When I use it I always wet it down after I put it down. Make sure the bales are clean straw and not full of weeds

I let my yard grow a bit this year and then, before anything went to seed I cut it by hand with a very sharp swing blade. Is it work? Maybe a little, but not too bad. Besides, exercise is good.

This probably wouldn't be acceptable for the average American and their penchant for the unholy aberration of yards, but meh... sorry, couldn't resist.

Then, as this was a few weeks - to a month - before I finished tilling the summer beds, I tossed the hay (along with food scraps and some leaves) on the future plots. The worms loved it!

When ready to till, I removed the hay mixture and tilled (including the now pretty-much-dead grass and weeds that were growing in that spot.) Immediately after tilling, I re-covered the bare Earth with the hay/clippings/food scraps/coffee grounds etc...)

A few weeks later, after the worms and micros had a smorgasbord, I set out my plants - simply making spaces by pushing the hay aside, digging the hole, then pulling it snugly back up around each transplant.

The mulch started at about 6" and is now about 3" thick and the clippings are woven together. The wind goes right over nicely. The hay was longer than grass clippings (although I got some from the neighbor's yard and mixed that in too,) so no matting or 'green ooooze'. Water penetrates readily, and any of the very few weeds, grass, and undesirable seeds pull up easily (have a few tomato, and potato volunteers from the food scraps, they are allowed to grow!) The plants are thriving and there seems to be a good 'web-of-life'.

In short, there are many ways of to bake a cake. I chose to borrow from Paul to pay Peter.

If there is any drawback, because I don't have an under-the-mulch irrigation system, when I water the mulch absorbs it's share until it is sufficiently saturated. However, that is more than made up for by the water savings from not having bare soil, and is ameliorated when watering in the early morning while the mulch is still wet with dew.

I hope that helps.

it depends on what you want a mulch to do. I use straw (not everywhere) where I want some thermal shielding from this really strong Sun. It blows all over here, but I have never seen any need for dirt to be clean and orderly so it's no bother. The lizards use it a lot. The mockingbirds and woodpeckers strew the straw bigtime. Otherwise it's nearly uneventful stuff.

I use it around my melons and tomatoes it works great, I also use old hay then before winter I plow everything in, Makes great compost also conditions the soil for the garden.

I would love to put more on my garden, but I think it allows more mice to live there. :(

Shred the straw with a lawnmower before using it as mulch and then wet it after you place it and it won't blow around. It's what I do with straw, otherwise it would be blown all over the neighborhood.

Rodney

Interesting comments. I will try it out, and may first try shredding it with a lawnmower.

"I would love to put more on my garden, but I think it allows more mice to live there. :("

That can be an issue, especially in rural or suburban areas with a large rodent population. I use a lot of hay for mulch (about 25 bales) and mice move in all summer, especially when the leaf canopy begins to offer good cover. The mice like to nest in the straw. I put out a lot of plastic mouse traps to counter this, with locations marked by survey flags... it keeps the population down to bearable levels.

Crickets can also thrive under a straw mulch, and can be pretty damaging some years - particularly to tomatoes & peppers. The local bird population tends to knock them down if their numbers become excessive.

All that being said, the benefits of mulching outweigh the drawbacks, and straw or hay is the most efficient way to mulch large areas. Keeping the soil moist, and preventing mud splash, can vastly improve plant health. Beans, peppers, and tomatoes really benefit from a good layer of mulch. The only plants I would not mulch are cucurbits (squash and cucumbers) because the mulch can give shelter to cucumber beetles & squash bugs.

Personally, I prefer hay to straw, because it begins to break down faster & releases some nutrients during the growing season. It also has been less of a weed problem for me, but that is chiefly because I've used the same farmer as a source for years, and I know his first-cut hay is almost weed free. There can be weed (or grass) seed in either straw or hay, so if you find a good source, stick with them... and if you have severe weed issues, look elsewhere. Alfalfa hay probably has the fewest weed problems, if you can find it... but it doesn't spread as easily, so you will need more bales than you would for marsh hay or straw.

I've used straw as mulch for the last two years and haven't had any problems with it blowing away at all. I don't wet it and I don't shred it- just pull it out of the bale and lay it down. I am having problems with a bunch of oats trying to grow in my beds this year though.

I have no problem with it blowing and I live out in an open field, No problem with weeds either, Just lay a thin layer of newspaper down first, Newspaper will decompose then plow or till it in the garden.

Why people don`t have cats to control the mice?