Hi Mrsfrodo!

I have used cedar mulch in my garden at times, right around the tomato and pepper plants, and never found that it decreased the fruiting of the plants.

I think the issue with wood mulch is when it is directly rototilled into the soil to increase organic matter. In this case, the decomposition process can tie up some of the nitrogen in the soil, but that still shouldn't affect the fruiting of the plants.

As far as finding straw in OKC, you might want to check the yellow pages and call a few feed stores. I can usually find straw (which is generally sold as livestock bedding) year-round at the feed stores here, but hay (generally sold as feed) is more seasonal--easy to find in the fall through the spring but harder to find in the summer. I assume that during the summer months, the feed stores can't sell enough hay to make it worth carrying it, since most ranchers have their animals eating pasture grasses at that time. Sometimes, if you ask, the feed stores have old or spoiled hay they'll sell as "mulch hay" at a reduced price as it is no longer good as livestock feed.

The only rap I've heard about cypress mulch has been from other garden webbers who don't like the way it packs down or something.

Using mulch on the veggie garden will not only reduce the amount of watering you do, it will keep your soil cooler than the unmulched soil around it. In Texas it was found that bare garden soil in mid-summer could reach 120 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Mulched soil with 3 inches of mulch was found to be about 30 degrees cooler than the unmuched soil.

As a bonus, as the mulch slowly decomposes it is enriching your garden soil!

Happy Mulching!

Dawn

I like straw too; cypress is okay but it takes a lot more to get decent coverage. I found straw yesterday at Smith's on NW10th near Portland. Large bales for 4.95.

sara

I've had good luck mulching my raised bed tomatoes with cotton-burr mulch- Back to Nature or Nature's Secret. It's great, because after the growing season, it just mixes in with the rest of the soil for next year's crop.

Hi GardenRod!

Welcome to the OK Forum! I love composted cotton burrs as a soil additive and as a mulch too, but am currently stuck on hay and straw 'cause their lighter color helps me see the copperheads before they see me!

I'm glad to see we have another tomato grower...there are a few of us here who are obsessive-compulsive tomato growers, so...welcome to the ranks!

We look forward to hearing more from you.

Dawn

While living in South Texas I gardened with the advice of Dick Raymond who swears by alfalfa and radishes. Alfalfa pellets for the compost pile when you lack green materials and radishes as a living mulch in the garden.

We planted 16 inch wide beds and staggered the plants in the row 10 inches apart all the way down the row and then thickly sprinkled the ground bed surface with cherry bell radish seed. We raked a thin layer of dirt over them and within a few days they sprouted and the bed was filled with young radish seedlings. When the seedlings were no more than a half inch high we ran our garden rake through them (one pass only) to thin them out. I know it seems and looks viscious but it is necessary to give the radishes a little room between each other, otherwise none of them will develop properly due to overcrowding.

Now the benefits are as follows:

1.The radishes come up very quickly and a lot of the early insects acquire a taste for the tender young leaves craving only radishes and leaving other plants alone.

2. They form a natural groundcover and mulch which shades the soil and helps to keep the soil from drying out.

3. They grow quickly and because they are so thickly sown they prevent weeds from getting light to grow so they prevent weeds.

4. As you pull up the radishes that ripen first you give space to the others and also provide much needed ariation to the soil.

5. Of course we could not eat all those radishes fast enough so we added them to the compost pile which will eventually end up in the garden. So none of the radishes are wasted. It is a very inexpensive way to mulch as bulk radish seeds are very cheap and the seeds go a long way.

Radishes can be planted among most vegetable plants except corn, onions, root veggies, blocks of bush beans and peas, as the radishes would crowd them too much . All other vegetable beds in our gardens were mulched with radishes in between and around the plants and we never had a weed problem in the beds. We left a wide enough space between our rows and blocks so that our tiller could pass between them and we would till to a depth of one inch between the rows once a week. After a few weeks of this tilling we would use straw in between the rows. The weed or two that might make it up through the straw or the radishes would be easy to just pop out.

I hope some of you will find this way of gardening beneficial. You will spend a lot less time fighting weeds in the garden.