Whether it's vines or veggies, roses or rhubarb, everything in your garden will
benefit from regular applications of mulch
There's a multitude of mulches that you can buy or make yourself
and they serve a variety of purposes but to
show you the right mulch for whatever job you're looking at first we need to dig a little deeper.
The right mulch is like a blanket for your soil.
Most importantly it helps you soil to retain moisture and can actually reduce your
need to water by up to 70%. So if you want to save on your water bills
mulch is essential. It also helps to reduce weeds which are not only
unsightly but they compete with your plants for moisture and for space.
It helps to reduce weed seed germination, it helps reduce and slow down runoff,
it also helps to insulate your soil, which is absolutely essential for all the
earthworms and the other soil microbes that we work
so hard to try and encourage. And it helps to add some nutrients to your soil.
But how do you know which is the right mulch for your garden? Well the right
selection is all about suitability and of course sustainability.
The three main types of mulch are in-organic, living and organic.
In-organic mulch includes things like gravel or even crushed brick
and it's great if you're in a fire prone area
and it also looks quite good. However obviously it's not going to
break down and it's not going to add any extra organic matter to your soil so
there's no soil improvement benefit.
Living mulch is simply that if you've got a lot of ground covers
they're already shading the soil and reducing
evaporation so they're acting as a mulch and you don't need to put mulch
underneath your ground cover. And finally we have organic mulches now there are a
number of different types of them but broadly they're woody or bark based mulches or straw base mulches.
For woody based plant like those in my orchard
I like to use this coarse chunky mulch. It's great because it's heavy enough
that my chooks, ducks and geese can't really scratch it around it'll
last for a number of years and it really does suppress weed growth.
Elsewhere in my garden I use a finer woody based mulch it looks neater but it will need
to be replaced every couple of years because it will break down quicker.
In my veggie garden I like to use a straw base mulch there are a number of different
types, there's pea straw, lucerne, lupin and sugarcane mulch.
What I use here, is what I can get locally. It's pea straw mulch because it comes from just down the road.
So I'm not going to use sugar cane mulch because it comes from a long
way away up north so when you're making your decision on what straw base mulch
always think about whether it's local and sustainable and how many miles it's
taken to get to the outlet you're getting it from
The reason I like straw based mulches in my veggie patch is because they break
down and when they do, they add organic matter to your soil.
Before you mulch make sure
that you've watered well because we want the mulch to retain the moisture within
the soil and also make sure that there are no weeds and then you can simply
fluff up the mulch and put it on the soil
Elsewhere in my garden I like to use chopped up pea straw around baby plants
that's because the big stuff is simply too big for them and it will dwarf them or smother them.
As a general rule we're looking to put about five centimeters of mulch on.
If we're using something light and fluffy like pea straw you can actually have it
a bit thicker because it's full of air and still going to allow the water to
penetrate and get down to the soil.
However if you're using a heavy bark based mulch
or something in-organic like gravel you probably only want to have it
about 2 - 3... up to 5 centimetres in depth and always make sure that you keep heavy mulches
back from the trunk of the plants so you don't get problems with things like collar rot.
Some people like to water their mulch after applying it just to settle it down
I also use pea straw around my house in areas where I'm growing ornamentals and
they're fairly established but rather than fluffing it up, I actually put the
pea straw in what you call 'biscuits' that's what you get when you open a bale
it's like a slice and while it's thick because it's full of air and it's not
heavy it still lets moisture through and I find that putting it on like that
means that will last me for a whole 12 months.
Remember to look where your mulch is coming from
and what's in it and of course choose a mulch to suit your
garden type and the type of plants you're growing.
Whatever you're growing and however you're growing them there's a mulch to suit your patch.