Mulch suggestions?

[Anthony_Toronto]

Had an awful time with bark mulch several years back...first year mulch was great, plants were great. Second and third years were rife with fungal disease, with the mulch covered with assorted coloured growths and oozes, and plenty of disease on plants that may or may not have been connected to this. Then I pulled off mulch and have gone with exposed soil ever since. Unfortunately I get an enormous number of weeds. Landscape fabric was a hassle and weeds just grew through it making it even more labour intensive to deal with weeds. With no fabric it was just weeds weeds weeds, grass growing into mini rolls of sod, etc...endless weeding and pulling required.

I don't care about aesthetics. I am just adding 10 cubic yards of triplemix. Starting with a bit of a clean slate (though some weed seeds no doubt remain buried deep). Trying to figure out the best solution for mulching raised beds over clay.

Thinking of going with layers of newspaper. Sounds like it holds together better than corrugated cardboard, and no glue to attract bugs or cause other issues. Any disadvantage to using newspaper? Should I put down landscape fabric first to prevent paper from mixing into soil should it disintegrate? Any advantage to black or red plastic over newspaper? Any other basic suggestions to promote healthy, weed-free garden?

Thanks,
Anthony

[TightenUp]

I've been using 4-6 inches of straw on my small(4ft x 16ft) raised bed with successful suppression of weeds.

my larger garden is rows, covered with black landscape fabric, then when the soil warms i cover that with pine needles. between the rows i use wood chips to hold down the black fabric

both methods work however the black landscape fabric is a pain to remove every fall. after each tomato season i turn my mulch into the soil. so in effect i never re-use mulch

I also have a small new garden which i covered the lawn with newspaper and then put a few inches of mostly composted grass and leaves. I will be covering that with wood chips or straw shortly

If you want weed suppression either add newspaper under your mulch or make sure your mulch is thick enough. if you use straw and dont apply thick enough not only will you have weeds but also seeds from the straw will germinate

[Anthony_Toronto]

Thanks. Not sure I have access to sufficient straw to cover either newspaper or landscape fabric. I could always put landscape fabric over newspaper, so at least I wouldn't have to look at the newspaper...

Any other thoughts?

[Labradors2]

Last year I decided to use black plastic. A friend said that it warms up the soil, and even though it's not very organic, she thought it worked really well and it can be re-used. When I hauled out my black plastic that I'd had for a few years in my basement, it turned out to be so thin that the weeds grew underneath it! I lifted it up and installed a couple of layers of newspaper underneath and that did the trick to suppress further weeds. On another patch, I used plain newspaper with nothing on top of it. I wetted it to get it to lay flat, but the problem was that the wind would lift it up.

This year, I plan to use black plastic 6mm thick which I bought from Home Depot. I really hope that I like it because I bought a HUGE box that will probably last me forever .

Linda

[Stvrob]

I always thought the assorted colorful fungal growths were good for the soil and helped make the underside of the mulch layer a wonderful place for roots to harvest nutrients.

[Anthony_Toronto]

Mold was great, a real fun guy...but leaves did not seem to agree. Yellow goop that seemed to seep out of nowhere was very interesting indeed, a mulch mystery, but given blight and other foliar problems I thought I better play it safe. Guess I really should be attempting some soil treatment/amendment...but I have had it with weeds so hoping that a solid barrier does the trick.

[Stvrob]

Well I am interested in an answer, because I was always under the assumption that none of those visually interesting molds/fungi/oozes were the ones responsible for any foliar diseases. If I am incorrect about this I would like to know.

[HydroExplorer]

I used grass clippings from a lawn that I knew wasn't treated (uninhabited property I mowed) last year. I felt like it really worked well.

This year I'm using clippings from our yard which is treated with a pre-emergent and so far it has been working just fine. I've been starting seeds out of the beds but I kinda think the pre-emergent stuff isn't actually on the grass clippings. I used these grass clippings on a hugelculture bed I made this year and my sugar snap peas came up just fine.

I think I got a usual amount of fungus when I used the grass clippings so I suspect it didn't effect the fungal issues with my plants.

[Lee]

Do you have access to and leaf mulch? Or just shredded leaves that
you can distribute? Should be similar if not better than straw, and also be a good amendment for next year.

Lee

[gtnate]

I'm using pine bark mulch this year myself. I have seen no problems thus far and hope to just mix the mulch in with soil at the end of the season for some aggregate material to help with root growth. I hope that I don't have the problems that you describe.

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by Stvrob

I always thought the assorted colorful fungal growths were good for the soil and helped make the underside of the mulch layer a wonderful place for roots to harvest nutrients.

Yes! The colorful oozy ones I've seen are a slime mold evocatively named Dog Vomit Fungus.

In my gardens, I often remove the masses to the compost bin after admiring them, but afaik they don't facilitate the growth of any pathological fungi.

I've used wood-chip mulch a lot because it's freely available at the community gardens. I've also used straw (one batch required lots of weeding -- even after I checked the bales for clusters of thistle seed). Newspaper under mulch is very effective at suppressing annual weeds. I don't use landscape fabric or plastic because they are not healthy for the soil life.

[Cole_Robbie]

I bought a roll of ground fabric off amazon last year that has held up well. The cheap stuff at stores does not have UV protection in it, because it is meant to be buried. The good stuff with UV protection is a lot more expensive, but I think it's worth it. It's much heavier and still holding up well a year later.

The ultra-thin black plastic mulch is meant for mechanical layers and commercial operations. I still use it because I have it laying around. One roll would be a lifetime supply for a backyard gardener. You have to get all the weed sticks and stems out of the soil, till it well, and then stretch it over a raised bed, burying the edges so that the wind does not blow it away. And then you can never walk on it, or let your pets run across it. And of course it is meant to have drip line or soaker hose underneath it.

There is a biodegradable plastic mulch, but I have heard it makes a big mess by breaking into little pieces everywhere. It's hard to clean up, and does not just disappear.

[HydroExplorer]

Leaf mulch. I like that idea. My township does leaf collection and then sells the leaf mulch for 0$ + cost of delivery. Thanks for the tip.

My soil is basically unuseable so I think sheet mulching leaf mulch will be the ticket.

[jmsieglaff]

I use straw with good success. Keeps the weeds down--the main thing you'll pull occasionally is some germinating straw grass. Even in hot dry weather, I only need to water once a week maybe twice if it is quite hot. I use it on tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, squash, cucumbers, onions, garlic--basically anything besides quick growing things like spinach, lettuce, peas, radishes, etc. I have raised beds and relatively small amount of square footage, so the compressed bales at the hardware store are economical for me.

[Anthony_Toronto]

No access to leaves, might have access to straw...but don't want something that will blow away, though I suppose I could put either leaves or straw below some landscape fabric. As of now I guess I'll try newspapaper over soil, black landscape fabric over newspaper.