How to Mulch

One of the most time saving steps you can ever take in the garden is to mulch. Mulched gardens are healthier, more weed-free and drought resistant than unmulched gardens so you’ll spend less time watering, weeding and fighting pests. Plus mulch helps condition the soil by providing organic matter for worms and soil microbes to eat. If you doubt me, look around you. In nature, there is no bare ground. Every tree, shrub, flower and vegetable can be mulched.

3 easy steps

There are just a few easy steps to follow:

1. Weed area first
2. Put down 4-6” layer, if shady area 2-3” will do
3. Pull mulch slightly away from stem to prevent rot. Pull 12” from tree trunk

Materials

Materials to use are many—Weed free straw, chopped leaves, compost (OSH Garden Compost or Sun Land One Earth are great), grass clippings, pine needles, shredded paper (good way to recycle used paper), wood chips and ground wood products (such as OSH Redwood Soil Conditioner) or sawdust. You can mix them or layer them, for example shredded paper can go under a compost layer. But note–as wood chips and sawdust decompose, they temporarily take nitrogen from the surrounding soil so either buy a product enriched with nitrogen or spread some blood meal or cottonseed meal down first.