Weed control - whats your mulch process?
 

In previous years I have used grass clipping to mulch my garden. Well I bought a new mower and haven't invested in a bagger yet.

So - I'm curious what everyone does for weed control/mulch?

Straw. I buy chopped straw in a plastic 'bale' at the hardware store and also save the straw bale we use in the fall for decoration.

Seedless mulching straw. Buy one big bale every Spring from my local Nursery that also has a
landscaping business. Very light, good coverage. Grass clippings are too dense for my climate. It
forms a heavy choking mass when wet. Weekly thunderstorms are common here.

I mulch the heck out of everything. I hate weeding. I used to use grass clippings and straw but down here in our heat the grass clippings just dried up to nothing too fast and constantly needed more replenishing than my yard could provide. Straw just got way too expensive down here. I still use straw in my compost but I'm lucky if I can find it for 6 dollars a square bale.

I now use mostly cypress mulch which is reusable and pine bark. They are both dense enough to hold in moisture well and suppress weeds very well. The cypress mulch with its light color is also great for keeping the soil cooler under my late tomato plantings that have to survive and set fruit in temps well over 90 degrees.

Bill

I cover my entire garden with a think layer of straw in the Fall and then in the Spring I just pull it back in the areas where I want to plant. I add more straw as needed to keep the garden mulched.

I use dried oak leaves. We have a lot of oak trees, so leaves are free and they do a good job at keeping the weeds away and cools the ground some.

I use whatever I can source for free. Last year a neighbor had pine needles bagged up. It makes a wonderful mulch. I always mulched, but TVers encouraged me to go 4-6 inches deep. Weeding took about 5 minutes a week.

This year it's aged mulched leaves that I picked up curbside in the Fall.

[QUOTE=oakley;640299]Seedless mulching straw. Buy one big bale every Spring from my local Nursery that also has a
landscaping business. Very light, good coverage. Grass clippings are too dense for my climate. It
forms a heavy choking mass when wet. Weekly thunderstorms are common here.[/QUOTE]
+1, but I do use grass clippings as well, especially later in the summer when they dry more quickly.

I use plastic mulch for the rows, and then I run a weed-eater down the walkways. The grass sod between my rows is full of earthworms.

I just covered almost the entire front yard with wood mulch. I am tired of mowing weeds. I'll plant some tomatoes out there and be done with scraggly weeds having to be mowed. The mulch is 3 to 4 inches thick, but wasn't a big yard.

I'm doing the same as Cole Robbie this year, plastic mulch but I'm covering it with straw to keep the heat down.

I can tell you what I won't be using any more: pine bark. Endless hiding places for slugs, snails and earwigs. But it can be incorporated into the mix at the end of the year, which I prefer.

I used to use coir husk chips, which slugs and snails don't seem to like crawling over, but prices have shot up too much in recent years. If I could find 50lb bales on the cheap I would use it again. This is the best container mulch IMO, and also a great structural amendment for soilless mixes.

I have several bags of partially composted mulched oak leaves. I used this on some containers last year and it seemed to attract earwigs like crazy. They can do a lot of damage to a flowering plant.

I have cut coco mats to fit containers in the past, and while it was good to keep pests out and prevent splashing of soilless mix onto plants, it can't be incorporated into the mix at the end of the year, but is not in good enough shape to reuse next season. Also $.

I don't like plastic mulch for containers, even large 100 G ones, because it limits air circulation in the soilless mix. When I grew in the ground in VA I found it to be ideal for tomatoes grown in rows, no weeds. Cover with straw to keep cool.

I purchased a straw bale this year, and might chop it up with the lawn mower, use as mulch and then lightly seed over it with mini clover. I have already seeded a few containers with mini clover. I have used it as a living mulch in the past as it only gets 1-2" tall, but over a long season it can build up a thick rootmass and I don't want it competing for container space or nutrients.

Spiders seem to love straw mulch, and they are welcome guests.

My main reason for mulching is to keep soil temps down and exclude pests and disease, as I recycle my mix.

Pine needle/pine straw here. That is free to rake and so I apply thick coat. As it compacts down under sun, i refresh with more. In the heat of summer sun it falls apart and makes a good soil amendment for our sandy soil.
I am doing this not so much for weed prevention but to retain soil moisture, keep it cooler and save water.

[QUOTE=b54red;640301] I hate weeding.[/QUOTE]

No way!!! :surprised:

[IMG]http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/xx132/Heiferlips1/13524445_1023893204365149_6549483055269058806_n_zps3hqkaies.jpg[/IMG]

The smile at the last one is the killer, LOL!! Maybe I won't hate weeding quite as much....

Good one, Spike!

Nothing it invites and houses sails and slugs.
Will later with decomposed leaves.
Free.

Worth

[QUOTE=imp;640417]The smile at the last one is the killer, LOL!! Maybe I won't hate weeding quite as much....

Good one, Spike![/QUOTE]

I laughed so hard, I called my husband to come look too. LOL, Spike you made my day today! :lol:

I lay my soaker hose on the ground, then I put down 2-4 sheets of newspaper and over that I spread about a 2 inch layer of leaf mulch. by the end of the season, the worms have done a number on the newspaper and have reduced the leaves by a bunch as well. After the season is over I till it under and plant cover crops or cover it with a tarp.

[QUOTE=fonseca;640359]I can tell you what I won't be using any more: pine bark. Endless hiding places for slugs, snails and earwigs. But it can be incorporated into the mix at the end of the year, which I prefer.

I used to use coir husk chips, which slugs and snails don't seem to like crawling over, but prices have shot up too much in recent years. If I could find 50lb bales on the cheap I would use it again. This is the best container mulch IMO, and also a great structural amendment for soilless mixes. [/QUOTE]

I have been trying pine bark some this year and noticed the same thing. Lots of slugs,earwigs and pill bugs. The fresh cypress mulch seems to cut way down on slugs but the really old stuff that has been used for a couple of years doesn't repel them. I guess the new stuff is so full of sharp splinters that they have trouble with it. I try to use the really old stuff around my tomatoes and peppers where they don't seem to cause as much of a problem. I do know one thing when I don't mulch at all I have more slugs than when I do mulch especially with cabbage and lettuce.

Bill

I have raised beds and have mulched them for many years with free stuff such as leaves,pine needles, ground up pine cones and gum balls and an almost endless supply of wood chips. I like straw, but need the money for other things.

Jon

Not mulching putting out bait and letting the soiI dry out on top this year is the only way I have been able to sprout anything in my beds.
One year I put rosemary around some sprouts and it worked.
It was the sharp needles they didn't like..
Yesterday I pulled a weed and found a root growing into a fresh dead snail carcass.
Revenge is sweet.:lol:
Worth

It's a Catch-22, if you keep the soil moist with a mulch, the plants will love it but so will the earthworms and slugs. Earthworms are good and slugs are bad so you get the good with the bad.

If you don't mulch you get hot, dry soil and weeds. Earthworms will burrow deeper to be where the woil is moist and they will not benefit your soil as much in the plant's root zone.

I love spike's cartoon but I hate weeding so I use mulch and then I use organic slug bait around my cabbage plants. The slugs really don't bother much of anything else in my garden, not even the lettuce. Maybe because I have so much mulch everywhere, they are happy eating the straw. I don't know.

I cut the last of my cabbage today and all four of them had some slugs at the very bottom but none up in the cabbage head so I was very happy with that. Of course while I had my sharp pocket knife in my hand I went ahead and sliced the slugs too.:swht:

Bill

May soil is now getting watered every day so it is moist that and lots of killer is saving me.
Soon when the cucumber and some other plants get big enough I will put the drip on automatic the soil will stay moist.
What I will not do is use leaves from the yard again.
I cannot express to anyone just how many snails and slugs I killed one year when I did.
I think they were full of eggs.
Worth

Does anyone use landscape fabric? I put some down over 4-6" of semi-composted leaves, but I am worried its keeping the soil underneath too dry--it seems more water repellent than I expected. any suggestions?

I used to have more of a slug problem than I do now so when I set out my cabbage seedlings I surrounded them with a ring of crushed eggshells that I had saved over the winter. The slugs are reluctant to cross the barrier of sharp edges.

It really worked for me.

I have yet to see a slug in my garden here in Iowa.

From a local farmer I get eight bales of straw in the fall and use them as insulation around the foundation of the house where there are water lines prone to freezing in the winter. In the spring the garden, which was fall tilled, turning under last year's mulch, gets a covering of newspaper. This comes in 36 inch wide end rolls from the local newspaper where I happen to work one day per week and also write for.

So, three layers of newspaper covered by six to eight inches of straw keeps the weeds down, allows water to get through, keeps the temperature of the soil down and looks good, too.

grass clippings

[QUOTE=PaulF;640584]From a local farmer I get eight bales of straw in the fall and use them as insulation around the foundation of the house where there are water lines prone to freezing in the winter. In the spring the garden, which was fall tilled, turning under last year's mulch, gets a covering of newspaper. This comes in 36 inch wide end rolls from the local newspaper where I happen to work one day per week and also write for.

So, three layers of newspaper covered by six to eight inches of straw keeps the weeds down, allows water to get through, keeps the temperature of the soil down and looks good, too.[/QUOTE]

Sounds efficient to me, where's the like button:lol:.