It’s Time to Order Compost and Mulch
It’s mid-August, which means between harvest and cultivation, gardeners also need to think about the transition to fall. This includes two important stages: fertilizing with compost and mulching. There are factors to consider regarding the compost and mulch you choose, but the basic idea is the same: It’s time to figure out where your compost and mulch will come from.
Why does your garden need compost?
Two things happen in your garden beds during the summer. First, you lose nutrients in the soil as they are absorbed by the plants growing in the beds. You want to try to return nutrients to the soil, resulting in a good balance of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Compost does the job. Second, you lose soil volume in your garden beds for several reasons. When you pour new soil into your garden bed, it becomes nice fluffy; but over time it compacts under the influence of water and gravity. Also, when you take plants out of the bed, you inevitably take some of the soil from the plant’s roots with you (so you should be sure to shake those plants out as much as possible). Lastly, erosion even happens in your backyard garden. Either way, you need to top up your beds at the end of the season, and compost is a good way to do this because you get the nutrition and volume to solve both problems.
Where to get compost
In the most ideal world, you could make your own compost by combining green materials such as grass clippings with brown materials such as cardboard or twigs. They heat up, break down and create a nutrient-rich substance that looks and acts like soil. You can do this in composting bins, try vermicomposting , or do it the lazy way. The problem is that you’ll probably need more compost than you can make yourself, which means you’ll have to find some more.
A hidden trick that many people don’t know is that your city can produce compost and give it away or sell it for cheap. If you live somewhere where the city collects leaves, they may give away compost. You can usually find this out by Googling the name of your city and the word “free compost.” Don’t let the cost of compost determine its quality in your mind. After many tests, I determined that sheet compost in my city was much more effective than expensive organic compost, which cost four times as much.
Be careful when using manure.
Animal manure is often a component of commercial compost, and farmers are usually willing to give it away cheap or free on Craigslist for you to use as compost. This may seem like a great idea because manure is actually full of nutrients, but there are some issues that need to be addressed. First: there is “cold” and “hot” manure . While you can put cold manure on your garden beds right away and it won’t burn your plants, doing the same thing with hot manure will be toxic to your plants, having the opposite of the intended effect. Hot manure (cow, horse, chicken) must be composted on its own before use, and the point is not how long the manure has stood, but how much it has decomposed. Also keep in mind that since these animals are not in your care, you don’t know what they ate. If the grass they were feeding on was treated with chemicals, there is a good chance that those chemicals will not break down and end up in your plants. A few years ago in Portland, where I live, we had a big problem with organic compost containing herbicidal compounds that were killing tender vegetable sprouts. Even if you have cold compost (rabbits and ducks are good sources), you want to understand what the animals were eating and apply it carefully first to see if problems arise. You can also leave the manure compost cold to decompose.
Mulch reduces erosion, discourages weeds and keeps the soil warm.
Once you have fed all your beds with compost, you should think about mulch. I think mulch is underused as a way to preserve plant roots in both cold and heat . Mulch is an insulator, which means you can save on water costs by preventing moisture loss through the top layer of soil, it protects plants from some freezing temperatures, and it keeps soil temperatures and moisture levels more stable than without mulch. But mulch can do much more: it repels weeds by suppressing them and reduces erosion by acting like a blanket over the soil. If you plan to plant in the fall/winter, no problem: push the mulch to the side and then plant.
Where to get mulch
For most of my life, “mulch” was a homogeneous product that was thrown into your yard or bought in bags at Home Depot, and I was always deeply disappointed by the cost and lack of durability of the product. To make any difference, you need several inches of mulch on top of all your beds, and ideally it should be a product that will improve the overall health of your beds. Leaves make excellent mulch, and if you toss them into your beds in the fall instead of bagging them and putting them away, you’ll have insulation, compost when they go bad, and you’ll give leaf-dwelling insects a safe place to live. cool in winter. You can also use straw (not hay), but I think wood chips have become so easy to get (and often free) that that’s what I recommend. I use wood chips for walkways, raised beds and flower beds to provide year-round insulation. Over time, the wood chips decompose and turn into rich compost, adding amazing structure, mycelium and nutrients to the soil.
Where to get free chips
There are three ways to obtain wood chips. The first is to call your local rock garden or landscape supply center and ask about them. There is a charge for the chips as well as shipping, and the shipping costs are usually very high (so much so that I always rent a U-Haul trailer for $20 and move it myself). You can also call local tree trimming companies to schedule a removal, which shouldn’t cost anything, but may take some time.
Finally, there’s ChipDrop . Reviews are mixed about ChipDrop, which lets you sign up for free chip drops in most places in the country, but I’ve used it across the country and been pleased. (Full disclosure: I’ve been using it long enough, have been in commercials , and now know the founders.) You can exclude tree types (I ask for “hardwoods only”). A few tips I’ve learned from using ChipDrop over the years: The arborist will call you and unload your load about six minutes before he does. Answer the call and ask what is in the drop. You can always say “no, thank you.” Take a clear photo of where you want to leave space for the ChipDrop app so the driver doesn’t have to guess because he won’t come back and move it. Finally, understand that the amount of wood chips you receive will vary, but it can be as much as 15-20 cubic yards, which is a lot. However, it’s free.
By ordering these products now, you can be sure that you will have them before fall arrives, and you can gradually begin adding compost and mulch as you clear your beds for fall. It also gives the produce a little more time to cool and compost so it won’t be as hot when you use it.