I'm just surprised you talked him into giving it to you it if was supposed to be reserved for the parks and recreation board.

Where you use it depends on how you use it. If you are going to put it directly on top of the ground, then yes, I think stuff will sprout in it.

The only way to avoid that would be to put down a layer of something between the ground and the soil/mulch mix. That "something" could be newspapers laid 12-20 pages thick, cardboard, or woven (not perforated) landscape cloth fabric. That layer will keep anything that sprouts in the soil/compost mix from rooting down into the soil underneath up to a point, but you'll still have to pull up whatever sprouts because eventually the roots can work their way down through the newspaper, cardboard or woven cloth landscape fabric.

Mulch in and of itself, of course, never means that you'll never have weeds--just that much of the weed activity is suppressed, weeds that sprout in the mulch are easier to pull than those that are in the ground, the ground is kept cooler and the bed has a more finished look. Mulching never stops either. The mulch breaks down and continually replenishes the soil so you keep having to add mulch on top of old mulch. I add mulch to one garden bed or another almost every week during the growing season.

I'd go ahead and use the stuff I picked up as mulch immediately because, if you don't, then you run the risk that rain and wind are going to start blowing/washing away the soil in the soil/mulch mix. Wherever you use it, it will keep weeds down somewhat but weeds eventually will sprout and, at that point, you can pull them up before they get big and then go back and get plain wood chips to lay on top of the wood/soil mix.

I hope your husband can just relax and tolerate the piles for a while. Creating a nice landscape takes time and all those piles that might seem a little unsightly now are an investment in your yard's future beauty. That's why I call my husband long-suffering...because he tolerates my piles and my experiments and, whenever there is a crisis, he drops what he is doing to shoot a venomous snake, rescue a guinea from the talons of a hawk, cover up tomato plants in the face of an impending frost, repair a fence that a deer has crashed into (but not sailed over!), etc. Sometimes I think non-gardening spouses have to be the most patient people on earth. Of course, he gets to be the "good guy" too, carrying tons of excess produce to work to share with his co-workers, which makes him a "hero" in their eyes.

Dawn

I didn't threaten him, bribe him or do much of anything except insist that *that* pile was the stuff I wanted him to put in the pickup. I think he figured it was easier to just load me up than argue about it and that one scoop didn't really matter much. It wasn't like there was a shortage of materials. There were mountains of shredded wood! I was really surprised there was so much! I had the impression, from the guy at the front gate and the loader, that very few people pick up there. There were five or six people dropping off while I was there and no one else picking up.

I don't expect the stuff I picked up to sprout any weeds. It looks very clean, as clean as the finished compost I bought from Gem Dirt.

After a bit of thought about your post and a similar answer I got from a post over in the soil/compost forum, I have a question about how wood chips suppress weeds. Hypothetically, if I had wood chips, should I be putting down newspaper/cardboard/landscape fabric under them too? I thought they supressed weeds by creating a surface, an upper/top surface, that any seeds that blew onto it couldn't grow on, because the surface was wood. It sounds like you're saying the stuff that blew onto the compost might root and that having a barrier would make it easier to pull. Would that be something I'd have to worry about (at least, worry about enough to be worth putting down newspaper and such) with wood chips?

Are the wood chips suppressing weeds because the seeds that blow in are sitting on wood and they dry out, or is it something else?

If wood chips remained wood chips, you wouldn't have to worry as much about something sprouting in them, but they begin decomposing rather quickly after they are put in the beds. And, weed seeds can still blow into the open areas between wood chips and can sprout. It's just that any weeds that sprout are less likely to root in well before you find them and pull them. In our hot and sometimes humid climate, wood chips can break down relatively quickly and they break down into compost, so any weed seed that blows down into that compost is likely to sprout, but will be easy to pull nonetheless. Even if you wood chips were a solid slab of wood, weed seeds could sprout and grow in the cracks or crevices in the wood.

Basically, the wood chips put a barrier between airborne or rainborne weed seeds and the soil so they block most germination that way. Then, anything that sprouts in the middle of the chips may or may not live long enough for the roots to get down into the soil and grow. If the wood chips are several inches deep, weed seeds that sprout near the top often dry up and die before their roots can penetrate all the wood chips, find soil and root in well enough to absorb water.

I almost always put a barrier between any kind of soil and the mulch and find it is almost essential here in our location. You have to remember our place is "downhill" from the place south of us so that we get lots of weed seeds carried in from those pastures every time it rains or every time the wind blows out of the south. How much weed seed will or will not be carried onto your place depends on the topography of the surrounding land, the prevailing winds, etc.

So if I use a mulch that stuff can grow in normally, like this very decayed wood chip/soil mixture, or compost, then all I'm getting is the moisture retention and temperature moderation functions, without much in the way of preventing new weeds. Though it will be somewhat helpful in keeping weeds/seeds already in the soil under it from germinating, or at least from getting light if they require light to germinate.

Okay. So what I've got is ... useful, but not what I was intending to get or really even what I need. And it sounds like there's no harm at all to adding more wood chips later, especially around the trees.

Well, you are getting both moisture retention and the moderation in soil temperatures but you also do have a greatly reduced incidence of weed seed sprouting. Nothing gives total weed control, although a heavy-duty woven landscape fabric covered with those artificial rubber mulches made to look like bark chips might come closest. Even with those artificial mulches, though, wind and rain will carry small particles of soil into the mulches and seeds could sprout in them.

What you have is very useful. I refer to that kind of mulch as a "feeding mulch" because it is slowly feeding your soil and improving it on a continual basis. Adding more mulch is always good up to a point. I mean, I wouldn't put 10" down, but just continually add enough to keep two to four inches of mulch on the ground at all times. That alone will keep most weeds out.

I mulch the entire veggie garden heavily, heavily, heavily, year-round. In a way, the winter mulch is more helpful than the spring/summer mulch because it keeps the winter weeds from sprouting. When it is time for me to plant my veggie garden, I don't have to till the soil--just rake back the mulch and plant. If places where I have had heavy mulch, I have almost zero weeds.

The only thing I don't like about heavy mulch is that it keeps some plants from self-sowing. For example, I used to get lots and lots of volunteer herb seedlings from plants like borage, chives, basil, lemon balm, catmint, catnip, dill, parlsey, etc., but the heavy mulch pretty much has put a halt to that. So, to compensate I only put light mulch on the mixed cottage border that surrounds the veggie garden. That is good because it allows the flowers and herbs there to reseed, but is also means I have tons more weeds to pull and dig in early spring. So, mulch is mostly good and absolutely essential, but it also has an occasional drawback.

That's awesome. I've got it around my hosta, banana trees and roses. I'm still struggling with the fruit trees. I went out and looked over how the parks department did it. I have to return the wheelbarrow tomorrow. But at least I got the lawn mowed today and the two cherokee purple tomatoes my grandfather gave me (traded him some cannas for them) in the ground.