Your Garden + Natural Mulches = Better Harvests

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WHY A GARDEN MULCH IS NECESSARY

A mulch is a layer of organic matter of variable thickness, used as a soil cover to control weeds, preserve soil moisture and improve the fertility and structure of the soil itself. If you're energetic enough to keep a natural mulch on your garden throughout the year, you will be doing just as Nature has done since the beginning of time.

Try as you may, you will not find naked soil in the wilderness. If it isn't covered with a lush carpet of ferns, wild flowers and vines, such soil is hidden beneath a thick blanket of dried leaves and decaying wood and beneath the cover is a layer of organic matter in all stages of decay. This is Nature's way of building rich top soil.

You can create such rich dirt in your own garden (without spending a cent) from unwanted plant materials and aged manures. Heavy applications of compost (made from shredded garden trash, leaves, man ure or green lawn clippings) and manures of all kinds for three years will give you almost one inch of rich new topsoil. It takes Nature 100 years to do the same.

MULCHES GOOD AND BAD

Although plastic mulches are highly advertised, we won't use them in our garden. In the first place they cost money and, second, they do not improve the fertility, or condition, of the soil in any way. Among the natural mulches that we do use are shredded corn stalks, pine needles, peat moss, spoiled hay straw, salt hay, green grass clippings, shredded newspapers and young weeds that have not yet gone to seed.

Although mulches may be purchased, I advise you to look around before spending your hard-earned cash on the store-bought variety. Most natural mulching materials can be obtained free of charge from parks and streetcleaners and grass clippings are always available from homeowners only too happy to be rid of them. Units mowing along highways will allow you to rake hay from the embankments, and the telephone and power company men who prune tree branches will usually give you all the shredded wood you want.

Check your local lumber yards for wood chips and sawdust. In the spring, farmers will sometimes let you have leftover hay or straw just for cleaning out their lofts or barn lots. (Look for unwanted cow manure here also.) Often you can find a nearby unused lot or field from which the owner will let you cut all the tall grass you need. And don't forget to check factories in your neighborhood. Many throw away plant and animal products that serve nicely as garden mulches. If you gather more than you can use immediately shred the excess with a shredder or rotary mower and make compost. You can't buy a better garden fertilizer for all the money in the world.

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