imafan26
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Garden mulch

I went to my garden today. I had spread some mulch earlier (mostly of dried tree trimmings) around my beans to keep the weeds down. When I dug in the soil there was a lot of what looks like fungal threads.

I know this is part of the decomposition process. But is it o.k .to plant in it or do I have to wait awhile or scrape it off?

Another question is that I want to mulch my vegetable beds to keep the moisture in but the weeds down?

I am limited in what I have available.

I have newspaper

The community garden has tree trimmings. It is dry but not composted. I have gotten some of my worst weeds from using the trimmings. I can use this only at the community garden as I don't want to bring weeds or centipedes to my house that I don't have right now. This is the garden where I saw the fungal threads.

I have worms, but I do not have the space for a regular compost pile. I also don't have enough material. The weeds I have are perennial, unless I bag them till they get stinky and sloppy, they actually thrive in the compost pile. I have only succeeded with worm and bag composting (anaerobic).

I leave grass clipping on the grass to mulch it. The grass has nut sedge.

If I buy compost, what kind?

I have N'rich, and I have used amend. I don't like either product much. I have used Big R, corn grows well in it, but it dries out a lot.

I have used the city compost. It is o.k. for root crops and cabbages, but the tomatoes and other leaf and fruiting crops did better in peatlite. I used a lot. 4-6 inches have bee added to a very sticky clay soil.

veggiedan
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This may not be relevant where you live, but over the years I've become more and more dependent on leaf mulch. My lot is mostly shaded (except for a garden area out front), with oak, cedar elm, hackberry, etc, and it ALL comes down in the winter, and even into the spring as the new leaves come out.

My strategy is to dig fallen leaves into beds in January, and by April they are pretty well broken down, at least enough that seedlings can get started easily. Dig a trench, pile in dry leaves, and cover. Moisten occasionally. Roots don't mind doodling through half-broken down leaves. One more season and they are indistinguishable as leaves. This may well not work in a colder climate, but it does here (8b). Your raised beds get noticeably higher each year.

I also pile the leaves, and run the mower over them, creating wonderful mulch. That goes on top of everything. Just make piles of the stuff, and scoop it up when you need it. It does NOT have to be composted. I guess you could dig the mowed leaves into your trenches, but that's just more trouble.

Now, leaves are really lightweight, so it takes a lot of leaves. But I've got 'em.

imafan26
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Where I live, I don't get much leaf mulch. The plumeria trees have plumeria rust so I cannot use them and the bilimbi is not a deciduous tree. Palms do not make good mulch. I have ti leaves but they are quite big and also have rust, so I don't know if that will work. The ti rust may not affect the vegetables as they are usually different species, so maybe that is possible.

I'll try to look around and see where else I might be able to get more leaves. If I can find a few sources, I'll try it. I might be able to cut branches off the mock orange hedge and pile them up, they drop leaves readily after they are cut.

Do I have to treat the leaves in any way, like let them sit awhile to dry, wet them, etc.?

In a tropical climate, it is mostly alien trees that are deciduous. Most tropicals will drop a few leaves, or in the case of palms one big one every once in a while, but there is not normally a massive leaf drop.

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I rake up the leaves in autumn, then place them in big plastic bin bags and I seal the bags ....

in a year's time, they have rotted down completely, and I then add that as a mulch around bedding plants/shrubs. This year, I will be adding some to my compost bins

I do not use oak leaves or leaves from pine trees (acidic leaves)

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rainbowgardener
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I like leaves too, because I am also in a climate where we have lots of deciduous trees. But I also use pulled weeds for mulch. I would imagine in tropical year-around gardening situation, weeds would be one thing you have plenty of. I prefer green mulches for veggies when I can get them. If you can find a cheap source of alfalfa hay, it is great, but I often can't find it cheap enough.

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applestar
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Have you been reading the hugelkultur threads? Don't remember if I saw you there.
I tend to feel the mycelia from the tree trimmings are a good thing. As long as they are benign, these fungi will outcompete or at least compete with any malicious fungal spores. They help to break down the trimmings and release nutriens that the plants can use. It creates a chain of soil foodweb.

Some of them may even be symbiotically beneficial to the plants you are growing.

Since I have 1) disposed of spent/used oyster and shiitake mushroom substrates in the garden and compost 2) tried a couple of loosely interpreted hugelkultur experiments, 3) started using potting mix and organic fertilizers tht have added beneficial mycorrhizae, any woody organic matter in the soil (and cardbaord used to suppress weeds) quickly develop mycelial growth. 8)

As for mulch, you said you have newspapers -- so sheets of newspaper then mulching material that would hold down the papers and hide them? I was thinking palm fronds (the grassy narrow leaves removed from the ribs) would look nice. WHY don't they make good mulch?

veggiedan
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Actually, although it might make a mess, running your lawnmower over newspaper might give you some good bury-able (compostable) mulch that, after a season, would be broken down well enough to dig up and layer on top. The trouble with newspaper in the garden is mainly that the sheets are somewhat impermeable to water when layered. If you bury a dozen-page section, you're going to dig it up in page order a year later. Sure, you could use output from a document shredder as well, but you aren't going to be feeding newspaper into a shredder.

As to acid leaves, that isn't an issue for me. My soil is alkaline, and under it is cliche-limestone.

I used to live in Hawaii, but didn't do gardening there then. I would have though that plumeria rust was a compost issue only if you were going to use it around plumeria.

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LA47
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Actually, we've put our newspapers through the paper shredder all winter. 4 full sheets folded in half go through easily and quickly. We plan on putting it, and chopped leaves, in the garden paths and cover them with chipped wood or cardboard. Then next year it should be mostly composted and we should be able to rake it up on the garden beds. That's our plan anyway but, to be honest, we haven't tried it before.

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applestar
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COOL! :D the Updated forum has a new feature that tells you when someone has posted while you are composing your own reply and gives you a chance to revise your message :()

LA47 -- I think cardboard should go on the bottom.

-- now what I was going to say --

What you want to do before applying any kind of mulch for the first time is to thoroughly water the soil underneath. Then ideally, you spread moistened mulch.

The idea is to KEEP IN the moisture. (It's kind of like skin care. You hydrate, then apply moisturizer :wink:)

After that, the mulch layer in direct contact with the soil will hopefully remain damp and it's OK to pile additional dry mulch on top.

IMHO Mulch has two main functions
1) suppress weeds
2) help conserve water
Other functions are to insulate the soil to keep cool or warm depending on the season, break down to feed the soil foodweb and/or aethetics.

Choice of mulch will sometimes depend on the desired effect.

veggiedan
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I was just thinking that shredders are somewhat more delicate than lawnmowers, requiring regular lubrication and occasional unjamming. Of course, you need a decent shredder. But your strategy seems a reasonable one. But of course the big advantage of shredders is that the shred ends up in a bag, and not potentially scattered all over the yard as it might with a mower.

But I think the bottom line is that newsprint, properly prepared, should be an excellent mulch. I have not tried it myself, but might just do that in the late summer, well before the leaves fall.

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rainbowgardener
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veggiedan wrote:
But I think the bottom line is that newsprint, properly prepared, should be an excellent mulch. I have not tried it myself, but might just do that in the late summer, well before the leaves fall.
I don't know. Check out this thread,

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... p?p=293260

where toxcrusader, who is quite knowledgeable about such things says paper is not a very rich mulch ingredient, being wood with most of the content removed, leaving mainly fiber.

Also if you read Teaming With Microbes, which we discussed in the Book Club section, he really recommends green (making more bacterial, N rich soil) mulches for veggies/annuals and wood chip type mulches (making more fungal, C rich soil) mulches for shrubs and trees.

I think it partly depends on how you conceptualize the purpose of the mulch. If it is just about suppressing weeds/ conserving moisture, anything will do, including plastic weed barriers. If it is also about feeding your soil, then I think richer/greener mulches are better. I don't fertilize at all except by adding some compost and lots of mulch, so I definitely think of the mulch as it breaks down as part of my soil feeding program.

veggiedan
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I use mulch to (1) loosen the soil and give it texture that is most permeable for roots, (2) moisture absorbance and retention. That being said, the fiber is exactly what I want. But I do agree that if you want nutrients as well as structure, green (or onetime green, such as dry leaves) content is more immediately useful.

The newspaper fiber itself (which is mostly lignin) does break down into good things that plants can consume, but it takes longer to break down than green content. Actually, wood chips are mostly lignin.

But if you have a bed that ends up being 10% newspaper (that's a LOT of newspaper!), you aren't going to miss the nutrients you aren't getting from it.

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applestar
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The way I see it, If you're going to take the trouble to put something there anyway, why bother putting down stuff that doesn't take care of the other things? :P

imafan26
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Thanks for all the great advice

I am using newspapers at home instead of weed block for weed control. It does suppress weeds for awhile and decomposes so I just add new layers. Since I am using the newspapers in areas where I keep potted plants, I don't really know if the soil is getting any better. I still have problems with the slugs and snails, but I would have that anyway and the newspaper gives them fewer hiding places than other kinds of mulch.

Palm fronds don't chip well, they shred instead so it is hard to get them into small enough pieces. Palms and coconut are notoriously slow in decomposing. It may take up to two years for coconut husks to decompose so it is not something anyone wants to add to compost. Coconut husks do make pretty good rafts for orchids though.

I might try bagging the weeds and leaves that I have. I have done bag composting before. It does not make much and it is anaerobic, but it is very fast and it is unlikely that the weeds will regrow (except nut sedge). I could also machete my squash vines and leave that on top of the soil. It should be similar to using grass clippings. Squash vines are the largest most renewable biomass that I have. It won't be long lasting mulch but it might provide some nutrients.

One of the articles I read said to use newspapers as a weed barrier and put the mulch on top. That way the mulch will keep the newspapers down and the newspapers will block the weeds. Seedlings could be planted through the mulch and newspaper. It did say to make sure the soil underneath the newspaper was thoroughly wet first.

I also read that wood chip mulch was fine as long as it stayed on top. If the wood chips got worked into the soil, then the decomposing wood chips would compete with the plants for nitrogen.

Hay bales of any kind are not really easy to get unless I go to Waimanalo about 25 miles away. It might be hard to get it into my Honda.

I did try alfalfa pellets. Sam's club sold them in bags. Once in awhile they will carry them, but they don't stock them regularly.

I can grow alfalfa as a green manure, but I usually do buckwheat or cowpeas. Buckwheat is ready to cut down in 6 weeks and adds biomass to the soil and cowpeas, (aka black eyed peas) are easy to get seeds for (1 already have a couple of pounds and they are also edible.

veggiedan
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applestar wrote:The way I see it, If you're going to take the trouble to put something there anyway, why bother putting down stuff that doesn't take care of the other things? :P
I guess that goes for anything one puts in a garden. Why bother watering if the water doesn't contain nutrients or mulch?

But I think the question was what could be done for someone who had limited resources, one of which was newspapers. The answer was that newspapers could help if used properly, and won't give you weeds. I would suspect that since the lignin doesn't break down fast, newspaper isn't going to eat a lot of soil nitrogen.

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applestar
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I don't believe we're in disagreement :wink:
:arrow: https://helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewto ... 21#p294021

veggiedan
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Yes, we are in agreement.

I think it's important to keep in mind that while newspaper as mulch doesn't provide the nutrients that green compost does, it still may have some value as a garden amendment. Especially if you have a hard time getting a significant amount of green compost.

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ElizabethB
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As a landscaper I found the best mulch for weed control is a VERY thick layer of pine straw. It looks messy at first but quickly packs down and the needles mesh together and serve as an excellent weed block. The straw decomposes slowly. Excess acid has never been an issue. I have also used thick layers of pine straw for garden paths. Once it packs down it is a lovely, natural mulch that actually works for both weed control and water retention.

imafan26
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I have only seen pine bedding that is sold for guinea pig bedding, put I don't think I have seen pine straw.

I have used pine needles in the herb garden as mulch. It works very well at controlling weeds. It doesn't stop everything, but it keeps it down to a minimum. It is acidic, but it breaks down so slowly it does not matter for most things. That particular garden has a pH of 7.8 anyway, so it can use a bit of acidity. I also like the pine needles there because it does not pack down and block air and water the way that the tree mulch does. It does harbor a lot of roaches. When I water they start crawling out enmass.

I did have some problems with pine needles with garlic. The garlic grew fine until I mulched them with the pine needles and then the garlic died. Now, I know not to mulch the garlic when I plant them.

Pine needles have some tanins I guess that can interfere with some plants. Most of the plants in the herb garden aren't affected, so I just have to be careful with the few that are.

I would not really use pine needles though on my home garden that has a pH of 6.4.

I have used orchid media, to fill holes and I used some of it to mulch the ornamental beds only. Old orchid media is usually full of bacteria and fungi, and not the good kind. Botrytis, phythoptora, anthracnose, and various fungi, and ferns will grow in orchid media. I do not use a lot of chemicals on my orchids, ( I don't win cultural awards for the way I grow them), but there would be residual fertilizers (osmocote, nutracote for the most part.) The media is a mixture of hapuu fern, fir bark, sphagnum moss, black cinders, and dirt from the breakdown of the media plus what gets trapped by the wind and dead organic matter (roots). I have tried to clean the media by bleaching it. New orchid media is treated either by soaking in physan ($58 a gallon here) or 10% bleach solution, it does not work for old media to be reused with orchids.



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