I used to mulch with leaf and cuttings but this year I had the worst problem with slugs and snails and since I don't use pesticides and beer was getting too expensive a bait, I tilled the mulch and they are almost done composting. Because the soil has more compost now and I mix flowers and vegetables in my garden in close proximity, I am not wasting too much water(i think). I must add though that when I mulched last year, the growth was much faster.

I covered my entire garden (planted the following: tomatoes, squash, beans, okra, peppers, corn, onions, eggplant, cucumbers) with fine, well composted compost.

As I planted each section of plants, I placed wet newspaper all around the plant (away from the stem)but covering all the ground and then I covered it all with composted mulch. I have had virtually no weeds and no issues with bugs. (except the occasional squash bug, which I hunt every day. I believe that it holds in the moisture, of course the newspaper will break down adding OM to the soil as well as the compost when it sinks in.

You don't mulch anything small seeded, such as carrots or radishes or any of the smaller salad greens. The rest, IMHO, is best mulched. Even though mulch may be marginally useful for the particular veggie this year, it does contribute to the long term quality of your garden, by burying weed seeds, adding organic matter, and motivating the worms to break the soil. I just picked some lettuce I had seeded in a bare patch, and it was irritatingly gritty. The other one, grown atop a leaf mold mulch, is pristine. Likewise, tomatos above mulch resist diseases better. And of course you save water, time, and fertilizer.

The slugs can be fought with Sluggo, which contains iron phosphate (a fertilizer) as the active ingredients. A bigger problem with mulch are voles, at least at my site. There is also the issue of which mulch to use, which requires long term planning. If you use wood chips, for example, you have to be sure that for the next two years you will plant veggies that are wood chips compatible. If you use grass clippings under, say, tomatoes, the weeds will still be able to come up later in the season.

What about that shredded pine bark mulch stuff? would that be ok?

I also have a bag of mushroom compost -- would that be useful?

Leisa

I cover any ground that is bare. I use a mix of straw and dried grass clippings. Usually I rake away my mulch in early spring so the soil warms and the slugs and earwigs find shelter elsewhere. I do mulch very lightly once I plant stuff out to prevent neighbor cats from seeing fresh soil and doing their business. Once plants are growing very well and around first week of June then I start laying it down heavy. That goes for any kind of bed in my yard :)

I use grass clippings and straw in my tomato patch. No weeds if you mulch deep enough...good prep to start makes a big diff though :)

Vera

I have previously not thoroughly mulched my garden because of the large slug population (meaning lots of large slugs) in my area, but try different methods each year. (There's already a LOT of iron in my soil, so I go sparingly with the iron phosphate- plants can get too much iron!)So I have tried the various "in between" methods you have mentioned and my parents alway put their mulch in the paths, not directly around the plants. They grow amazing veggies... mine are fine, but theirs are amazing!

Mulch is good. Sometimes it brings pest problems if certain other things are happening too. :) And some mulching materials are better than others for different areas, as others have said! So, if you were to ask "how much of which mulch should I use?" I think the answer would be "what are you going to grow there, what are prevailing weather conditions in your area like, and what do you want the mulch to do for your garden?" Don't you just love a question that is answered with a question?? But then once you answer those questions, you can probably get concrete answers (although you will still find many diverse opinions! :) )

Cheers!

Sunni

I didn't mulch much in the north -- primarily due to lack of free, on-site materials. Sometimes I used black plastic. My fall leaves were always piled on the garden and tilled in come spring. But where I was the soil needed all the sun it could get to be warm enough.

Here in NC, I'm working bit by bit to cover my garden in leaves and pine straw -- since the soil gets blistering hot and the sand is waterproof anyway. I'm about out of last year's leaves, but I've got one neighbor contributing grass clippings from his unsprayed yard and the pines will shed their straw about the time the grass clippings have disintigrated.

Pine straw isn't really good to till in because its very slow to decay. DH is considering burning it off -- a natural and ecologically appropriate solution in this area because the Sandhills are, as the park people put it, a fire ecology.

I suspect that people who are not in an area where fire is part of the natural ecology ought to till in their mulch instead.

i always mulch, a garden without mulch becomes unhealthy, dry, hot, and devoid of organic matter, as well as biological soil activity which benefits plants

I lay down newspaper around and in-between my tomato cages, then pile grass clippings ontop of that. So the ground inside the cage is bare. I do get some weeds there, but I just pull them when they get obnoxious. This is my first year with a much bigger garden with direct seeded herbs and things like spinach and lettuce and as of now I have nothing on the ground. But I'm noticing weeds startig to sprout so I have to do something. I'll probably go with the grass clippings still, but I'm not sure I have enough to cover everything.

I'm going to buy a shredder - anyone have any recommendations for one? - and I'm going to start shredding my fall leaves and use those for mulch in the "woodland" area of my perennial borders and if I have enough, use them for the veggie garden as well, but that's not happening now, obviously!

I do have a compost pile, however, but don't you get weeds sprouting from compost just sitting ontop of the ground?

Lisa

Yes I mulch everything that I can. Where I can, I lay down newspapers and pile the mulch on top of that...

I mulch everything. I mostly use wheatstraw, which I buy locally for 3.50/bale. I use about 5-6 inches.
I collect large quantities of leaves from my Mom's house since she has 11 large oak trees in her yard. She still believes that I am such a good son for blowing and raking her leaves, so don't expose me as the blatant opportunist that I really am.
I compost some and leaf mold others. I have a friend who supplies me with a small dump truck load of turkey "guano" each year, so I mix half of the leaves with that and table scraps/compostables. The leaf mold station I just rototill once a month and let it go. I mulch a couple of raised bed with that and top with fresh leaves, or straw.
Seems to be working good.

A note:

If you don't have a source of really hot manure like tiny1's turkey gauno composting oak leaves is like trying to compost plastic chips.

In my former home in DE I had a yard full of oak and I left behind compost piles that were 4 years old and still just a pile of shredded leaves -- despite regular turning and the use of green weeds, grass clippings, and the occasional infusion of goat shed bedding from a friend who cleaned out the deep litter once every 18 months when he had time.

I mulch every bit of bare soil. I see it as being a necessity.

The planting beds are mulched with grass clippings, since I have those for free, and the paths are mulched with wood chips. The grass clippings are tilled in at the end of the year, and the wood chips are left and just topped off every now and then as they slowly decompose. The idea is to have something semi-permanent over the paths that I don't till up anyway, and the beds get something that decomposes fast to add organic matter every year.

I find it makes a big difference in both weeds and watering. I live in a drought prone area, and my plants are MUCH happier when their roots are under a thick layer of mulch. The soil surface under mulch is significantly cooler and moister than any soil that's exposed to the sun.

I also think it mimics natural conditions a bit better, and I figure Nature has been doing this a bit longer than me, so she should know what she's doing.