Oh Rita, when you start out in the "mulch mobile", I know the end is near!!!!

Cindy

The flu interfered with my mulching this week...hopefully I'll get to it next week. sounds like you've been busy.
kay

Hope that flu is gone soon.

But I only did alittle mulching. I really had to get some of the straw down because I have all this completely bare ground from all my garden redos and new hardscape. There is much to do in terms of mulching. But before I can do too much, I have to finish the daylily moving. Didn't get much of that done these past two days.

The car I use to haul my straw and collect my bagged leaves in the fall is my 1992 Plymouth mini van which since the 2010 car moldels are out is officially 19 years old. It has only the front two seats as all the others were taken out years and years ago in order to have more cargo room. I never even go to the nursery to look at plants in my other mini van as I know myself better (as in I end up buying something) That car has all its seats, no good for getting bales of straw and I don't want it to get messed up anyway.

I've seen several people post about using straw so am curious as to whether it will break down as quickly as the regular mulch.

Julia

Hi Rita
I'm curious if the straw doesn't give you weeds, or do you mulch thick enough so no weeds could come through?

Alberta

Rita,

I will be back in mulch mode myself in a couple of weeks...waiting for the leaves to fall. I am planning on trying straw in my seedling bet this year as there are no leaves in that area...will be curious to hear your response regarding the weeds as well.

Julie

Straw is my favorite mulch. I like the fall leaves because they are free but the straw is even easier to work with. You buy it in big bales and then when you cut the ties, you easily separate it into what horse owners call 'flakes'. They are simply sections of the bale and easy to work with.

Usually I break the flake in half thickness wise and then just lay it down for coverage. You have to push some of it together if you get thin spots. If its a large area with no plants like the paths between the tomato rows, then newspaper down first, then the straw. Use less straw like this because the newspaper stops the weeds. If you need to have it last or need extra coverage then simply use the flakes as is. Lots of thickness there that lasts almost an entire year like that. Nothing gets thru a comnplete flake put down whole. Its very thick.

Yes, the earthworms love it and break it down into worm castings which look like loose soil and are a fantastic growing medium for your plants.

Usually there are no weeds if they get the timing of the cutting right and cut before seedsheads develope. Sometimes not and then you get the grassy clumps sprounting from the straw mulch. Very easily yanked up because the roots are not really inground. I just yank them and toss them right back to compost pretty much were they were, once you put the roots so they are out of the mulch, they just dry up and die.

Rita: I've read some posts about straw as a mulch and didn't see any positives to using it and that is why I asked the question of you.
I can't remember which forum here on GW they were discussing straw and someone did post about using newspaper first and then adding the straw on top.
Thanks for the clarification on how you use it.

Julia

Oh Rita, please tell me what kind of straw you use? Is it wheat straw, hay straw, oats, rye or what? Here I use wheat, and always leave it out to weather as long as I can. Then any weeds sprout, and it doesn't fly around so much when I put it down. Hay straw is the best here, but hay is too expensive here right now.

I use the newspaper with straw on top if there's lots and lots of room. Now when I want to put straw between my daylilies as mulch, no newspaper, just the straw. I no longer need to put the newspaper down in most places because they were already mulched and the straw just goes on top of what I already had.

Advantages of straw over bagged mulches are many. First off its cheaper and easier to drag around the garden, at least for me. Straw holds and stays put on a slope and I have plenty of those. Bagged mulches wash away on a hill. Even leaves don't stay that well on a steep slope, they have a tendency to have slipped down by spring. Straw always holds. You have to remember that besides the daylily beds I have a large long mixed shrub border here running along one side of my property line and wrapping around. I also have the steep planted in shrubs hill that I call Azeala hill. All that needs to be mulched and I like to do it only once a year. I put the mulch on so thickly that it lasts until the following year. I use straw or fall leaves. Last year I used leaves as I had my grass cutting guys dump two truckloads of leaves on my driveway. But I found this was really too much work so I am doing it with straw this year as its easier to drag around and get into the middle of the hill between the shrubs. I literally have to crawl in there and lay the struff down like a carpet.

The little shrews are always happy in my garden as they love it beneath the mulch hunting for earthworms and bugs.

I don't know about oats, rye, whatever. Here the only place to get straw year round is the local agway which sells for horses. Hay and alfalfa hay for horses or animals to eat. Too expensive and will sprout. Mulch hay meat for the garden but again full of seeds. Pine straw never sold around here and salt hay sometimes to be found at a local nursery but I don't like it.

I just use the bales of straw sold as horse bedding for stalls.

Thanks for the explanations Rita, :)

Alberta

Here are some pictures after I put down new straw mulch.

First the pond.

The view from the other way were you can really see the straw.

And last is a view of the hill right off the patio. I cut back some of this shrubbery so it didn't get to overgrown but that left lots of bare ground. So in with the straw mulch. I personally like the way the straw looks and it does hold on the hill.