’t wait to see how the garden produces next season!

By the way, we have toyed with the idea of using rain barrels to collect water. However, in order for rain barrels to be their most effective, we have to find a way to stockpile the water collected in summertime when we grow almost nothing to use during the dry winter when we grow everything. Not an easy task for a family with limited space, not to mention the care needed to prevent the water storage from becoming a mosquito breeding ground.  

Thanks for stopping by! Did your garden go without mulch because of the expense? Take a look around your yard. You might be surprised as what is readily available.

Grace and peace be yours in abundance,

Betty

PS. Don't you just love the cabbage picture at the top of the page. Yeah, I know. I have a special sense of humor. You'll get used to it.

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