Usually by now, I have mulched my entire beds. I am a firm believer in adding leaf mold, compost, etc to make my soil better. Due to the extreme wet, I have not even attempted this.I also wonder how much a very wet bed will take up in the extra nutrients. I will say the weeds are pulling out easy, when I wade to the garden!
To Mulch or Not To Mulch
My husband and I are firm believers in mulch and I am done applying it for the spring - 45 bags of pine needles. They're easy to use and look good as they keep down the weeds and keep the soil cool.
We have six compost bins and use it for all plants, not just vegetables.
Wet springs are often followed by dry summers so I would vote for the leaf mulch for your plants.
Amen to that Pirl. Also if you have "self sowing" plants such as annual poppies ,its a good idea not to mulch in the fall after plants have sown their seeds.
i am a believer in mulch here - 20 yards of dark pine is a little over half down - raking our the old hemlock and weeding has really slowed down the progress - i know now what those folks who work the rice paddies feel like!
I try and catch a tree remover at work and get them to dump the chippings in my driveway to use for pathways and mulch. If I get a winter load - it makes great pathways - if I get a load when the tree had leaves - watch out - it gets hot sitting on the driveway and it doesn't take too long to compost itself. If I don't get chip mountain distributed by winter - it may steam in the snow. One year neighbor children tried to use chip mountain for sledding! Haha!
I absolutely love the look of pirl's pine straw mulch and am so annoyed I can't find it here. Every place seems to just carry the same boring brands of wood chip mulch. Since voles found me last year, I've switched to pea gravel in some spots, and in areas where I have things planted in vole safe containers, I used a shredded natural color pine mulch, which I prefer to the dyed ones. I don't like having no mulch because I have mostly hosta, and I hate how dirty they look when rain hits the dirt and splashes mud onto them. Mulch keeps them pretty.
Thanks for your imput. I will go ahead and do my mulch.
Noreaster - try calling Agway. Our local one doesn't carry it but one 30 miles away has it and that's where Jack goes to buy it each spring.
I have seen pirl's pine mulch and it is outstanding!
Thank you! Tons more (well, a lot) has been added.
I should call the Agways...there are three around that I know of, and they DO tend to carry different lines of garden products than the nurseries or box stores. I really want some of that pine straw mulch! It looks natural to me, which I like a lot.
Here they offer Senior Discount on Tuesdays. Maybe you and your father-in-law could work out a deal.
It also feels natural underfoot and it does hold down many weeds.
We've never seen it in any other store.
I love the look, feel and smell of pine straw.
Me, too, but today was definitely the wrong day to be spreading more of it with the winds we had. I quit right after I started fearing for my eyes.
Don't blame you. Can't get it around here either.
Maybe you can track it down...
Thanks. Never knew there was a Fargo, GA!
Bubba answers the phone!
I just went to their website, mulchmfg.com. I couldn't find it listed in their products, so I emailed them.
I'm a big believer in mulch too. I'm lucky enough to have great soil here, thanks to the pro gardener who was here for 35 years or so, until 1970. I use compost for edibles and mulch like crazy everywhere to maintain soil quality, keep moisture in and weeds out. It doesn't really work for weeds very well, this soil is incredibly fertile, but at least they're easier to pull out.
I've been using shredded pine from Lowe's this year and like it pretty well. The best I've seen is shredded licorice, it looked great and broke down beautifully, but I got one bag last year from someone who orders it in bulk and I can't find it locally. The pine straw looks beautiful, I hope I hear from them.
Pam
I much prefer ground covers, but mulch is needed until you get full coverage.
I have plain old pine needles...can I use that for mulch?
Sure! Wear gloves when you gather them.
Pirl, your pine mulch looks fabulous! I know what I'm going to be looking for this weekend! I seldom get around to mulching. I was going to try this year - had 10 yards left over from last year (that I never had time to spread) and got 10 more this spring. 20 yards won't be enough though - if I find the pine mulch I'll use that for the remaining beds.
Thanks, Christina. I've used a lot of it here on an extension of a garden to the left. Now I have it planted with numerous dahlias, Bishop's Children dahlias from seed and Cactus dahlias from seed, double pleated purple columbine, lupines, celosia, amaranthus, petunias and whatever else we had growing from seed.
That's our neighbor's house, not our own.
Hey all, just bumping in. I use salt marsh hay in the veggie garden -- I buy a few bales in the spring for the potatoes but (always) end up mulching the garden paths and in between plants with it too. As I run out of hay and the season progresses the paths get covered with spare cardboard (pizza boxes work great) and the straw moves into the beds. And of course I throw the compost all over the place too.
My perennial and annual beds are going unmulched so far this year -- new for me -- because of all of the volunteers that self seeded last fall. I've got 7 or 8 new lupines out front that I never would have met if I had tilled and mulched. Only my front porch bed is mulched traditionally (cedar). It's working for me.
we salt marsh hay the veggie garden too - about 4 bails worth
do you have to wash the salt off before use Bill?
I'm not Bill (hi, I'm Ingrid) but I do not do anything with the hay before I spread it. Hadn't occurred to me, even.
Bill I'm not far from you (Hudson). Where do you get your hay? I go to Idlewyld in Acton.
no not to far ingrid - drive past hudson on my commute each day - my in-laws pick it up at an agway in nh i believe - which is funny because the agway in littleton told me that they can not get it anymore because of an environmental thing - knew the guy was lying thorugh his teeth.