Mulching For Free

Tips About Using Mulch In Your Garden

Because you're reading this I believe that you have used mulch before, even if it's just a little bit, in your own garden, or your gardening career. But I think you don't know thatthere are many other options you can use for organic mulching. At the moment there are a lot of gardeners who are constantly looking and finding new sources that they can use as mulch. And what's better it's free mulch. Some of these resources are the clippings of your lawn and  the woody prunings from your plants. You'd be surprisedby the benefits this can bring to your garden and how much they are within the reach of your arms.

You can leave the clippings of your grass lying there, on the grass and this will prevent evaportaion and prevent the growth of weeds. Now you may think that it would look tacky, but when you spread out the clippings enough, you won't even be able to notice it. I know a gardener who thought of this and he had a couple of heaps of grass lying on his lawn. When I asked him what exactly he was doing he said he was using his clippings as mulch (Now you've got to imagine four or five heaps of grass about 2 feet high) and that way it looked really tacky and lazy. Like he wouldn't even put in the effort to clean up his lawn. Only after I explained him how mulching works and what he can do to improve the mulching he spread it all out and is still doing so. You can even use the grass clippings in between your plants to leave a small layer of mulch. This gives the added green-ness it gives to your garden and it keeps your plants healthy and green.

I always end up with an amazing amount of branches whenever I prune my trees and plants. If that's the case with you as well, you can consider renting or buying (as I did) a wood chipper to put all of those branches and wigs through. After an intense pruning-day, you can end up surprised at the amount of branches you've got. So instead of just tossing them aside and into the bin. Toss them into the wood chipper (little children should be kept at a safe distance, but they'll find it very neat). The end result is a good organic mulch (which was completely free, except for the cost of a wood chipper, bought or rented). If you don't have a lot of branches or twigs etc after your pruning-session, you can bundle it all up and save it in the shed or shack. That way you can wait untill you've really got enough branches before renting a woodchipper. This idea can really save you money, because that way you can rent the wood chipper only once in a couple months or even a year.

Organic Mulch

Organic mulch decomposes, so you'll need to replenish it every once in a while. You can usually see when you need to replenish it just by having a look at it. But looks can be deceiving. If you're starting to notice any poor growth of some plants, you should replace the mulch. Keep  in the back of your mind that, during the entire decomposing period, the mulch will use up the nitrogen in the soil. When plants lack this, they're missing a key ingredient. You can use fertilizers to deal with this problem though.

Everybody, and I do mean everybody, should consider using mulch in their garden. It can reduce the amount of garbage you throw away and you'll make your plants a lot healthier by doing so. It's also a very good way of recycling your garbage. So if you can save your twigs and branches, do so and make mulch out of it. You'll love it once you get started with mulching this way.

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