Gardening with Nature's Crossroads

The basic concept of mulch is that it mimics the natural soil cover that any ecosystem has evolved with. Whether it is leaf cover in a deciduous forest, dry grass stalks in a prairie, or the constant compost of a rainforest, natural systems include some annual or perpetual blanket. Only in deserts is the soil bare, and that’s not exactly “soil.”Don’t let your garden be a desert.

Mulch is the roof to your garden-house, it’s the pot-lid that keeps the flavor in the stew, it’s the magicians cape under which wonderful magic happens, it’s the metaphor that goes too far…

Now, right off: The word “mulch” has a much broader definition than dyed, shredded, hardwood bark shipped in plastic sacks from afar. That is but one kind of mulch. There are oh so many. Simply put, mulch is any material applied to the ground that performs some or all of the following important functions: water retention, water dispersion, soil warming, soil cooling, soil building, improved tilth, worm and microbe habitat, erosion control, weed control, nutrient release, visual pleasure, etc…

Every landscape, whether it be a region or a garden, should be self-sufficient in its own mulch. Here in southern Indiana, we have plenty. Between autumn leaves, straw and hay farmers, lawns mown, trees trimmed and the readily available surpluses of the commercial world, one needn’t have trouble finding the stuff.

All that said, each kind of mulch will have its particular set of qualities, positive and negative. Some mulch may provide appreciable levels of nitrogen or other nutrients, while some can temporarily rob your soil of nitrogen. Some last a long time, others decay quickly. Some are easy to put on, some stay put better. Some can make great slug habitat, or form anaerobic mats of death.  Each has its own technique, timing, and purpose. Like all pursuits in life, there is much to learn and get better at with experience.

In my experience, mulches are usually best as a mix of materials, and in successive layers over time. Different parts of my garden might in one year get a large variety of mulch types. Wood chips in my pathways, cardboard or newspaper on really weedy areas and new beds. Straw on my strawberries, hay on my annual vegetables, pine needles and coffee grounds on my blueberries, manure-rich chicken bedding on heavy feeding crops, mixed hardwood leaves in autumn, lawn trimmings in spring and summer. Green manure cover crops when available. Natural materials cloth like t-shirts, old rags and ragged blankets are great for paths or areas that won’t be disturbed for a few years.

Occasionally, if there’s a problem, I remove one mulch layer and replace it, but usually I just add the new materials right on top. I try to never have bare soil for longer than it takes to seed or transplant, and to always have enough mulch to keep the weeds down. TRY does not mean succeed. It can be hard to always have enough at the right time, and I sometimes end up with weed-choked beds, of course, but only on the ones that didn’t get enough mulch.

Mulch is always bulky and can be heavy to work with. For large landscapes, many yards, or bales, or wheelbarrows of the stuff will be schlepped around. But rest assured that time taken mulching will make far less time doing the more onerous tasks of weeding and watering.

Soil in a well-mulched bed is ready to go first thing in the spring, moist and fluffy, rich with life. The exact opposite of cracked, crusted-over, un-covered ground. It is this top layer of the earth that is meant to be richest, that has the best position to support a thriving community of roots, water, air, minerals, bacteria, mycelium and insects. Diversity, in short. Feed it and it will grow.

My persnickety Granddad, probably on a bet or dare, was led to the great revelation of mulching at a ripe old age. A life-long farmer, he’d always fought weeds with tillers and hoes. My grandfolks kept chickens and rabbits, though, and had built up an impressive supply of paper feed sacks, which, being pack rats, they could not throw away.Plain brown paper, three layers thick. His experiment was to lay out one feed sack around each plant,weight it down with rocks or logs, and see what happens.

Being a top-notch experimenter, he had a control group, which was chivalrously called “Grandma’s Garden.” Now, Grandma’s Garden occupied the same space and had the same plants (tomatoes and eggplants) and was completely intermixed with Grandpa’s Garden, such that the only difference was the feed sack mulch around some plants. This ruled out differences in soil or microclimate or what have you.

I visited their windswept Ohio fields in a dry August and the difference was shocking. Grandpa’s Garden plants were literally twice as big, twice as green, twice as productive, absolutely thriving and dripping with fruit. “Grandma’s Garden”, which had gotten the same care, save for more weeding, looked puny and weak. Grandpa was amazed, and from then on preached the gospel of mulch, which he, of course, had invented.

In my education as a gardener I’d always been taught to mulch. I had assumed that my grandparents knew and understood about mulch but elected not to use it, having the trappings of their upbringing. But, no… they really just didn’t know about the miracle of mulch. The bare earth concept still holds too many gardeners in its dangerous grasp.

It’s never too late to start mulching your garden. Start with what you have at hand and use it. Keep your ears to ground for free flows of mulchy materials, and consider supporting a local farmer with a truckload of straw or hay this year.

Now you know. Mulch well, my friends.

Nathan Harman is an active member of the Bloomington Permaculture Guild and participant in Transition Bloomington.  He and his wife operate Dome-Grown, a small permaculture farm in Bloomington.