Mulching: Nature’s way of recycling
ONE OF the chores that befall every gardener, often several times a year, is the laborious task of mulching. While many of us view this as an odious task best ranked with mucking stables or raking leaves (I rank these two very closely), I view this mission as my way of helping Mother Nature herself improve my garden.
In my mind, there is no better way to change the soil in your garden than mulching; not raining fertilizer and chemicals upon it, not amending soil, and no, especially not plowing, tilling, or cultivating.
Mulching is the finest thing you can do for a garden bed, and I will use the rest of this space to put to rest any doubts you may have as to the veracity of that statement.
Let’s take the first point: Fertilizing and chemicals. While fertilizers do offer nutrients to the plants in a readily available form, the tendency of most Americans is to reach for the blue stuff (I won’t mention a specific brand, but I think we all know what we’re talking about here). That blue stuff (and most of the fertilizers available today) rely on water soluble nitrogen as their primary ingredient, and that is not a very good thing for our garden or the environment.
The problem with water soluble nitrogen is that it’s water soluble; sure, it makes it real easy to put on, but the next rain washes whatever didn’t make it into a plant right out of the root zone and into the water table. Bad for our garden (No more food!); bad for the water table (Too much food!).
The worst water pollution problem in the U.S. stopped being industrial pollution long ago; suburban runoff is the big culprit in settled areas, and agricultural runoff is the big offender in rural areas, and water-soluble nitrogen is a leading cause in both cases.
Fertilizing organically is a great way to cut down on water pollution and create a healthier garden, and mulching is a great way to do just that (More in a moment).
Let’s take the next two points together: Soil amendments and tilling. First of all, any time you break up the soil, you begin to break it into smaller and smaller pieces. Done repeatedly, you eventually break that soil into dust, so the only thing holding the soil together is cohesion (water clinging to water); take that away and the dust heads east (or wherever the wind is blowing). Just ask the folks in Oklahoma how that worked out! The soil profile in their neck of the woods still hasn’t fully recovered from the Dustbowl of the Thirties!
But (as some might reply), we can add peat or humus to the soil as we till. Sure you can! But now we’ve created another soil interface for the plants’ roots to negotiate (a soil interface is any abrupt change in soil structure; i.e., the difference between the soil in the container you are planting and the soil it is being planted in). Roots don’t like to move between soil interfaces, so now that we’ve created one interface between the pot and the ground, let’s not create another between the ground we plant in and the soil nine inches below it (average depth a roto-tiller works in those amendments). So tilling in those amendments won’t work.
The trick here is to incorporate organic content (because it won’t wash out) into the soil in a manner that doesn’t break up the soil or create new soil interfaces. That trick is easily accomplished by… You guessed it! Mulching! As if that wasn’t reason enough, mulch also helps retain soil by reducing runoff; retains water by creating a moisture barrier for the soil; creates optimal growing situations for roots by keeping soil temps down (not many plants grow above 80 degrees, top or bottom); and most importantly for many of us, adds that finishing touch to the bed or border (we’ve taken to referring to mulching as “frosting the cake” around our household; a very apt description we think).
There are good mulches and bad ones, and a bad mulch can do far more damage than good, so let’s look at some of the alternatives and assess what might be the best choice for your garden.
First, let’s look at what might be lying around the yard. One of my favourite mulches is compost, that organic gem you can cook up yourself by chopping up all the leaves and grass clippings and kitchen waste (NO meat or fats!) and tumbling them around for a couple months and… Voila! Instant soil!
The downside to mulching with compost, however, is that it’s such good soil that weeds fall in love the instant they hit it, and grow very quickly… And compost takes a long time to produce, and you use it so quickly as a mulch.
Good stuff! But save it for the roses and the better veggies.
More on mulching next week…

Source: The Helpful Gardener