MULCH: It's Your BFF

Today I added a protective layer of straw mulch to the new garden bed. It's now ready for spring planting in 2 or 3 weeks time.

MULCH: Your BFF (best friend forever).

WHY?

It’s the one gardening job that saves you a lot of unnecessary work down the track. Mulch works away at feeding your plants, improving your soil, retaining soil moisture and more, leaving you precious time to lay in your hammock and admire your garden. You do lay in your hammock don't you?

Check out this list of benefits:

·         Inhibits weed growth and germination so way less weeding. The few weeds that do make it through the mulch will be easy to pull out.  Yay!

·         It holds in the soils moisture which means less time watering and less $’s spent on water. Yay!

·         It helps to even out soil temperatures keeping plant roots cooler in summer and warmer in winter lessening stress on your plants. (plants are saying Yay!)

·         It prevents frost heaving when plants are pushed out of the soil due to the expansion and contraction of the soil as it cools and then heats up.

·         It can add valuable nutrition to the soil as it breaks down.    A 24hr buffet.

·         As it breaks down it creates healthy friable soil that retains moisture and drains well. This also means digging becomes much easier. Gotta love that.

·         It can create the right conditions to attract beneficial microorganisms in the soil which in turn helps plants to be strong and healthy. We love buff plants.

*      It prevents valuable top soil from blowing away in the wind, so what happens in the garden bed stays in the garden bed.

EXAMPLES OF MULCHES:

·         GRASS CLIPPINGS: this is cheap and easily obtained but it can become slimy then form a hard matt as it dries so it’s best to add it to your compost and let it decompose a bit before applying it to the garden.

·         WOOD OR BARK CHIPS: They look neat and attractive and don’t blow away. As they slowly break down they add nutrients and condition the soil by adding organic matter. This encourages worms that add even more nutrients and condition soil. (Pine bark is fairly acidic which you may not want)

·         DECAYING LEAVES: these are wonderful for providing added nutrients and smothering weeds. They will also help in attracting worms and conditioning the soil.  (Some leaves such as oak are acidic which can lower your gardens PH)

·         COMPOST: this is a wonderful way to add nutrients and condition the soil. Worms and  beneficial micro organisms absolutely love it. Just be careful that it's well rotted and doesn’t contain fresh manure or it will burn your plants. Weeds thrive in compost so it’s best to cover with a layer of straw or other weed inhibitor.

·         STRAW: Is relatively cheap, adds nutrients as it breaks down, conditions the soil and is excellent at inhibiting weeds. It’s my favorite mulch.

·         HAY: Hay is cheap and has all the same benefits as straw but will most likely contain a lot of grass and weed seeds so lay it down fairly thickly to suppress any weed growth.

·         WEED MAT or LANDSCAPE FABRIC: these suppress weeds well  and allow water to penetrate, but as time goes by soil will eventually accumulate on top of the fabric where weeds can germinate.

·         BLACK PLASTIC: will suppress weeds but water won’t penetrate it. It’s very useful for laying under paths but not great for garden beds.

Video: Back To Eden.

Click above to see a video of a man who describes all the benefits of mulching his farm. His evangelical style is not for everyone but it's worth watching for the sheer beauty of his garden and all the information regarding the benefits of mulch. I also love his belief in the benefits of giving.

For more homesteading posts click here.

Extending the Vegie Patch

After watching the young girls experiment in my last post I've been terrorized into lightning bolt action to extend my vegie patch.  Conventional farming practices have become so focused on how to produce cheap food rather than how to produce healthy food that food is actually becoming unhealthy to eat due to all the toxic chemicals.
Mumma mia. What to do?
Well for a person like me who loves gardening there's an easy solution. Grow as much fruit and vegetables as I possibly can.

The assurance of 100% chemical free fruit and veg is wonderful.
And because it's grown in healthy soil it's way more nutritious.
And tastes heavenly instead of the insipid supermarket faux fruit and veg. 
And very cheap.
And if you save the seeds for planting next year it costs nothing. FREE food.
And there's usually enough to share with family and neighbours.
So riding on a wave of inspiration I went out into the winter sunshine and extended my vegie patch by making a big new bed. Here's some pics.

I marked out the shape I wanted with a hose.

I then dug along the edge and middle with a spade making sure all the clumps were left lying upside down. This exposes the grass roots to the air and it will kill them leaving your soil filled with nice organic matter.

Hmmm, deciding whether or not to make a path through the center.

Nope. A path takes up space that could be growing something so I'll just lay a plank down to walk across.

The shape needs a little adjustment but it's not looking too bad for an afternoons effort. Tomorrow I'll rake it flat then add a layer of straw mulch.

Gosh I've already mentally filled the new garden bed full of summer corn and enough tomotoes to preserve for the whole year. Should I dig another new vegie patch for potatoes?  Someone please stop me.....