We see it all the time and that leads us to believe it is "normal".  But gardens with bare soil are actual losing water, nutrients, soil and even life at alarming rates!  

When it comes to gardening, there are two superheros everyone needs at their side to turn an ordinary patch of ground into an extraordinary garden:  Compost and Mulch.

While compost gets a lot (a LOT) of attention for its recycling and waste reduction actions, mulch tends to just hang around background.  But don’t be fooled!  Mulch is a critical factor in garden success and once you know its secrets, you will be relying on it as the heavy lifter that gets a lot of work done so you can go sip a cool drink on the patio.

Mulch is any organic material that you add to the soil surface that can break down over time to contribute to soil structure, while not adding harmful substances to the soil or harming plants in the process.  That said, there are at least 8 functions that mulch performs in your garden while doing that simple act of breaking down.

As heat waves and droughts spread across the continents, water conservation is more critical than ever both to our personal survival as humans, but also to our ability to produce food.

Mulch shades the soil to reduce evaporation.  It also soaks up and retains moisture, releasing it more slowly to plant roots than does bare soil.  Perhaps most importantly, the presence of mulch slows down the movement of water across the soil which can help to prevent runoff.  Yeah Mulch!

The world is facing a top soil crisis .  Modern methods of agriculture that leave soils bare and exposed to the sun, wind and rain are destroying the very layer of the planet capable of supporting our food plants.  

Don’t make this same mistake at home!

Soil should always be covered by something – either a growing layer of plants, or a protective layer of mulch.

Deep nutrient rich organic soil, doesn’t just happen.  It builds over time.  By adding mulch to the surface of your garden soil, you are actively contributing to the biological processes that will break that mulch down into soil components over time, thus creating MORE SOIL.   So to be clear:  Mulch is not soil, but mulch breaks down to create more soil and improve soil structure.

Mulch doesn’t break down into soil by itself.  Good soil is living and teaming with creatures great and small that are actively creating the soil that supports good plant growth and food production. [how many organisms in a teaspoon of healthy soil?] By conserving water, preventing erosion and contributing the building blocks of soil, mulch creates habitat for beneficial soil dwellers.

Soil dwelling organisms breaking down mulch results in the slow release of organic nutrients to plants.  We know now that this is an active mutual relationship between plants and soil dwellers.  Plants can actually signal to the soil community that they need specific nutrients and those nutrients will get released for the plant to absorb.  

Even the most basic soil already contains the vast majority of substances that plants need for strong active growth.  The missing link in the equation is whether the soil has the right levels of biological activity to support the release of those nutrients.  Mulch supports the organisms that create the breakdown of the mulch into nutrients

Artificial fertilizers (N-P-K) provide fast acting nutrients to plants, but they are mostly toxic to soil dwelling organisms, causing them to die off.  The fewer soil dwelling organisms there are in the garden, the more you have to depend on costly (and environmentally damaging) artificial fertilizers.  Mulch will help you get your garden off “drugs” and into a natural and bountiful state of production.

Both too much heat and too much cold can be fatal for plants.  Mulch provides a layer of insulation between the roots of plants in the soil and the ambient temperatures above ground.  In the summer, the shading and insulation provide cool relief from the heat.  In the winter, mulch can have the opposite effect.  It can slow down the effects of freezing temperatures and in some cases can prevent root zones from freezing at all.   

Weeding is a time-killing chore that most of us avoid whenever possible.  In comes mulch to the rescue!  A good layer of mulch 2-4” deep can virtually eliminate weeds in your garden, leaving you free to do more important things in life like enjoy that cool drink on the patio! 

DO:  Add mulch around your plants after you weed.

DON’T: Place mulch too close to plant stems which could inadvertently burn or smother the very plants you are trying to grow.   

Also, watch closely for the introduction of “new” (previously unknown) weeds in your garden as a result of mulching.  Although commercially sold mulches are supposed to be “clean”, invasive weeds can and do get introduced via mulches.  Pay close attention for unusual weeds.  Remove and dispose of them in the garbage to avoid the establishment of noxious invaders.

There are many soil-borne diseases that can affect plants, or even YOU!   For example, the spread of E. coli infection through garden food comes from either contaminated water used to water the plants, or from manures being splashed up onto plants during rain or watering, that are then carried into your home (and onto your plate if you are not washing your food!).  

A clean layer of mulch made from straw, leaves or grass clippings acts as an effective barrier to soil-borne diseases in the garden and can reduce the chance of spread.  Less soil splashing and depositing on leaves during rain or irrigation means less chance of the soil disease organisms taking hold.

 

There are many effective mulches and your choice can depend on what is locally available, suitable for the type of crop you are growing, and most aesthetically pleasing to you.

Good organic mulches include:

-        Hay or straw

-        Grass clipping

-        Leaves

-        Pine needles

-        Cardboard and paper

-        Compost

-        Bark mulches (but not a good choice on veggies)

One of my pet peeves as a garden is the advice: “mulch in the spring”.  What the heck?  

Get superhero mulch helping in your garden ANY TIME YOU NEED IT!  You don’t have to wait for spring to mulch.

The rule of thumb is no bare soil.  

So any activity you do that creates bare soil should be followed by mulching.  

Dig-Plant-Mulch.  Always.  Okay, almost always.

The one exception is planting seeds.  You cannot mulch over top of a newly planted seed bed or the seeds likely won’t germinate.  Instead, wait for your seedlings to start to grow and then mulch around them.  This is where using planting methods that use patterns of setting the seeds really pay off because you can more easily predict where your food plants will be and mulch around them (learn more in the Get Started Garden mini-course)

Just because mulch is working in the background doesn’t mean it is not one of the key players in making your garden successful and so much easier to maintain.   Don’t wait until spring to start using mulch.  Take advantage of the 8 garden-saving benefits of mulch any time of year and make sure your have your ground covered.