Benefits of mulching the garden

23 Oct, 2016 - 00:10 0 Views
Benefits of mulching the garden

The Sunday Mail

THE heat of summer is here, watering becomes a chore rather than a joy. As soon as you water the heat quickly evaporates the precious liquid. The answer to the salvation of your garden lies in one of the oldest garden practices – mulching! Mulching is simply the covering of the soil with a variety of materials such as grass, maize stalks, manure, leaves, pine bark, stones and wood shavings, just to mention a few.

Why must one take the apparently arduous process of mulching one’s garden? The main objective of mulching is to conserve moisture among many others. Mulching screens the ground from the rays of the sun, cooling the ground and reducing evaporation. You will find that it frees you to do other things with your time besides regular watering. It may be useful in summer but it is also helpful in winter keeping the soil warm and also preventing temperature fluctuations in the soil.

We feed our plants regularly with fertilisers and manure, but mulching with organic materials like grass will ensure that our garden is nutritionally sound, as the mulch will decompose feeding your plants as well. You get double benefits if you use a legume like bean or pea stover. Adding organic matter to the soil has other benefits such as improving the water holding capacity of your soil.

Covering your garden with a material will help fight weeds, which are a pain in the neck during the hot summer months. Again mulching will lessen your weeding time in the garden. Another benefit to the garden is to prevent frost attack on your crop. The mulch will act as a buffer to the plants itself freezing instead of your precious plants. There are other materials one can use such as shredded tyres, shade cloth materials and sphagnum moss.

Every type of material has its merits and demerits. In the instance of shredded tyres, they will just need to be moved from area to area without having to source for more but will not benefit the soil nutritionally but will last for many years. Whilst shade cloth material or plastic is more cumbersome to deal with, when the need arises to work the soil. Stones are a good attractive medium to work with in rockeries but they will allow weeds to germinate.

Stones cool the plants in summer and release heat in winter. It goes without saying that organic materials are the best for mulching. But pine bark tends to be acidic, which can be undesirable for garden soil. What is important about mulching is to use weed free material. Ensure that whatever compost or leaves you are using have not come in contact with weeds.

The great thing about most mulching materials is that they are free. Be they be grass clippings or leaves racked from your lawn or your well-rotted compost. Start working on conserving that moisture by choosing the right material.

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