straw (is NOT the same as hay! straw is the leftover stems from harvested grain like wheat or oats or barley. There shouldn't be any seeds in it) or shredded leaves. It's very windy here and things tend to blow away... keeping them fairly damp and thick helps.

if your straw has weed seeds the benefits still outweight the cons. Pick a few straw introduced weeds or constantly weed and water your whole garden.

one thing I have heard that helps although I have not tried is to buy more straw this year then you will need. save some for next year. that way the few seeds that it contains will be less viable by next year.

Grass clippings work wonderfully for me. I mulch everything from flowers and roses to all my veggies with it. I mow my 2-acre yard about twice a year with my push-mower to collect the clippings (because our rider does not have a bagger). You do have to replenish it, but it works fine and adds to the soil as it breaks down. I use it fresh out of the bagger at a depth of about 4" and in my climate it is fine - doesn't get too hot. One word of caution - don't use grass clippings if the lawn has been treated with weed-and-feed fertilizer. The 2,4-D in it will kill off your desired plants (voice of experience!).

anything you can get that is free works well..but hay or straw goes a long way..put down some newspepers and then put down the straw...

I use dried grass clippings (new cut/wet can nitrogen burn your plants), ground bark fines, pine straw, straw, and chopped aged leaves. Ground aged hardwood mulch is fine...pine bark nuggets or new/raw sawdust is not.

Hay, just like straw, may have a few seed in it but the benefits of mulching with either of them far outweigh any problems they may cause with a few weed seeds. There is no such thing as the "perfect" mulch except perhaps good compost, but straw and hay come awfully close to it. ;)

Shredded leaves is another almost perfect mulch - it's the one Mother Nature uses. Better yet, if you use a mix of organic mulches such as all those listed so far you not only get the benefits of mulch but you get soil improvement and food for the plants as an extra benefit.

Dave

I use alfalfa bales. The green leaves left on the "stem?" add nutrients to the soil and the more "straw"like part helps the soil maintain it's moisture. I did have 1 alfalfa plant come up this spring in my melon patch. It's such a pretty plant I'm thinking about letting it grow.

I prefer a mic of newspaper well soaked with water, leaves and my lawn clippings. I mow and rake one day then leave it sit for a day or 3 and then toss it in the garden over the leaves. Stay away from hay if possible as it has a higher likelihood of unwanted seeds, than straw will. (ever seen a haybale thats been left in the rain...it starts growing) leaving the stuff for a year or so does cut down on the weeds though and gives it a good jumpstart on composting.

I had the same questions this year. I have been trying different things on different raised beds. Last year I planted crimson clover and winter wheat as a cover crop. I screwed up this year and straight tilled one and a half beds. I should have mowed it down and turned it with a garden fork. For mulch, I have been saving my shredded junk mail and will try that and straw and lawn clippings and mulched leaves and pine straw (on my raspberries and strawberries only) on different beds. I guess where I am going with this is to try different things, you are going to screw something up, we all do. But when you find the mulch that you like the best in your particular area and situation stick with it. I have a list a mile long of things that I am going to try thru-out the season and thru-out the next winter. I am going to try to document and post my findings but it is hard to find enough hours in the day already. Good luck!! I hope you find something that works for you.

Carl Edwards

An even more stupid question: what about black plastic? Is it OK to use in a hot climate or will it kill my veggies and why?

I personally am not a fan of the plastic type 'mulches'. I typically forget to water till the last minute and have found that the plastic doesn't let water in, except where penetrated. I would also think that veggie's/fruits that lay on the blastic would be prone to disease and heat gain. That being said if you use soaker hoses under the plastic and mulch with straw or some other 'cushion' it would work pretty good. Just my $0.02 for what that is worth.

Carl Edwards

I'm in an blueberry/raspberry intensive area for commercial production - all of the growers here use woodchips from sawmills. Fir/pine/spruce that's quite fine (maximum 1/4" in size).

My best bet for home use, is composted back mulch. This is your standard bark mulch, that has been composted.

The result is that the colour is black, it's more nutritious given that it has composted material attached to it, and it's not itchy and dust prone so it's easy to work with. For me, the look is fantastic. I like the dark brown look, and the plants thrive with it!

I use bagged oak leaves collected in the fall. I pick up the bagged leaves which are placed at curbside from homes that have a lot of oak trees. I am fortunate to be able to have an area that I can use to inventory the bagged leaves. Leaves are used as needed for garden mulch. I try to poke holes in the bags as they are placed on the pile so that they will decompose with the summer heat. Mulched/ground-up bagged leaves work the best but are often hard to come by. I have an abundance of earth worms which collect both in the decomposed layers of bagged leaves and also under the leaf mulch in the garden. My garden area is about 2200 sq ft and I usually collect about 10 truck loads of bagged leaves with each load having about 18 to 22 bags in the load. This is about the right amount for both the spring and fall garden needs.

.. Forgot to add...for the strawberry plants I use black plastic

Straw and hay both have seeds in them, depending on the machinery and time and conditions when they were baled. Use either one you can get. Laying newspaper down on the surface with the straw/hay on top is good, but just straight straw/hay, deep enough, will do just as well. The trick is to keep the soil covered enough so sunlight doesn't penetrate to the soil to wake up the unwanted seeds. But even if you do have a few that sprout, the soil under the mulch is so soft and moist that they are very east to pull out. Lay the pulled weed on top of the mulch and it becomes mulch, too.

If you happen to have chickens, open a bale of straw/hay in their pen and break it into several chunks. They will pull the rest of it apart and pick through it find the seeds. Rake it out in a month or so, and put it on the garden, and you will have very few seeds sprout because the chickies have eaten most of them.

Wood mulch wouldn't be so bad if you follow a few basics:

The main problem is mixing the chips with the soil: the chips use the nitrogen in the soil to assist in their breakdown, and their isn't enough remaining for the plants.

But if you only lay the chips on the surface, the only nitrogen use is where the chips meet the soil. You could even help that by scattering some alfalfa meal (from the feed store -- much cheaper than the garden store) on top of the soil, then putting the chips on top.

BUT you have to remember to not to mix the chips into the soil at the end of the season, but rake them off into a pile. You could just let them sit there and reuse what is left next year (still, just on the surface), or you could mix them with alfalfa meal as you make the pile, and sort of make a compost pile with them.

But wood chips do very well under perennials. You can still add the alfalfa meal if you want, and put the chips on top.

Sue

Thanks, everyone. You are truly a wealth of information! Am going to go with leaves for now, I've got *lots* of them... And will try straw/hay if I can find some inexpensively. Thanks again.

Use whatever you can get your hands on. Anything is good as long as it will decompose. The trick is to leave it on top and not incorporate it into the soil. Even if you do mix it with the soil, you can still add nitrogen via the fertilizer of your choice. Weed seeds that sprout can be easily removed or cut down and laid on top.
JMO,
Tom

g'day hopefulnovice,

i'll try and raise your hopes simply.

by all means use any green type or composted material you can get, we use green type hay mulches ie.,. spolt lucerne and pasture grass hay's and sugar cane mulch they add nutrients as they break down, you can use straw but it doesn't contain the nutrients of the others and it also lasts longer.

other things we do:

we use our grey waters on our gardens, this includes kitchen water and wee water.

we also tuck our rottable kitchen scraps under the mulch on a daily basis.

and spent vege plants get pulled and roughly chopped where they once stood and get covered with mulch where they break down.

any how that's what works for us.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

Chickens will eat the seeds in hay or straw, and then you can use it for mulch? Whoopee! We have a big round haybale decomposing in the pasture and I was wondering what to do with it. Thank you, Sue! Our chickens thank you, also.