By Obiabin Onukwugha
Mulching is a highly recommended and beneficial way to maintain a vegetable garden. The key to happy crops and large harvests comes from nurturing and developing healthy soil. Mulching is one of the best ways to achieve that.
Mulching a vegetable garden should be an important part of a year-round maintenance for your vegetables This is because mulching your vegetable beds with organic material is key for healthy soil and happy crops and it can be done throughout the year
Here ere tips for choosing the best organic mulch for a vegetable garden
There are different types of mulch commonly used in gardens – organic and inorganic mulches. Organic mulching are made from decayed plant material, while inorganic mulches include plastic sheeting and rubber mulches.
Using organic matter feeds all soil types and boosts structure and fertility.
Compost:
Compost is a nutrient-rich mulch made from decomposed plant material. It can be a mix of all manner of garden waste that breaks down to make a valuable mulching material.
Compost is the best vegetable garden mulch you can choose. It offers a wealth of benefits as a mulching material, smothering weeds and improving the structure and fertility of the soil . Compost releases its nutrients over a long period. Compost can be spread in fall or spring, ideally when the soil is damp, but not ensurevery wet frozen, and before the weed seeds start to germinate.
Depending on the size of your vegetable garden, you may be able to make your compost. Alternatively, purchase compost from reputable suppliers to it meets required standards. Sourcing quality compost eliminates the risk of any contamination from weed seeds.
Another mulching technique is Straw.
Straw can be used throughout the year as a mulch. During the summer, mulching with straw can be a valuable way to retain soil moisture and suppress weeds. Adopting straw mulch is good for strawberries and comes with great success, while pumpkins and melons will also benefit from consistently moist soil.
Another benefit of using straw in the garden to cover the soil during the season is that it can prevent plants from suffering bacterial and fungal diseases from water splashing off the soil. This can be beneficial when growing tomatoes, for example.
While straw can smother weeds and retain moisture in the soil, it will not offer as much nutrients as other mulches and it can get blown around on windy sites.
Finally, it is important to only use straw, not hay. The latter is an animal feed and will contain lots of seeds.
Shredded prunings from trees or shrubs can be used as mulch. Bark and woodchips are also commonly used to cover paths in vegetable gardens, where it is beneficial that they decompose slowly. The downside of using fresh woodchips directly onto vegetable beds is that they can deprive the crops of nitrogen as they break down. However, there are beneficial places to use bark and woodchips in a productive space.