Do You Mulch? Prepping The Vegetable Beds
Today we were prepping the vegetable garden beds with weed blocker, or fabric mulch. I will finally be able to plant a few rows of seedlings tomorrow!
Garlic at dusk
Things are so busy here now. Today we had to go get duck food and more straw, but I also had my son home so we put down some of my fabric mulch from last year.
Duck food 'cos of these guys!
Learning to use the ramps
I bought fabric mulch last year instead of plastic because from what I've seen, no matter how careful you are at taking it up at the end of the season, some bits stay behind. Not to mention the waste. I think if you left if down and replanted in the same holes you could maybe get 2 season out of it, but that would be very difficult.
A row of our fabric mulch from last year. Holes are already cut, so that is a bonus! I dragged all of the fabric from the barn. I did my garden differently this year, so these pieces will have to work where I put them
This non-woven mulch is almost like a thin felt. It lets some water through as well. As you can see, it has held up great from last year. I think it will last at least 5 years, if not double that with good care. It cost about double what the plastic did, but is already paying for itself this year!
I use straw in the rows where there is no fabric mulch. I try to use it sparingly each year as it robs the soil of its nitrogen as it breaks down in the garden over winter. The water conservation with mulching, whether with live mulch or man made is a no brainer for me. It cuts down so much on watering as well as soil borne diseases being transferred to your plants by limiting backsplash during rain.
First and second years we used all straw mulch
Installation is straight forward but a bit time consuming. Besides the water savings, the work it saves in weeding over the season makes it worth it! A few days of this then little weeding for months!
Mark your first line with 2 sticks and string. It's super professional haha!
Next we dug a 6" deep trench along the marked.line. I did not capture pics but you get it...then we laid the edge of the fabric in the trench and backfilled it with soil to weigh down the edges.
We do 2 rows edge to edge then a walking path, then 2 more edge to edge rows.
Butting the edges together
My son digging the trench for the edge of the second row
You can see we left a 16" walkway
Action shot of me tossing rocks and raking
Prepping for 4th row
Finally....1/4 of the garden prepped!!!!
That took about 5 hours with one quick break. It always takes longest the first day I find, by the 3rd row we had gotten the rythm of it, but by the 4th it was time to go in to make dinner. I will plant hopefully all of these rows tomorrow and Wednesday and lay another section of garden mulch on Thursday.
Sometime this week I also have to make dandelion jelly for market on Sunday...meaning I have to harvest dandelions and make the tea. They just showed up yesterday on the lawns! #ilovedandelions
I hope you had the best day!
Thank you for reading! Take care of you and yours ❤
@karenfoster I look you so busy today to make the garden prepped, but you done it perfectly! I love your garden and the plants there, hope your next planting will be success grow better too😉
We mulch mostly using the chop and drop method with the abundance of weeds on our land. Fabric mulch is an interesting concept, because with the holes pre-made you can actually mulch before planting which is pretty cool. Only similar thing I've seen is sheet mulching with cardboard. Definitely gonna try some fabric mulch as I'm sure there's a lot of unwanted bed-sheets and curtains I can get my hands on if I look.
Congrats on getting an entire bed prepped with this method. It does look like hard work!
I heart dandelions! Jelly, syrup, fried, sauteed....I'll take 'em any way!
Thanks for that info on the straw mulch. I'll have to address the nitrogen issue. This is year two with straw mulch.
A lot of hard work done great effort. Hope you have a great crop 💯🐒
Thanks @vibeof100monkeys <3
I've used hay mulch since 1993. I get my soil tested each year, no nitrogen deficiency. I do NOT like straw. I am wondering if this would be another reason to not use straw...
Yes, I was told by a farmer that straw does it eventually....I bought hay yesterday (just corrected that in the blog) so I will use it this year. I used straw HEAVILY the last few yeas, this year I won't. I am glad to know hay won't affect the soil at all...thank you!!
I'm super confused about the straw now. I've seen it touted as the best thing ever for permanent deep mulching...but if it robs the soil of nitrogen, how can that be?
Me too, and it is great for blocking weeds and getting some funky fungus in there too. But I was recently told that basically, too much of any one thing will upset the balance over time. The first 2 years, straw and some hay were used exclusively. Straw is on the garlic bed right now too, third year. I will still be using it, just not on the entire 3 gardens and I have a clover-mix seed cover crop to till in this year in some rows too. The fabric really stops the weed and warms the earth like crazy. My seasons aren't long enough either to fully decompose the straw as much as you'd like it to either. The areas I used the fabric last year, the soil needed no tilling, it was like butter and full of worms this spring, so I am using the fabric only in the tilled areas it wasn't down on last year! I will be mulching with hay this year instead of straw.
Oh my gosh! I bet you're exhausted! That was a lot of work. Bravo for keeping up with photographing it all. Hope your garden is a success!
I hope so too! Last year was pretty much a bust! Photographing is hard in all that dirt lol!
great post!! resteemed at the-hearth! we definitely mulch and love to see you prepping your garden this way!! xx
Thank you so much @the-hearth <3 <3 <3