Unless you're mulching very thickly with compost, you may have more weed growth/germination than with a wood product, but otherwise compost makes for a fine mulch and has all the same benefits of bark or wood chips.

Compost does also break down a lot faster than wood mulches, which some may see as a downside, but that also means the organic matter is being incorporated into your soil more quickly as well!

@sah67 (zone 5b - NY): I was planning for 2-3 inches thick. Do you think that would be ok?

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9): any tips on when/how to apply mulch? My window is short because as soon as snow melts, crocuses and other early blooming bulbs emerge. It sounds very difficult to put 4 inches of anything around these short plants without covering them. Or am I just overthinking this?

Thanks!

I have never spent a penny on mulch in bags. I always use my own compost in the garden and use whatever is ready, whenever it is ready and to no set depth. On the allotment I use compost and whatever leaves and chippings the council dumps for us. It isn't difficult to lay around plants. Just fork it around a bit. If you are doing it in winter even easier. Perennials and bulbs will just grow up through it.

@floraluk2: I can’t do it in winter, as everything is covered by at least 4 feet of snow.

And early blooming bulbs start to emerge when there’s still snow.

Do you know if my plants would be harmed, if I accidently cover them with compost when they are growing?

Thanks!

I very much doubt if they'll be harmed. In my climate I mulch all year round, whenever I have some compost ready, although it's harder in summer because there are no gaps between the plants.

Could you do it in autumn?

@floraluk2: yes, I could. I think I will start this Spring in spots where plants are not so closely planted and do the rest this Fall.

Thank you!!

I always use compost.

I use any old stuff which will cover the soil - compost, leaves, grass clippings, chopped up comfrey, old potting mix, even weeds (trash mulch). My soil is sandy, stony, very free draining (although has vastly improved over the years) and my main imperative has always been to protect the structure, prevent leaching and generally feed the soil. I don't care one whit about weeds - I never tread on my soil so weeds pull easily (I leave the weed cover all winter).Doesn't look pretty but is quickly hidden when plants grow and expand.

@mazerolm_3a, I echo @gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) post. It doesnt take much to make me happy in the garden and using "home grown" compost (from 6 containers, added to 12 months of the year) is one of them.

(But as others have commented, be prepared for more weeding)

I do a lot like rosa in that I'm adding in soil cover a lot of the year. It's mulch, but most of it composts in pretty quickly. Clippings, leaves, gardening scraps. I tend to use my weeds too- they grow and can be green cover, get eaten or not, get pulled and usually dead dropped right back where they came from. I know this is against a lot of folks that pull and haul them off. Weeds steal from the plants and all. And weeds do pull- but I figure it's like robbing a bank. The weeds can rob it, but they can't leave with the nutes unless I'm their get away driver. Weeds that need more stomping death gets tossed into the paths or the cold compost cages. Or occasionally hung to die.

But compost can be added at different times of year, including winter. Spring can be fill in and around spring poppers. During the summer pretty much any bare spots can get some. Later fall is fine since a lot of the gardens die back and putting on a thicker overall layer is easier. If you like to get out during winter during melt offs or before heavy snows... if you mark off the edges of your beds with poles in the fall, it's easy to find them in the winter. You can throw down compost and soil amendments right onto the snow. The white makes it real easy to see even distribution. And the snow sort of naturally waters the stuff in as it melts.

Our county offers compost, fine mulch and more coarse mulch at very low price . We mostly buy fine mulch as mulch for the beds. They provide good barrier and water protection but also decompose relatively fast. We apply it every spring

@mazerolm_3a Any kind of bulb plant is going to just laugh at a 4-inch mulch layer and then pop right through. I have a raised bed with about 12 inches of succulent soil on top of the clay loam soil, which holds sever bulbs. The bulbs worked their way all through that soil and pop up reliably every Spring. Bulb plants tend to be persistent and aggressive in playing out their bloom cycle.