1. In my climate, yes. Can't say if it will in yours as there are too many variables. Whatever doesn't can be left in place or just raked aside and reused.

2. That depends on the size bale you get. They come in several different sizes. Depth - common recommendation is 4-6" deep. Some recommend even more if possible depending on the specific crop. I can easily get 6-8" around tomato plants, only a couple of inches around leafy greens.

3. No. You rake it aside to fertilize if using granular stuff so you can get to the soil to side-dress the fertilizer in.

4. It is generally considered the most effective and beneficial mulch and has been for many decades. Not many weeks will grow through 6" and the ones that do are very shallow rooted and pull up easily.

The search here will pull up many additional discussions about this you can read through for more info.

Dave

http://www.gardenweb.com/gardenweb/query/straw-mulch/topic=cornucop

Here in NH, I get two years out of a bale. I especially like using it on my hardneck garlic that is planted in late October. It keeps down most of the weeds so not only saving me time but I can make more use of garden space by not leaving paths. My second favorite use is on potatoes. I do the first hilling with soil but after that, I hill with straw. It is very important NOT to have open, loose mulch because sunlight gets in. First year I waited to long to put the straw on so I didn't do a good job tucking the straw around the stems. I was growing fingerlings which tend to grow near the surface, sometimes getting exposed. The idea is to cover them well and pack the straw down a bit. The bale separates into sections which seem to be a good depth, maybe 4 inches.

I like to use grass clippings on top of wet newspapers to "suffocate" an area. I do this at the edge of a bed because my beds are surrounded by lawn that contains lots of creeping weeds. In this case, I want the grass clippings to mat down. They also keep the newspapers from blowing away.

Make sure you buy straw, not hay. Hay has a lot of weed seed that straw does not. The only down side I'm aware of is it can blow in the wind. I never had this problem personally but a friend took my advice and put down some straw. Apparently he has a bit of a wind tunnel at his house because the straw blew all over the yard. He was not a happy camper......

Dave, what about bermuda grass? Will it grow up through a good layer of straw?

Straw may also contain straw seeds, but they are easily pulled after they sprout. I agree that straw is one of the best mulching options

I bought a bale of straw this year, about 1' x 2' x 4'. I believe this will be sufficient for years to come for my small-scale operation. Not expensive too, I think I paid 10$ or so.

I've only used it around my lettuce and spinach so far and it's been doing a good job of retaining soil moisture despite not laying it on very thick, 1" max. I have had a few shoots of wheat sprouting, but they're easily pulled.

I intend to mulch some tomatoes and peppers, perhaps in July, once the soil is warm enough.

It must be warm and drier to be thinking of heavy straw mulches already.

So I found a local farmer selling some straw on Craigslist for cheap. He claims its petty clean.

My soil has warmed up, it did cool off a bit with the rain and cool temps, but is still in the 60s.

I may wait just a bit to put it down on my warm-season crops, but will go ahead and use it on the onions, potatoes, and broccoli.

For the corn, I’m wondering if I can get away with waiting until it’s knee-high and needs it’s big N boost before I put it down, so I don’t have to rake it all away to fertilize at that time.

Or just put it on very lightly.

This year I put down cardboard with straw on top. Not everywhere: onions and garlic were already in the ground so those just have straw, but everywhere else. Definitely can't fertilize through that!

I just use well amended soil (lots of compost, and a whole host of stuff for the tomatoes*and don't fertilize throughout the season. Is that a mistake?

I have a worm bin so I can supplement with worm casting tea despite the cardboard.

*http://www.growbetterveggies.com/growbetterveggies/2012/04/how-i-plant-a-t.html

^^Holy cow that's a lot of stuff to be putting into a planting hole. Fish heads, egg shells, aspirin, worm castings, bone meal, a fertilizer, and mycorrhizae? Some of that stuff won't do anything and some won't be available to the plant for quite a while since it has to break down for months at the very least.

If you have cardboard down then you will have to skip dry fertilizers and go with liquid ones. The ferts won't get to the plants otherwise. Even then some of that liquid fertilizer will be absorbed by the cardboard.

Rodney

cevamal, I haven't opened your link. I would consider what yield you've gotten in the past from your method of not fertilizing throughout the season. I would also be curious about rotation and soil testing. You may have discussed it in the link, and your preparation may seek to remedy the conditions, but not fertilizing means your soil might eventually experience depletion and/or imbalance.

If your yield suits your expectations, then - other than the potential imbalances - there is no actual 'need' to fertilize. So, whether or not it's 'a mistake' depends on your goals and long term soil prospects.

ETA: ahhh, theforgottenone has filled in some blanks...

I don't rotate. Only half of my garden gets decent sun and tomatoes take up half my garden so the only way to rotate is to move them into the shade.

My yield has been good. The biggest problem is the weeds like the compost just as much as the tomatoes do and by that point my gardening enthusiasm has waned and they take over. Hoping the cardboard will help with that!

theforgottenone1013(MI zone 5b/6a) I'd love your assessment on what those amendments will or will not do. I've been loosely (I've only ever used shrimp shells rather than fish heads, sometimes I don't have all the items and just use what I do have) and blindly following her instructions for years so even the stuff that takes time to be available is probably in there somewhere!

Yeah, I only mentioned rotation in the context of nutrient imbalance. As long as you're replenishing the soil, it's not strictly necessary for nutrient/fertilization issues.

Another consideration might be to look into getting a soil test. That way you'll have a benchmark for where your nutrient levels are, and what you might want to add when you do your amending.

If your yields stay stable, and you're happy with it, then it's not strictly necessary to fertilize throughout the growing season. Would it be beneficial? Sure, and you might be able to plant more crop variety with fewer individual plants, and maintain or even increase yield.

Here's what I've wondered about soil tests: I don't till so I assume my garden is a bunch of microclimates. I throw compost down indiscriminately and heavily amend my tomato holes. If I were to get it tested now I'd just be testing compost, so would it make sense to wait until the end of the season and test then so I'd know what to do for next year?

Are there home tests that work well? The county extension office is relatively convenient and their test is $10 for a basic test plus $2 for soluble salts and/or $4 for organic matter.

"Dave, what about bermuda grass? Will it grow up through a good layer of straw?"

Not Dave but my experience with BG is that it took 10 years to rid it from my garden plots, and I've seen it grow up through a new layer of thick road asphalt on my street. Tough stuff, I think it holds Bermuda in place.

Everyone is going to have their own opinions and experiences, but from the many comments I've read on the subject few people find those home tests reliable. Years ago I tried a couple, and unfortunately, just getting a consistent result was hit and miss.

In a small home garden, all you're really looking for is a bench mark, so I would spend the $16 and get the professional lab tests. Really, unless you run into some unforeseen problem, once you get an idea of your soil's nutrition and acidity metrics, you really won't need another test for a very long time.

You can then just average out the things you're amending with, and lean heavy or light where appropriate. Then, in another 10 years, drop another $16 lol.

And yeah... I think it reasonable to wait until the end of the season... taking the test a few weeks before time to amend (just to give the lab time to return your results.)

I've been mulching with hay, not straw, for 50 years. Straw is prohibitively expensive. When hay is cut at the proper time it has no seeds. What you look for is old or spoiled hay. Readily available as I said, it's been easy to find for 50 years.

Are there home tests that work well? ... no.

I've tried them, and even as an experienced lab tech I could not get repeatability. When the same sample run from the same bottles or reagents within the same hour gives results that vary from low to high, that test is no better than throwing darts.

That's what I expected, thanks!

I know I'd want the basic test and organic matter. What is soluble salts telling me?

Here in Oklahoma, I have Bermuda grass and it wants to grow beautifully everywhere I DON"T want it to!! It took me about 4 years to rid it from my garden space (small, about 40 X 50). I mulch heavily with straw, I find it for $5 a bale, delivered but I have to buy at least 20 bales. I give some away to a friend and stack the remainder against my fence and pull it from there when I need it. That said, I do find stray bermuda now and then but it is easily pulled.

Here is a new question that has me concerned and has me somewhat bummed out and frustrated. When I first decided to plant a garden, after many years of not having one anymore, I tilled it, pulled out as much grass as I could stand, added compost and composted manure and topped that off with straw. My soil is super heavy clay, every year since, I have used a more gentler broadfork to loosen the soil and add composted and half composted leaves along with bags of composted manure. After a few years of this, my soil is so much looser and I can easily dig over a foot deep. Weeds are really no problem anymore, same with the bermuda grass. I don't use chemicals on my property and help feed my vegetable plants with steeped compost tea. My soil tests show a Ph of around 7. So what is my problem?? I have VERY FEW worms! I don't understand why they aren't plentiful, I do everything right, or so I think! I have a bird feeder next to my garden that I keep filled with black oil sunflower seeds. The birds leave the hulls right underneath it, it can get pretty tick (for hulls, that is!) I dug a hole into that soil underneath it and it was like a worm pit! Huge worms everywhere! I wish my garden soil would be more attractive to them, They would be so beneficial. Any thoughts??

A trained expert, like your Ag. Agent, could probably explain this better, and I could be wrong, but to my understanding, the soluble salt test will help to give an idea of your soil's ability to provide available resources. Hyper/hypo-tonic solutions - water seeks equilibrium (a refresher on hyper/hypo-tonic solutions can be found on the web easily enough.)

Available nutrients are often in the form of salts. Plants work by producing salts (Edit: I should have said 'sugars' and other organic 'solutes' - I changed the wording throughout my comment to reflect this edit) as they grow. When the amount of solutes in the growing plant is greater than the amount of salts in the soil, water will be drawn toward the solutes in the plant. Nutrient salts are carried up into the plant with that water. However, if the percentage of dissolved salts are greater in the soil than the percentage of solutes in the plant, water is drawn out of the plant.

The test for soluble salts then, measures the soil's ability to present a nutrient hosting environment. Too little soluble salts... infertile conditions can develop. Too many soluble salts... toxicity.

This is why many - especially organic - growers try to build up a healthy soil where nutrients are in a form that will be slowly released through biological action. The nutrients are present, but they are not all in an immediately soluble form.

Definitely worth $2 a decade.

So I did it. I do have clumps of wheat seedlings coming up about every couple feet or so...from supposedly "weed free" straw from a local nursery.

They yank out quite easily, though.