hemp mats for trees<\/a> which slowly break down to feed the worms.<\/p>\nA great combo for homemade mulch is cardboard boxes over the soil to suppress weeds, hidden by a mixed mulch of shredded leaves and grass clippings. <\/p>\n
What is the best mulch?<\/h3>\n
Some mulch is better than no mulch.<\/p>\n
But you can mulch with so many green waste products from your garden: lawn clippings, autumn leaves, old straw (hay too, but it will have a lot more seeds in it), and if aesthetic appeal is not important, you could use old newspapers, non-glossy cardboard, cotton or wool clothes and sheets, hessian sacks \u2013 anything that rots and smothers, pretty much.<\/p>\n
For flower beds and vegetable gardens<\/h4>\n
Hungry plants immediately want nutrients,<\/strong> so well rotted compost or manure are the best mulches <\/strong>
Cow, sheep, or goat manure are generally fine to use fresh, but horse manure should be aged for a year before it can be used on shallow rooted or newly transplanted plants: fresh horse manure is too high in nitrogen for sensitive roots.<\/p>\nFor Trees and Hedges<\/h4>\n
The \u201cother best\u201d mulch for many garden uses, especially around trees and shrubs, is bark chips<\/strong>, which look nice and last for a relatively long time.
They break down slowly and so release their nutrients slowly, but over time they become part of the soil and encourage rich fungal life even on poor soil.<\/p>\nBut bark chips are rarely free; wood chips, meaning the whole tree shredded up, leaves to heartwood, often are free because arborists want to dump them. They are also great for ornamental use, fruit trees, and just spreading around nooks and crannies to suppress weeds.<\/p>\n
For large scale projects and farming<\/h4>\n
Plastic mulch fabric may not be pretty, but it does a lot to improve soil fertility simply by trapping moisture, which encourages soil life, which drives fertility. <\/p>\n
Won\u2019t fresh, undecayed mulch rob nutrients from the soil?<\/h3>\n
Fresh grass clippings, fresh woodchips, or kitchen waste will not suck nitrogen out of the soil<\/a> when applied over the soil surface as mulch; likewise, un-composted plant material does not acidify soil. <\/p>\nBoth of those ideas can be found in some gardening resources, and have a kernel of truth that does not apply to mulch.<\/p>\n
Unlike compost, which can be dug into the soil or used for potting, mulch does not need to be well rotted, or rotted at all.
The major exception is chicken and horse manure, which can be too high in nitrogen (known as \u2018hot\u2019) when it\u2019s fresh.<\/p>\n
How to apply organic matter Mulch<\/h3>\n
Spread it a good inch thick on the ground around your plants every year.<\/p>\n