Good morning folks! Another lovely day here at my tiny house. I finally decided to show you all what happened with my garden mulching. Hopefully so you can save yourself from the same results!
Despite that, some things are doing well. Despite the problems I am eating a lot of fresh veggies. Just not as many of some things as I wanted to be able to.
The flowers and herbs are still looking amazing around the house though.
As well as around the shed. Where I'm still seeing hummingbirds and hummingbird moths visiting regularly.
And in farewell for now, a cozy fire under a cloudy evening over my house.
Hay vs straw. Hay consists of grasses that have been harvested for animal feed. Straw is the stalks of grains that have been harvested. Straw is the preferred garden mulch because it does not contain nearly the seed content that hay does. Sure there is some, but not much. Laying hay as mulch will result in a garden being overrun by grass. While some will sprout from straw, it is far less of a problem. So the general rule of thumb, never us hay for mulch.
ReplyDeleteI am very aware of the difference having grown up farming. While you can certainly mulch with straw (It does tend to come with even more chemicals due to grain crops being routinely killed with roundup so they can be harvested all at the same time.) I choose hay because I am looking to add the extra nutrients to the garden as it decomposes. It can contain more seeds for sure, but if you mulch heavily enough, none can sprout or come through so in my experience, this is not a problem. If you let the mulch thin though, you will get grass growing.
DeleteHey Ariel, about your flowers and herbs around the house, do you replant them or do you let them reseed? They look stunning and plentiful all the time!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Some of both. Somethings are perennial, some things re-seed, and some I have to replant every year.
DeleteI can't remember when you said you put the chips down in the paths (if you did say). What is the soil like under the chips now? Maybe you could use the current paths as your rows next year. Maybe add some fresh manure on top now so nutrients can leach down and the chips break down more over winter, meanwhile your soil might be really lovely under there come spring. Then your current rows can become your paths for a year or two, with more chips on them slowly breaking down all the time. I realize your current rows are wider than your paths, but this might be a great solution!
ReplyDeleteUnder the pathways, it's pretty much solid rock. I'd raked all available loose soil into the beds after initially pulling truckloads of rock out to create the garden.
DeleteAw, too bad. I don't know when you put your chips down, but might they have already broken down enough to provide their own material on top of the rocks? Only mentioning in case you were thinking of what was there before and hadn't checked it recently. (I planted under my chips, over clay, in a tiny bit of added soil per hole, before the chips had broken down, and the plants did remarkably well. Not your standard garden logic; but amazing to me)
ReplyDelete