Moving Mulch to the Garden

Well, it's Fall and as we're harvesting the old crops and pulling out the remnants of the old crop to make room for the new, we are moving another 4 or five inch layer of mulch into the garden.  The mulch is a year old now.  The size of the piles have shrunk to half of what they were.  Over time, the decomposition of the wood chips have turned the piles of mulch into havens for earthworms and mushrooms.  Much of it resembles rich, dark, soil.

The layer of mulch does several things:

1) It retains moisture in the soil.  We seldom have to water.  

2) It crowds out weed growth.  We still have to weed, but it is not the chore that it used to be.

3) It becomes part of the soil, adding fertility.

4) It helps with compaction, making the soil easier to work.

We moved the entire pile of wood chips away from the back yard and into the garden,  I scrape back the mulch prior to planting and then work up the soil with a hoe for planting.  Once the plants are big enough, I rake in enough mulch to cover the soil.  These are Contender Green Beans mulched.

Tricia has already spoken with some crews that are chipping a lot of the hurricane tree limb debris about bringing more loads of wood chips to us.  It is a free resource and is a nice way to "import" fertility onto our land.  I'll show some additional photos of the Fall garden this weekend.