Monday, December 2, 2013

Choose your mulch carefully


This autumn, winter and spring I had a shocking amount of grass growing in the vegetable beds. Shocking because I hadn't had this problem in the previous years. Now I have always had a bit of grass, that’s to be expected. But this year it was just excessive and strains of grass that I don’t normally see around our garden. In fact a number of visitors asked if we were growing wheat.

I initial blamed the horse poo I was collecting from a local stable, and I even gave the chickens a stern talking to as it is their responsibility to eat any stray seeds. But then one day when I was at the fodder store collecting some more barley straw to mulch the next bed with, the store keeper this time asked: “What are you using it for?” After I replied “garden mulch” she laughed and said: “Oh, you don’t want to use barley or wheat straw in your garden. You will have nothing but grass growing. You want to use pea or sugarcane straw for that.” Of course! I thought while mentally slapping my forehead and feeling like an idiot. At least the cause of the problem had been found.


Attracted to the certified organic labeling I initial tried sugarcane straw. I did however find as it is cut into short 1cm pieces it requires allot to give a nice  thick cover. As a result I switched to using pea straw - thick and spongy. Would you believe this is what I used though all the previous years. Sometimes you just have to try new things to simply learn why the old way was best.

11 comments:

  1. You can still get a crop of peas from the pea straw, but at least you can eat them! I don't use pea straw any more but I'm still growing the peas I collected from that original mulch. They're a much better variety than any of the ones I've bought.

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    1. I tend to pull the peas out - they are so much easier than grass. I assumed they would be non-viable. What sort of mulch do you use now?

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  2. Hi Jason I would like to use mulch but the blackbirds just throw it everywhere. How do you avoid this problem? Cheers c

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    1. The blackbirds throw my straw around as well. But they don't seem to be particular with the type of straw - they happily toss it around no matter what it is. I will admit it does create a mess and sometimes they do damage to newly planted out seedlings. However as my garden shows very minimal effect from insects I believe that some of this maybe contributed to the blackbirds. So in my garden they are welcome and I have come to accept cleaning up after them.

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    2. Yes it's the damage more than the mess that bothers me. But you're right, they are good friends to have in the garden. Will just adopt your more philosophical approach! cheers c

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  3. I've had the same problem and switched to leaves. In fall the city just piles them in unused corners (edge of the forest, etc.) and you can go and get as many as you want. And In spring you go and get the best composted soil!
    Pea straw sounds awesome, I wonder if I can get that here. Since peas are nitrogen fixing, the straw might also have a higher amount of nitrogen, giving you some added bonus.

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    1. Great resourcefulness! I have often thought about using the leaves that collect in my street - not for mulch but compost. My fear is that they would be contaminated with petroleum from the cars and road.

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    2. I've raked leaves from the street to use as mulch or compost, and didn't worry about road pollution. It wasn't a busy street, though.

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    3. Like most toxins in our food I find it hard to know how much toxin is present and what level is harmful anyway? For all I know the pea straw I get could be covered in pesticide.

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  4. Just discovered your blog - wonderful reading. I actually purposely put things like this in our garden because when the chicken tractor goes over the top , the chooks love the extra seeds! You just grew your own chook food - no mistake there.

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    1. Welcome Kim. You make a good point - throwing seeding plants in the chicken tractor is of benefit. I however apply additional mulch after the tractor has moved on. But you have got me thinking... maybe I could get the chickens to spread the extra mulch? I do have two issues to overcome with that: 1. The garden is on a slope and the mulch ends up at the bottom, 2. I lay irrigation under the mulch.

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