GARDEN + GARDENING + GARDEN DESIGN + GARDENING TIPS & ADVICE

Mulch is defined as a substance that is spread over the soil surface to keep moisture in and weeds down. Mulch also helps to keep the soil from getting over heated or from getting too cold.

Generally, mulches fall into two categories: organic and inorganic.

Organic mulches include materials like bark, shredded leaves, composed products, pine needles, and shredded newspaper. Inorganic mulches include plastic, rock, and landscape fabric. Before placing a layer of mulch you should clear all weeds from a garden.

Last fall during my last lawn mowing of the season I spread the grass clippings from my lawn all over the top of my garden boxes.  Throught the winter the grass slowly decomposed into it’s base organic form and prevented weeds from popping up in early spring.  Now that winter is over and it’s time to get planting, I tilled in the clippings with my shovel spade and smoothed out the surface with a rake.  The soil look beautiful and is now ready for planting!  Now let’s just hope Mr. Jack Frost doesn’t pay an unexpected visit!

• Apply Organic Mulch in the Fall
• Here comes the harvest!
• Here’s the dirt on dirt

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 22nd, 2006 at 5:43 pm and is filed under Gardening General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.