Organic “Muscle” mulch

Wed. Jul. 18, 2018

Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show:  Organic “Muscle” mulch

I believe I made myself clear yesterday about my feelings on rock mulch!  So what would I use?

natural wood chips – front of house 2018

In a former home, I used colored mulch.  This was 11 years ago, then I used landscape fabric.  I don’t do that anymore!

If I had to do it again, I would just cultivate and lay down the wood chips right on the ground.  The weeds find a way no matter what.  The landscape fabric ends up becoming a problem later anyway.

This is the front of my home now… at least one side.

2012

The above is a gentle reminder to create a “donut” of mulch NOT a “volcano”!  ?  By the way, that’s a ‘Parker Pear’ tree that has delivered pears for a few years.  It’s at least 4 times the size now.  It’s planted next to a ‘Summer Crisp’ for pollination.  Very tasty!

There are plenty of other organic options for mulch:

  • non-chemically treated grass clippings
  • shredded leaves
  • pine needles
  • pecan shells
  • cocoa bean – some people think that this is toxic to dogs, I think they’d have to eat quite a bit of it
  • aged corncobs (I tried to find a picture for you but no such luck)

Iowa State University has a good article on Organic Mulches.