I tend to mound the soil up a bit where I plant. So it's not so far down. Also, fade the mulch a bit as you get to the plant.

Where have you seen recommendations to lay mulches down 10 inches or more deep?

4 to 6 inches I have seen and suggested, but I've not seen anyone write that 10 inches of mulch is more beneficial. Most everything I have seen for mulching gardens is 2 to 4 inches deep, except for the Consumer Product Safety Boards recommendation for playgrounds which is 12 plus inches.

kimmq is kimmsr

I have read that some apply up to a foot of mulch in the fall to protect overwintering vegetables like carrots, beets, turnips etc in areas where it gets cold but the ground does not typically freeze solid. But over 3 or 4 inches of mulch during the growing season is excessive IMO.

Deep mulch is recommended, ime, by people with a forestry or restoration ecology background.

Don't forget Ruth Stout who essentially went the more-is-better way..

For root crop protection the best mulch is straw. A foot of straw decays down to less than 1/4 inch soil, and would be down to a couple of inches by the spring. If you want to keep the soil unfrozen, then I agree that one foot of light materials in cold zones would be needed.

I do not apply any mulch for my roots, I just pick before the ground freezes, store in the root cellar, then pick again when the ground thaws. One foot of, say, wood chips, would be needed only when resuscitating a really degraded soil.

I am using wood chips (among other things), and this soil has had the hell beat out of it. It does freeze here in the winter; snows sometimes too but not always.

I'm trying to get my truckload of wood chips down before the next heavy rain, which is supposed to be today sometime. I put a huge dent in it but there's a lot left to go; I'd rather not carry literally tons of extra water weight. Would be nice to have something to keep the rain in place on the plots, and stop the wind throwing the leaves and cardboard around, too.

Don't know about latitude, but I'm in Cartersville Georgia and most likely be trying to plant again in late February or early March. I don't expect the wood chips will be much broken down by then, but they should be easy to shift aside to make planting holes. I think the OM underneath will probably have broken down better with protection from drying and wild temperature swings, too. The worms are already moving in and eating on it, I may as well try to keep them safe and happy so they work all winter.

One needs to understand what material someone is using. Ruth Stout used Salt Marsh Hay, a fluffy mulch material that required a lot to provide the same benefit as something more dense such as wood chips.

Two researchers at Michigan State University spent 9 years studying mulches, and wrote about that in an issue of Fine Gardening magazine this year, and found that mulches should be 4 to 6 inches thick (wood chips) to do the best job of 1) aiding in suppressing unwanted plant growth, 2) aiding in controlling soil moisture, 3) aiding in adding organic matter to soil, and 4) aiding in controlling soil temperatures. Mulches deeper than that do not provide any more benefit.

kimmq is kimmsr

It sounds like I need to be sloping edges of the mulch so the plants have a longer window of sun exposure, planting started seedlings instead of seeds, and saving the super deep Back To Eden stuff for when I'm in a location I plan to stay long term and can wait a few years for breakdown before I plant.

Accurate?

Mulches deeper than 6 inches do confer one benefit, not having to apply mulch as frequently in order to say in that golden 4-6". I imagine that is one of the reasons deep mulch is used for restoration projects.

You can plant directly into the mulch Back To Eden style but usually you need to add a layer of compost ontop for crops like tomatoes and corn.