What do you like to mulch with?

[Qweniden]

I normally use straw but its a bit messy and not that pretty. Any recommendations?

[kath]

I like shredded leaves because they're free and they keep the worms happy but pretty isn't a consideration when it comes to mulch in the garden.

[jerryinfla]

I'm with Kath -- shredded leaves!

[TightenUp]

i used pine needles over the black breathable tarp which worked awesome this past season. i also used straw on my raised bed which got the job done.

hurricane sandy didnt allow me to get to the garden with the pine needles until this last wknd so i decided to bag and throw out the pine needles along with the dead plants and leave the black tarp in place for next year. i will just fill in the planting holes with compost in the spring. this will be a first for me

the straw was incorporated in the raised bed and covered with horse manure last fall. i will add some organics and compost in the spring about a month before plant out

[FarmerShawn]

I use leaves when I can get them, but I don't have many trees. However, I do have a large lawn, so I mow in the morning of a sunny day, let the clippings dry, then go over the lawn again with my DR lawn vacuum to pick the clippings up, and I mulch with the resulting "hay." They're nice and clean, fine and easily placed tightly around the plants, and are almost gone by fall when I till them in. They do have to be pretty deep, though, to really suppress the weeds through the summer - I usually try to get a depth of at least two or three inches.

[Hotwired]

I like straw because it diffuses the raindrops and minimizes the "Up-Splash" onto the tomato leaves http://imageshack.us/a/img341/6307/pruninggarden.jpg . Septoria Leaf Spot is a real problem in my area. I use weedcloth under the straw http://imageshack.us/a/img808/6869/55343335.jpg and tucked it under pavers along the fence. I hate weeding, especially around fences. Of course there were 260 feet of pavers to set. Being Lazy is a lot of work.

[Tracydr]

Pine needles and straw on top of newspaper.

[checkerkitty]

Leaves and lawn clippings, when I can find them. I'll bet your city has a brush recycling department that is part of solid waste management. Ours does and they sell mulch and give away Christmas tree mulch. That might give you a source of local and, maybe, attractive mulch. I'll be getting my hands on some of this soon for multiple uses in the yard.

[ScottinAtlanta]

Originally Posted by checkerkitty

Leaves and lawn clippings, when I can find them. I'll bet your city has a brush recycling department that is part of solid waste management. Ours does and they sell mulch and give away Christmas tree mulch. That might give you a source of local and, maybe, attractive mulch. I'll be getting my hands on some of this soon for multiple uses in the yard.

We have to actually know the source of our mulch here in Atlanta, because there are so many pecan trees here. You can't use anonymous mulch from your neighbors or the city, unfortunately, without knowing the trees involved.

That said, I do use shredded oak leaves as mulch.

I like to use pine bark nuggets. I purchase the inexpensive large bags of small nuggets. They seem to decompose into the soil well over the winter. Since I plant about six hundred onions in January, I can't add fresh mulch until June when the last of the onions have been harvested. I haven't found a way to add mulch over the onions without causing the onion tops to break over stopping their growth. I would like to plant the onions into the mulch, but that causes the onions to be planted deeper limiting their bulb size.

I have tons of oak leaves blowing around, but it is a lot of work to shred them. If I don't shred them, they become a nesting place for all kinds of insects. I thought this past spring I would gather a lot up and add them to my beds. When I started raking them up, I found millions of live grasshoppers that had survived the winter by snuggling down into the leaf piles. I also found a lot of other insects like spotted cucumber beetles in the leaf piles.

I like to run my riding mower over the leaf piles so the material will be added to the soil instead of simply blowing away. Often, the piles are against fences or under thick stands of trees where my mower can't reach them.

Ted

[DirtyDan]

paper feed sacks with straw over the top of the sacks.also like to put old manure down each side of the row the plants seem to love it.

[nativeplanter]

Originally Posted by ScottinAtlanta

We have to actually know the source of our mulch here in Atlanta, because there are so many pecan trees here. You can't use anonymous mulch from your neighbors or the city, unfortunately, without knowing the trees involved.

That said, I do use shredded oak leaves as mulch.

Scott,
I'm curious as to why you avoid pecan leaves. When I lived in Athens GA, We had pecans in the yard near the garden and I grew the best tomatoes I've ever grown there. Never did rake the pecan leaves - we just let them blow around. The ones in the lawn would get mowed over, but they did tend to collect in the garden. I did use pecan leaves as a substrate for some aquatic plants a number of times with very good results.

I use mostly straw and sometimes grass clippings here in VA now. We still don't rake leaves, and I don't have a shredder to use for the neighbor's leaves. We have a lot of willow oaks around, though - I wonder if those wouldn't need shredding?

In the ornamental beds, I'm moving to all pine straw. The shredded hardwood seems to be contributing to some fungal problems we're having that is killing perennials (we get occasional coastal flooding). I'm hoping the pine straw stays a little dryer. The veggie beds are raised, so they don't get overtopped by floodwaters and we haven't had the rot problem in them so far.

[Ozark]

Every spring I put soaker hoses on top of the ground to water all my plants, then I mulch the whole garden, covering the soaker hoses in the process. My riding lawnmower will catch 45 gallons of grass clippings at a time, and I spread them on the garden FRESH and THICK (6 inches plus). We have a big yard and large oak and hickory trees, so my springtime mowings collect a mix of green grass and chopped-up leaves from the previous year. I don't rake leaves in the fall because I think they protect the grass through the winter and they make such good mulch when they get picked up the next spring. We live in the country though - no neighbors to criticize.

I keep the fresh grass clippings mulch a couple of inches away from garden plants because it gets hot. A couple of days after it's put down I can't hold my hand under it, and I think that cooks and kills a lot of weed and grass seeds and fungus spores.

The thick mulch packs down and it's not very thick when I till it under in the fall. Another good thing, there's a species of little black brachnid wasps here that live under my grass clippings mulch once it's dried, and they fly constant patrol on my tomato plants. I haven't seen a tomato hornworm for years.

Obviously I have to water a lot less with mulch covering my soaker hose grid. I've found lots of benefits to mulching this way.

[Hotwired]

I would be cautious of Municipal mulch, depending where you live. Florida and California both had a serious blight epidemic with Palms and a lot of gardeners used the infected woodchips. Up North, the freezing temps kill a lot of the spores, but not all. Gardening is tough enough without importing other peoples problems.

Farmer Shawn... A DR - I'm envious. Grass & Leaves helps make some nice compost - no shortage of leaves up your way. I'd be vacuuming my neighbors leaves up. I wanted a DR Tiller but my wife couldn't understand spending that kind of money since I have raised beds. I love my toys, so I built my own http://imageshack.us/a/img141/7143/tiller4.jpg .

[peppero]

i like to use wheat straw leaves and pine needles. works for me. jon