- Hello, and a very warm welcome back to Huw's Nursery.
In this video, I want to go over reapplying mulch.
So, this is specifically organic mulch,
which mulch which will break down
and release nutrients into the soil.
So a few weeks ago, I did a whole video
dedicated about using hay and grass in the garden as mulch,
and I think it's really important though
to spend a bit more time talking to you
about reapplying mulch.
When should you apply the next layer of mulch
after you've done the first batch?
I think it's important because we need to consider
time efficiency and also the amount of resources
you have at hand.
So, here are our broad beans,
and they are doing really well.
We did get a blackfly earlier on in the season,
so what we needed to do was literally
pinch off the top of the broad bean plant
and then that will prevent blackfly
from destroying your crop, potentially.
So, we did put hay around this
and it's looking really good.
I can see a few weeds growing through
and this is something really important
is if there are a few weeds
and it's not really hindering your production,
then you really don't actually need
to spend much time worrying about it.
Maybe if it's things like salad or root veg,
where it's a lot lower down to the ground,
yes, you might need to think about weeds a lot more.
Here, these are growing vertically,
and the stems are reasonably clear.
I can see a few things,
such as nettles growing through the hay,
but there really isn't much to be honest.
Now, what you need to do, though, is to look underneath,
and actually pick up the hay, and to see
how thick the layer is.
So, I'm just gonna pick this up,
and there's probably about two inches,
or five centimetres, still, worth of hay.
I can see at the bottom it's beginning to break down now,
and it's retaining a lot of moisture.
There's a lot of moisture packed inside.
We just had a thunderstorm, in fact.
So, I'm reasonably happy with that.
There are some places where I can see
some weeds growing through.
So, what am I gonna do about that?
If I show you this area, it's a little easier to describe.
We planted the broad beans at equal distances here,
and you can see they have bent a little.
They're reasonably tough, and we're not
gonna bother about staking them
because we haven't had much wind problem.
You can see there is a little bit of damage
to the leaves, but honestly not fussed about that.
Again, we're not looking for the tiny little things
to be perfectionists because then I could
spend my whole life trying to make things perfect.
What I'm trying to do, though, is grow a bunch
of food to feed a family.
So, you can see we've got some nettles through here,
and just some general weeds.
So, all you can do is you can either
pull them out by hand, as simple as that.
It's almost like the chop and drop thing.
So, you pull them out, and drop them there,
and then they'll break down as well, feed the ground.
Or, you can just get another bunch of hay
and place it over the top of it to continue building up.
So, what about other mulches
if you're not using hay or straw?
Well, something that has really inspired me
is the work of Charles Dowding
where he simply uses compost as a mulch,
and reapplies it over the season
depending on what he's growing.
I love to have the ability to have loads
of compost and mulch our raised beds
just with compost, as I think that would be fantastic.
However, our composting system at the moment
isn't sufficient enough to supply all our raised beds.
So, you can look at other things.
One of the things we looked at is using manure,
which we do have quite a lot of.
Over the past few years, we've been applying manure
directly onto our raised beds in late autumn
and early winter, and then, basically putting hay
over the top, or maybe even black plastic.
What this does, it allows the manure to break down
over the winter, and allow the elements
to really get at it, and the temperatures,
and the freeze thaw, and all sorts of things like that,
which breaks down all the organic matter.
So, come spring, you've got
this really nice soil to work with.
Something else that I'm sorting out
with getting a supply of is wood chips.
This is something I really want to do
because if you go over to Patrick Dolan's channel
at One Yard Revolution, he's got some great videos,
which I'll link down in the video description,
talking about using wood chips.
I think it's a fantastic way.
You don't really need to worry about this idea
of nitrogen robbery as long as you
just place wood chips as a mulch.
Again, this is a fantastic way
to reduce the need to weed, and build soil
over the months and years.
So, in conclusion, there are two main times
when you should reapply mulch.
The first one is when your original, first layer
of mulch is either broken down or almost broken down.
The second one is when you can see a lot
of weeds growing through.
Again, if you've only seen a few weeds growing through,
you can either pick these out by hand,
or let these grow a bit more
because it really won't affect your crop production.
So, what I'm about to do now is I've noticed
there are some weeds around the stems
of the brassicas.
I could maybe use a hoe, but I'm not gonna bother.
I'm just gonna apply a nice, thick layer of hay around.
This is gonna smother the weeds.
I'm just gonna keep a general track on it,
and if I see another big bunch of growth
of weeds then coming through the hay
later on in the season, I'll just simply
apply another layer.
So, thank you very much for watching,
and I'll see you again soon.
Goodbye.