How to Mulch and Make Magic Happen In Your Garden.
The trick with mulch is understanding the what, where, when and why of mulch. Let us look at mulch seasonally, to understand its’ importance and relevance when organic gardening.
Fall: We can obviously recognize the usefulness of putting the warm winter’s blanket on your perennials or covering up the vegetable beds to reduce weeds from taking over.Simple and tidy right? Spring. Just around the corner and it is time to warm the soil up, so we pull back the mulch and allow the suns’ gentle rays to work. I encourage you to source local materials for mulch, as shipping costs are rising.
Early summer: Once the soil temperatures have warmed up and in some cases dried-out we can begin to sow the seeds. When seeds are put into the earth we want a decent level of moisture to be maintained as the seed cracks under the soil and germinates up and out of the earth. This is the time when the mulch comes back onto the garden beds and smuggles in between the baby plants. Mulch is very important at this time in the season because the soil can dry too quickly and the fresh new growth of the tender stems may crack and break.
Summer mulch is the thickest layer of material throughout the entire year. The suns rays are stronger than ever and the rate of evaporation from the soil is huge. Mulching a garden means that you are able to create a specific, beneficially moist environment for optimum growing conditions as well as stifling those pesky summer weeds. Many great gardeners have found ways to cover up and mulch their rich soils including straw,leaves, hay, wood chips, seaweed, newspaper and cardboard. I have seen the use of old cotton bed sheets and remay used to cover the soil. We also want to mulch our gardens here on the west coast of Canada because of heavy rains soaking the soil, which will leach nutrients away.
Now here it comes,are you ready for the magic? A bonus of mulching, (beside saving your time and energy) is the special environment that you can create a few inches just below the mulch.The steady moisture levels and consistent temperature creates a unique and optimal condition for microbial action (the right bacteria and the right insects) and improves the size and production of the plants “feeder” roots (the roots that uptake the nutrients and deliver/feed the growing plants).
Fall: Now we have come full circle around and it is time to cover up again. Beautiful, nature and simple right?