Mulches can help prevent soil erosion by 1) slowing the fall of rain and spreading that out more, and 2) by keeping the wind from picking up soil particles and moving them around. Compost and other types of organic matter can be laid down on top of the soil and, eventually, the Soil Food Web will move that material into the soil for you. That mix will be better all around than you can by tilling the same material in with much less effort on our part, however, this is just not as fast as you can, better just not as fast. Soil warming may be somewhat dependant on what soil type you have. My sand warms in the spring with no problem even when covered with a thick mulch layer. I have seen no problem with plants growing when they are supposed to and some people I correspond with around the world report the same experience while a few do say they need to pull back the mulch to warm the soil. But if you have a planting bed covered with mulch and you pull back a 6 inch wide swath to plant in does logic tell you that the soil in that bed will really warm up enough to encourage plant growth? If you removed all of the mulch that probably would happen and the soil moisture would be evaporated faster drying the soil out more. As a rule organic matter in soil will alter the structure so that in clay type soils water will move more freely while in sandy soils water will be held in the soil longer, but this has no affect on your water table. The water table is where the water flowing through your soil is at various times during the year and in the snow belt that rises, normally, in the spring and then falls during the dryer summer. There is always water flowing under your feet, even in the desert, even though it may be many feet down. That water table, the aquifer, is where those of us with wells get our water from. Adding organic matter to your soil will have no affect on where your water table is at any given time, that is determined by how much water is flowing through your soil from all around you. Oats and many other grains are reputed to have allelopathic properties (growth suppressing), while they are growing but may not keep that property once cut down, although some seem to do just that for a time. Some research seems to indicate that the more organic matter in the soil the stronger this property is.

I saw the potting mix when we were there and plan to get some next time. Probably a half a yard to keep in a pile somewhere. They were pretty amused at the number of times we came back today. I didn't till the compost in much but used a hard rake to mix it in a bit. It is right on top of mostly fine builder's sand. In a few months when we go to plant I'll rake back the mulch and take a look. I'll mix it up a bit more then if it looks like it needs it. Sure, I'll take the anise. Thanks. It is what I plan to plant on the north side. I'll probably end up buying some too but can mix these in with those when I plant in the spring or just keep them a while in pots and plant them somewhere else. Lord knows I have the room. I am off of work for a whole week. I'll email you about when to pick them up. Are they potted or do I need to get over to get them quickly to pot them? M

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

Think of the mulch as if it were plastic, it retains moisture and keeps weeds down. I use chips for most larger crops: tomatoes, beans, peas, peppers, and the like. for large transplants I'll lay a bed about 3-4" deep along the row, scrape a 6" diam. hole at the planting site and dig the soil for the rootball. I leave the chips scraped away from the stems of the plants to make a well. for direct seed crops like beans I lay a bed maybe 2-3" deep and either plant into holes in the mulch or hoe a strip down the middle clear to soil and plant just barely into the soil, covering with a layer of chips. The method works well for me because there is very little tilling at the beginning of the season, when spring rains (we have had 3" this week) really wreck a tilling schedule. Less tilling makes for less weed seeds turned up, and those that are get smothered by the chips. As the season progresses, the chips do a tremendous job of holding in moisture to reduce irrigating. I find that with well ground chips, as fall comes around and even overwinter, they have broken down very well. There will allways be a few random larger wood pieces that didn't break down, which I will either rake into the path and rebury, or just till in. I largely do only fall tilling to incorporate soil amendments. My garden is on the small side, but I try to use larger scale production methods as they afford the best return on my time investment. I do all rows, raised slightly, irrigation hoses, and mulch rather than plastic. The mulch works great if its available. I have not noticed a problem with tying up soil nutrients, possibly because the chips are on the soil surface and not incorporated until they are much more decomposed. I haven't had my plants tested, but i figure if they are green, vigorous and productive, they are doing what I hired them to do.