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Old May 16, 2017   #16
Worth1
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Nothing it invites and houses sails and slugs.
Will later with decomposed leaves.
Free.

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Old May 16, 2017   #17
Rockporter
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The smile at the last one is the killer, LOL!! Maybe I won't hate weeding quite as much....

Good one, Spike!
I laughed so hard, I called my husband to come look too. LOL, Spike you made my day today!
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Old May 17, 2017   #18
countyhoosier
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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.
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Old May 17, 2017   #19
b54red
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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 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.

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Old May 17, 2017   #20
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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.

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Old May 17, 2017   #21
Worth1
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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.
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Old May 17, 2017   #22
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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.
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Old May 17, 2017   #23
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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.

Bill
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Old May 17, 2017   #24
Worth1
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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.
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Old May 17, 2017   #25
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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?
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Old May 17, 2017   #26
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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.
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Old May 17, 2017   #27
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I have yet to see a slug in my garden here in Iowa.
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Old May 17, 2017   #28
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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.
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Old May 17, 2017   #29
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grass clippings
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Old May 17, 2017   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulF View Post
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.
Sounds efficient to me, where's the like button.
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