The advantages of mulch on a vegetable garden.

[Nature's Babe]

Having tried this no-dig method, I thought y'all might like to hear the advantages of mulch on a vegetable garden.

* Helps moderate the soil temperature
* Enhances the growth of fruit and vegetables planted
* Retains moisture during dry weather, reducing the need for watering
* Reduces excessive weed growth, any that do make it through pull
out very easily, dried weeds can be add to mulch if not seeding
* Natural mulches can improve the structure of the soil
* As mulch decays it becomes topsoil adding nutrients and depth to
the soil
* Worms love it and come right up to the surface to
consume the mulch thus aerating the soil.
* In periods of heavy rain water drains into the paths.

....................3"mulch
.............m RAISED BED m
PATH m/ .........................; \ m PATH
( dots added as diagram kept compacting )

It's mportant not to walk on the beds as this compacts soil, mine are of a width that I can comfortably reach into the centre from the paths.wide beds if you have long arms. Topsoil from the paths can be used to raise the beds. If the beds have a gentle slope and flat top the sides can be planted as well as the top. when legumes, beans peas have finnished cropping I lay them on the soil and cover with more mulch, overwinter the worms will incorporate this into the soil. I grow plants in modules / loo rolls and plant in beds being careful to replace the mulch around them. In my secomnd year now I am very pleased with the condition of the soil under the mulch, it was hard clay, now very workable,with lots of worms in evidence when I plant.

Disadvantages, only one so far, I need to keep adding to the mulch as the worms take it in quite rapidly.

[MikA]

NB
Computer gremlin walking on your diagram

A couple of questions for you as It's my first year with 2 small raised beds set in gravel paths and I don't intend to dig them again.

What is your basic mulch and do you get problems with the mulch spilling onto the paths?

With 3" of mulch do you always use plants or can you sow seeds direct?

[Nature's Babe]

Hi MikA. My basic mulch is old straw chicken and duck bedding I usually apply that thickly in autumn, the rains wash it clean then in spring I top up with lawn clippings which dry when sprinkled over the straw, adding old crops, dried weeds as long as they are not seeding, all get added to the mulch. Well rotted manure goes to appropriate crops under mulch. My compost goes where needed under mulch but mostly it gets used in my potting compost to get seedlings off to a healthy start, so it gets into the ground with the plants and seived it makes good seed compost too.
If you don't have ducks and chickens we only pay £1.50 a bale for straw
so it would be a cheap way to start your mulch. I also use rootgrow when planting to encourage mycelium in the soil which benefit the plant roots and gives greater access to water and nutrients. The symbiotic relationship doesn't work with cabbage family though.
http://www.friendlyfungi.co.uk/rootgrow_how.php
Yes you can move mulch to plant seeds moving it back around them once grown enough. I only do that when rain has made the ground moist, not in drought periods. My peas were planted into compostable veg containers and when they were planted out the roots just grew down through the container with no check, they are now racing up the supports. Leek plants dibbed a hole planted puddled in and they are happily growing through mulch in a mixed bed. Cabbages are growing better than ever before through a mulch.
I was a bit impatient and planted before the soil had settled last year, in the second year I'm really seing the benefits, and they say it improves each year. Any mulch that spills i just add to the top again, but once the plants are growing they hold it in place. Garlic seems to find its way through mulch ok, and onions, plsnted mine in autumn lasr year.

[billnorfolk]

That is an interesting post Natures babe,i intend to raise my beds only by 4" have lots of rotted compost will use some in there ,what else do you make your raised beds up with just top soil ,or baged compost? Thanks Bill

[Nature's Babe]

Hi Bill, I put in some rock dust, ( mineral rich ) and some seaweed when I made the beds. I also make as much compost as I can muster, at the moment I have one large bay decomposing, another being made and two compost bins, they will be used to topdress beds and to make my own potting and seed compost, proprietry ones seem to be pretty poor at the moment, some brands contain council made compost and they do not seem very choosy what goes in it, some folk here found glass and treated wood , and chiipboard which contains some nasty chemicals. Some bagged manures gave growers problems because they contained amylopyralid which stunts growth. I just prefer not to import any problems and at least I know what goes into the compost I make. The rootgrow is permeating the beds, I have a few little fungi growing up through the straw now. I am going to try a living mulch this winter, then hoe it down to start a new mulch in the spring. Did you have a long period of drought this spring? This method really helped me through the early drought.

[Parsons Jack]

Hi NB,

What size area are you talking about here?

My allotment area is almost 400 sq. metres, and even with all the compost bays and bins that I have, I really cannot see that I could produce enough to mulch that lot.

I've also found in the past that anything piled on the surface of the soil is a haven for slugs and snails.

[billnorfolk]

Hi Bill, I put in some rock dust, ( mineral rich ) and some seaweed when I made the beds. I also make as much compost as I can muster, at the moment I have one large bay decomposing, another being made and two compost bins, they will be used to topdress beds and to make my own potting and seed compost, proprietry ones seem to be pretty poor at the moment, some brands contain council made compost and they do not seem very choosy what goes in it, some folk here found glass and treated wood , and chiipboard which contains some nasty chemicals. Some bagged manures gave growers problems because they contained amylopyralid which stunts growth. I just prefer not to import any problems and at least I know what goes into the compost I make. The rootgrow is permeating the beds, I have a few little fungi growing up through the straw now. I am going to try a living mulch this winter, then hoe it down to start a new mulch in the spring. Did you have a long period of drought this spring? This method really helped me through the early drought.

Yes we did have a long drought period,i was overenthusiastic with everything ,luckly we didnt have any late frost so with watering and compost mulching things survived.Only this last 10 days have we had any decent rain ,at the moment cool dull and damp.
So if i had enough well rotted compost could that be used to totally fill my raised beds ?or would i also need some top soil.Thanks Bill

[Nature's Babe]

Hi PJ, my veg garden is about the size of a large allotment but in permanent raised beds and paths and with fruit bushes and cane fruit along the fence.
My ducks are good predators of slugs and snails I let them loose overwinter in the day, and actually when the mulch is dry they are not a problem, before planting out any tender plants I put down a few wilted lettuce leaves laced with the organic slug pellets to catch any stray slugs or snails before they do any damage. I admit it takes a bit of planning to mulch a large area, but I started with a few mulched beds and am gradually increasing them, this year overwinter I shall grow peas, broad beans and grains, and a couple of green manures the waste from those crops will start off next years mulch and will be topped up with lawn clippings, straw and dried weeds. The worms gradually take in the mulch and that feeds the soil, the mycelium symbiotically add to the plants root capacity with a finer web of roots that go deeper and wider than the plants own roots and you get a beneficial exchange of water and nutrients for the plant from the mycelium which in return get some of the plants benefits garnered from the sun . The link I gave explains this better than I can...http://www.rootgrow.co.uk/rootgrow_how.php
When you think of it, woodland works on the same system and no one
fertilises that, new life springs up from decay, this is just adapting it for the garden. So the worms take the mulch into the soil to feed the soil, the mycelium bring up nutrients from the deeper layers that the plants coarser roots can't reach. When I first planted up the beds I added some woodland soil to the compost that I potted up my seedlings in to innocculate them with the local mycelium, and the rootgrow was just belt and braces thinking! It's so daft, we can send a man to the moon, but we still don't really understand what lies beneath our feet, some trees have multiple symbiotic relationships with mycelium !

[peter]

Topsoil is available in little bags from DIY "sheds" at about £3 for little 25L? bags.
Also available on cubic metre bags from places like Wickes, around £100 each.

So for a 1m x 5m bed size you could fill two to 10cm depth with one cubic metre bag and the lorry would dump it where it can get to only.

Remember raised beds are a recent fad, they enable TV shows to get an instant & dramatic change, but most of all they give commercial organisations to sell you something made of timber or plastic at a good profit margin

Raised beds originated with the no-tread method, fixed paths untrodden beds, regularly dug with manure & compost added, plus mulches.
Digging fluffs soil up, added stuff bulks it, hey presto bed higher than path.
Then people, as on this thread, asked what about slippage onto the paths, and answered it with waste-timber edging.

Thus back to the biggest allotment problem I see on a regular basis, cart before horse, "I've built my beds how do I fill them?" and some people go and buy dozens of bags of general purpose porting compost, often peat based and ignore the good soil they stand on.

Rant over and yes disabled access gardens are different.

[Nature's Babe]

Bill, I like that, enthusiasm is a good thing ! If it were me I would add half topsoil, which could come from path areas, or you could buy, then an inch or two of compost. I guess though it depends what your soil is like? Acid or alkaline? Sandy, clay, silt ot loam.? It might be worth
getting it analysed to see what is needed ?
If you have plenty of rich well rotted compost it might be worth saving some to enrich any compost you buy, or to make your own.
PS i agree with Peter timber and plastic can be costly and as I explained you don't need those to make raised beds. Gardening on originally heavy clay, raised beds suit my garden as it can get waterlogged in heavy rain, now my plants survive well without that problem and the raised beds are now nice deep loamy soil. That is why it is good to analyse what your base soil is like.

[Nature's Babe]

Peter, yes digging fluffs soil up but under a mulch the worms do that for me which saves labour, my soil was heavy clay but now it is much looser under the mulch, loose enough for weeds to be pulled out easily.Even with a long drought no cracking and still some moisture underneath. Before I mulched the soil would go rock hard and crack, and I would dig down and discover worms had excavated a chamber and tied themselves in a knot to conserve moisture. Under a mulch the worms are still active just under the soil, and come up to greet me when planting stuff.

[Johnboy]

Hi Peter,

Thus back to the biggest allotment problem I see on a regular basis, cart before horse, "I've built my beds how do I fill them?" and some people go and buy dozens of bags of general purpose porting compost, often peat based and ignore the good soil they stand on.

This entire charade of raised beds is ridiculous because the original meaning of 'raised bed' meant the a designated bed was formed by enclosing a bed with a timber edge and the raising bit was supposed to be a natural progression as you added manures and composts and when you had reached the top of timber enclosure you were meant to begin to take soil out to maintain that level. The whole idea was described by Lawrence Hills in the very early days of HDRA in the late 1950's.
This meant that you had a really fertile vegetable patch ready to plant just anything. Then sadly the cheats began to make artificial beds that were raised which really defeated the entire process and the soil nutrition bit went out of the window and the glossy magazines decided that to raise the beds was so infra dig that it blossomed. A sad day for real gardening. These beds were meant to be dug and composting material added.
In the mid 1930's there was Dr Shewell-Cooper who was experimenting with a no-dig system at Arkley Manor Barnet Hertfordshire and he was producing really good produce with the use of mulches and the ground was never dug. He was on Hertfordshire Clay but his beds only raised by the amount of mulch he used and some of the beds were designated and others not. This is as I imagine NB's plot with sloping sides. There is not doubt that the no dig system works well and especially over clay but when people make these high raised beds they forgo the vast wealth of nutrition that is within the clay which defeats the whole object. As it is most raised beds are totally useless as regards nutrition and if the energy expended in making raised beds were properly directed then their quality of vegetables would give them the answer.
My rant is now over!
JB.

[MikA]

Peter
Quote:
"Then people, as on this thread, asked what about slippage onto the paths, and answered it with waste-timber edging."

Johnboy
Quote:
"There is not doubt that the no dig system works well and especially over clay but when people make these high raised beds they forgo the vast wealth of nutrition that is within the clay which defeats the whole object. As it is most raised beds are totally useless as regards nutrition and if the energy expended in making raised beds were properly directed then their quality of vegetables would give them the answer.
My rant is now over!"


Folks, your rant may be over but mine is not.

The above comments are made by people presumably with large allotments and resources.

My wife and I have been gardening here on heavy clay for 14 years and know about the value of the clay when it is well worked and broken down.
Unfortunately ill health for both of us meant we could no longer work the soil as before and certainly couldn't cope with a large patch of lawn. So we took the decision to have the garden redesigned for less work but hopefully more productivity and we have achieved this.
As it is the main back garden it also had to look good. Part of the design is three small raised beds 2 metres by 1 - 1.5 metres in a trapezium shape to fit the design harmoniously, with gravel paths to take you easily around and up to the top of the garden.
As they are on a reasonable slope, the bottom one is 12" deep and has been purloined by my wife as a permanent herb bed. The middle one is 18" and the top one is 24". The top 2 are for vegetables.

We had as much as possible of our well worked soil saved and this has gone back into these beds on top of the subsoil clay which was broken up and treated with clay breaker.

I do not intend to climb on these beds but working fresh compost into the top layers is not beyond me. I may even remove some of the soil to use elsewhere and replace with fresh homemade stuff mixed with spent growbags etc.

The problem as I see it is to get the keep the top layers fully productive and let the plants and worms do the mixing in the middle layers. I don't think the original post of a three inch mulch is feasible for me - not enough resources available, but the idea is what I am grateful for.

Don't knock other peoples gardens and requirements without understanding their situation. I would like advice on maximising what I've got within the limitations stated, not implied rudeness.

Peter - I am not disabled just inconvenienced so this doesn't exonerate you.

[Nature's Babe]

Yes, Johnboy, the quality of the veg definitely shows when plants are getting adequate nutrition and moisture, when I made my beds I used the topsoil from the paths to raise the level of the beds, then topdressed with good home made compost then mulch on top. It certainly works on clay and vastly improves soil structure. The mycelium help to release nutrients and moisture from the deeper layers to the plants.

[Nature's Babe]

MikA, i wish you well with your garden, great to see you continuing to garden despite setbacks,and it sounds like you are succeeding with a productive and attractive area. We all choose the methods that suit our gardens and ourselves best, that is essential to good gardening to observe, respond, and nurture what we have that is good, and works for us; no one should criticise you or anyone for that, and I hope you find something helpful in this thread. Instead of changing tired soil consider a green mulch such as caliente mustard as a way of improving structure and combatting pest and other problems
http://www.plantsolutionsltd.com/caliente.htm
I for one would love to see more tolerance for different ideas here, so please don't be put off.
PS, i like your use of the word productive, I expect productivity in my garden too.