It’s official. All my vegetable seeds have been planted here on the east coast and now it’s time to start thinking about how I am going to mulch the beds. Back home in Washington, I don’t really need to mulch my beds because I’m outside puttering around the garden everyday with Lucy. If a weed pops up, I pull it… no biggie. With two large garden boxes and a patio full of containers my garden is extremely manageable.
But here, things are a little different. I need to mulch. So here’s my question. Or questions rather.
- Do you mulch your garden? If so, what are you using?
- Have you ever mulched with hay or straw? Do you have a preference?
- Do you have any tips you can share when it comes to mulching?
I went to two local farm/feed stores this morning and got 2 different answers. 1 store told me to use hay, the other store told me to use mulch. The lady behind the counter told me to use newspaper and grass clipping {great idea, but I don’t have that option}.
So what do YOU use to mulch your garden with?
Curious minds want to know.
~Mavis
Natalie says
I used to use newspaper and hay. Weeds and grass grew on top of the newspaper. Very frustrating! Now I buy bulk non dyed mulch.
Preppy Pink Crocodile says
Newspaper and straw is what you need. Hay contains seeds and they will come up for the better part of a lifetime.
KK @preppycrocodile
Julia says
So that’s where all the grass in my garden same from this year!! No more hay.
Karen says
Hello! Hay is amazing for gardens because it has so many nutrients in it, which straw does not have. Folks making hay should, and try to, cut it before it goes to seed because it is more nutrient dense (setting seeds decreases the overall health of the hay for the creatures relying on it and the farmers relying on the creatures!) Straw suppresses weeds and is better than nothing while hay feeds and enriches the soil. If you can find a local farmer with old hay it may be cheaper than fresh cut and already breaking down a bit, which is even better for your wallet and soil health! Where I live, hay is always cheaper than straw (3$ a bale vs 8$). Hay makes garden so much better!
Bruce says
I like the idea of using hay. The grasses that grow will most likely either be a tall grass or a legume that affixes nitrogen into the soil.
Just weed-eat it down at the base when it gets about a foot or so tall and you have more hay.
Cindi says
The only time I ever used hay I regretted it mightily — I pulled up grass from those beds for years. After all, hay IS grass.
Now I use compost or rotted wood chips (we have a lot of the latter left over from trees that were chipped when the house was built.) I have also used plastic mulch with good results.
Mel says
We use pine needles. Our yard has a few pines that shed needles. We rake them up and mulch all the beds. It’s free, it looks nice enough, it works well to keep out weeds and insulate, and it does double duty in terms of cleaning up the yard.
Amanda says
We use pine needles too. They work great and are easy to rake out or move aside when re-planting!
TT says
Do you worry about the acidity from the pine needles?
Mel says
No, I do not worry about the acidity at all. First of all, I’ve read that while pine needles do acidify soil, it’s by a pretty slight degree. Second, most of our plants (blueberries, cranberries, etc.) enjoy acid. And third, the needles break down pretty slowly, so I could always rake them away if I found a plant to be particularly sensitive. So, in short, I don’t worry.
Christy says
Pine needles here in Pennsylvania too. I have used grass clipping and newspaper in the past but not an option now. Have also used wood chip mulch but the pine seems to work better for me.
JoAnn C. says
I use cedar mulch. It deters bugs with the smell, and has no additives to harm the veggies.
Ken Newman says
We use mushroom soil that we have access to from a nearby farming operation. After the seeds are up and growing and all our transplants are established we spread a nice thick cover on the beds. It keeps the weeds down ( those that do come up are easily pulled) and the moisture in ( really reduces our watering ). When the growing season is finished it gets turned into the soil where it breaks down and is ready for next seasons planting. You need to let your seeds get up and started before putting the mushroom soil down ( it will in some circumstances keep seeds from germinating ). After a few years of this your soil will be rich in organic matter ( and the worms thrive in it ). I’ve used straw ( never hay ) , grass clippings ( never get enough) but I’ve come to prefer the mushroom soil. I’ve read that the bagged stuff for sale at garden supply stores is very high in salt content….so use caution if you go that route. Ours is direct from the farm and doesn’t seem to have that problem.
Dara says
Don’t use hay! Hay includes the seeds of the grass so you’ll be planting a headache of weeds to deal with next year! (Ask me how I know…)
We use straw or untreated wood mulch in our raised beds and cardboard boxes/newspaper/feed sacks in between the rows of our in-ground garden.
Patty P says
I use wood chips, but have also used straw and grass. The grass shouldn’t be weedy or have seeds showing though, or you’ll be growing things you don’t want. Also, the hay, if there are any heads from the plants in there, will grow new plants. Generally when straw is produced it is the byproduct of getting the grain…so the majority of the seeds have been removed. I would probably go with straw in your case.
Sue R. says
As others are saying–don’t use hay unless you want to grow a crop of your own. We’ve used straw, grass clippings, leaves, wood chips… I’ve often put down cardboard and then either covered with wood chips if it’s a non-planting area or done the lasagna idea over the cardboard if it’ll be planted eventually.
Jenny says
I use the newspaper and grass clippings. We let the grass sit in a pile for a couple of years before using it though. I have a friend who uses straw bales that have been sitting a couple of years and she doesn’t have weeds but she does have mice running through her straw constantly. I hate mice more than I hate weeds so I will stick to grass and newspaper. I do have a bed that has cedar chips and it is a constant battle to keep the grass out.
Kari says
Wood chips, like the Back to Eden method. The best ever!
sclindah says
For long term plants, shrubs and trees we use newspaper and mulch. For the garden, I use straw and sometimes we use newspaper. We’ve also used our grass clippings. I don’t know how far south you are, but with leaving the garden and the heat, mulching is a must!
Thelma says
Don’t use hay as others have told you , they have more seeds. I’ve used straw, grass and leaves. I like straw the best for availability and ease of use , my only problem was getting rid of it in the spring.
Stacie says
I use mulch; I believe it is cypress mulch to be exact but any kind should do. I would NOT use hay for fear it’s seeds will produce lots of grass in your beds.
Julie says
Mulch =slugs 🙁
Dayna says
Cotton seed hulls. We used to get them in bulk from the cotton plant in Clinton, OK but now I buy them at the local CoOp.
Sandy says
From Back to Eden:
Don’t wood chips bind up the nitrogen? For those of you who know composting basics, you need a good ratio of greens and browns to create quality compost. Here I am dumping a bunch of browns in my garden and leaving it at that. Yikes! But it doesn’t bind up the nitrogen and we add fertilizers to help the gardens further.
Rebekah U says
Mavis –
I use a layer of cardboard, several layers of newspaper, or several layers of paper (all recycled and free!!), and then I cover that with wood mulch. As long as you put this down after your seeds have germinated, it works like a charm. Just be sure to put a healthy layer down. Over the season, this method really improves your soil, and it helps the plants survive dry times, and it prevents weeds, and those that do come up are a cinch to pull up. If you call your local power company and/or several tree services, you can probably get a truckload of wood chips FREE delivered to your yard this week. 🙂
Love your blog soooooo much!
Maria Zannini says
Never use hay. You’ll regret it for many seasons to come. Straw is ‘usually’ safe. I use heavy weed barrier cloth for tomatoes and other fruit-heavy crops. For sprawling vine veggies I use a thick layer of compost. For my walkways, I use rubber mats.
If you’re going frugal, cardboard can’t be beat, otherwise three inches of compost does a good job. Any weeds that get through are easy to pull out. I do this exclusively for my asparagus bed.
Delores says
I feel so… well, like saying “duh!” We have used hay for years and only after reading the comments did I just make the connection to the grass that sprouts in it!!!
Well, live and learn. I will console myself with the fact that at least it is easy to pull up. And now I am on the hunt for something else.
Sarah says
This year I’m experimenting with “natural mulch”. I’m using the weeds in my woods that haven’t gone to seed yet. I’ve been using burdock leaves, clover, and dandelion greens. When I cut rhubarb the leaves go down also for mulch. I’m only using this in my vegetable garden, not with my flowers. The weeds add nutrients to the soil. Or so they say…
Molly Jo says
NEVER use hay! I use many layers of newspaper then cedar mulch. might try the pine needles now too from suggestions above as i have a lot of those trees.
Preppy Pink Crocodile says
I definitely mulch and am always shocked when people don’t mulch to be honest. It keeps weeds down and moisture in.
DO NOT MULCH WITH HAY. (That’s me screaming at you. In a friendly but stern manner.) NEVER EVER MULCH WITH HAY. It will backfire on you as you will then get hay seed coming up for ever and ever amen.
I use both straw and newspaper. I actually prefer to do it in the fall- I prep my beds and it’s the last thing I do before the season officially ends for me. So in the spring I can just dig in and plant. But you can totally do it now. Just lay down newspaper and then top with a thick bed of straw (NOT HAY….I’m still screaming it!). Straw alone lets too much light in for the weeds to grow. Do both and you will be one happy gardener! I have a zillion photos of it on my blog and Instagram or email me if you have questions. But it’s an easy process and all will compost into your soil by the end of the season.
Hope this helps!
KK @preppycrocodile on Instagram
PS. NEVER USE HAY!! Xo
Tracy says
I use Sweet Peat, a product that is a combination of compost and very, very finely shredded chips. I use it because in one year it breaks down to the most fantastic, black, chocolate cake-like soil, is organic, a beautiful dark brown color (no dye), and adds great tilth to my clayish soil. If I had a ton of room, I’d have a huge pile of finely shredded leaves, mixed with coffee grounds instead. Don’t like wood chips. Too chunky for me, even the shredded ones. Straw takes too long to break down, and hay is like dumping a load of weed seeds on your beds!
Marivene says
I have used the grass clippings from the lawn for several decades. I do not use sprays of any kind on the lawn, so no worries about pesticide residue. Any grass that sprouts from the grass seed heads is easy to pull out, as it is very shallow-rooted, & the grass clippings are free. I see no reason to buy mulch & pay to drop of green waste.
Desirae says
I agree with the comments above- do not use hay unless you want a hay field.
We do not need to mulch (we only have 4 boxes, I just pull up any weeds I see), but my MIL uses straw to mulch her very large garden (they have been raising most of their own food for 40+ years, so I think they know what works for them by now!).
Wynne says
I’ve done both straw and wood mulch. Straw is cheaper, but it will definitely give you some grass sprouts, though not many in the dry heat of summer. The sprouts seemed easily manageable to me with hand-pulling, even if I let them grow for weeks or months. The neighbors were a little surprised when we had SuperGrass last March that grew 18′ tall practically overnight (was it straw? did it migrate from My yard?) but mowing cured that. I’m pretty sure the answer to straw vs. hay is straw. It’s supposed to be the stalks, so fewer seeds. I bet the anti-hay commenters are talking about real hay, which is on the top in your picture, but not at my nearby stores.
I like shredded bark mulch a little better for looks and for soil-building, since it breaks down and integrates more quickly than straw. Not a fan of nuggets.
Either way, it can be nice to put a layer of newspaper on the soil before adding mulch, to encourage earthworms. I rehabbed a lifeless clay bed last summer with compost, newspaper, and bark mulch, and now it’s teeming with worms. I’m not sure what they like about the paper but I suspect it helps more with moisture retention.
Linda says
I guess I don’t understand why you would ask your readership which mulch we would use,and not follow everyone’s recommendation NOT to use hay as it contains tons of weed seed? Grass clippings are different and straw has no weed seed. Your newspaper and cardboard will break down,and all that weed seed will be in direct contact with nice moist dark soil-a fertile weed bed. Please don’t ask us, if you really don’t want to follow our advise,it’s sort of insulting.
Lisa Millar says
From the above comments I am getting the feeling that one should avoid hay!! 😀 😀
Seriously… that was fabulous reading what everyone else does.
Apart from helping slow weeds down, the most important part of mulching for me is keeping the moisture in. Essential in a dry climate.
I had access to massive bales of pea-straw for the first couple of years we were here. I have sine moved on to the grassy seaweed – because its free and our council has no issues with people going to the beach and loading up on it. No weeds either.
I can put it on as thick as I like too, since I don’t have to be frugal with it.
I used the seaweed with newspapers around the raspberry canes last season – and they did astoundingly well.
I haven’t used mushroom soil/compost as mulch before! (reading comment from Ken) I have had great success with it as a booster to the soil tho!
I also use pine needles around the strawberries – harder for the snails to crawl across and they like a slightly more acidic soil, so win-win.
Lauren says
The main reason I mulch is for the moisture, Adelaide is very dry and hot in the summer, I also have to shade my plants for extreme weather. I have also used Pea Straw but it began to very expensive, so have used chopped sugar cane mulch (by product from the sugar industry in Queensland) and some type of hay. It must be different from what others have used because I didn’t get any sprouting.
Susan says
Hm, my earlier comment didn’t post, so here’s a re-do. In the Northeast, we often use SALT HAY, which grows in salt marshes. Any seeds only germinate in salt water, and thus will not germinate in your garden. I bought a bale for around $10 and it has good coverage. It evidently is great for attracting worms and it looks great. I believe it’s only really available in the northeast, which is likely why others have had negative experiences with other forms of hay or straw. Here’s a brief blurb from our local paper:
http://www.salemnews.com/news/lifestyles/salt-marsh-hay-is-good-for-your-garden/article_b4055c9b-ef15-5f11-aa8d-91214216f54f.html
Helen says
I agree! I’ve used straw and it sat on top and blew away. Salt marsh is wonderful! It doesn’t mat down or blow away and looks like a my beds are on a cloud!
Dale Ann says
Years ago I had tried both hay and straw…and will never again. Here in north eastern Minnesota hay or straw for mulch bring in not only unwanted seed…but also slugs and mice.
I know many say newspaper is wonderful…but if one is looking to have a garden as chemical free as possible…paper is not the choice. My husband has, and brother still does, work at a major paper mill which creates both recycled and new paper for magazines and newspapers. When they educated me about the chemicals that go into paper production, both to keep mold and mildew down, as well as what’s needed to break down wood fiber for paper production, etc…no thank you! That is something I do not want to add into my soil.
My choice for mulch in the vegetable garden beds is sawdust from non sprayed birch, pine, or spruce trees from the local sawmill…and for the flower beds I love to use natural, non dyed, shredded wood and bark from cedar trees.
Dale Ann says
The reason I choose sawdust is that slugs HATE to crawl over it (it sticks to their slimy little bodies)…mice don’t nest or burrow into it, and when finally dug into the garden it instantly adds wonder fluff to the soil.
Cheryl from VA says
We have lots of huge oak trees that drop lots of leaves every fall. We mulch, collect and spread them on the garden and in various flower beds. Come time to plant it gets pulled aside, seeds or seedlings are planted and then mulched leaves are pulled back around seedlings or once the seeds become seedlings. Does a wonderful job of keeping moisture in and since we’ve been doing this for many years, my gardens are full of fat, happy worms.
Jennifer says
Mavis–your question about how folks LIKE using straw or hay has gone a bit unanswered beyond the hay/no hay issue. I use straw because I buy bales for my coop (I put the clean, leftover straw on the garden). I don’t use it for weed control as much as for moisture control. It *can* do well for mitigating some drying, but it has to be inches thick since it’s so fluffy (not as dense as grasss clippings). For moisture retention, I would use wood chips/mulch if I was you. Atop your beds it won’t decompose too much so nitrogen balance really won’t be a problem. Slugs, snails, and bugs are somewhat of a regional issue and can be mitigated in many ways, so I wouldn’t say yea/nay to any one type of mulch (wood, straw, etc) just for that.
Wynne says
Off topic, but I’d love to know how you control the slugs. I have a hard time with them and nearly have given up on harvesting full-sized tomatoes or strawberries because the slugs chomp them all. I’ve used beer traps, copper barriers, sluggo, and hand-picking (well, tongs) and I haven’t won the slug war yet. This year I’m going to mulch late and put thick plywood sheets by the raised beds to see if the slugs will congregate there where I can catch them.
So, Mavis, possibly beware mid-Atlantic mulching.
Martha says
This year I’m going to be spreading well-crushed egg shells to deal with the slugs. From what I’ve read, they crawl over it and (sorry) it slashes their bottoms and they eventually dry out and die. I haven’t tried it yet, but have saved enough egg shells to perform this experiment this year! 🙂
Wynne says
Thanks! I will probably have enough eggshells to try that around my strawberries.
Sarah says
Here’s a bit of new information. If you are organic, don’t use straw because it has been sprayed with Roundup. Unless you buy it from an organic farm. Maybe that’s why it does well eliminating weeds?
JessB says
Not all straw is sprayed with Roundup, though that is a huge concern. You have to buy directly from the grower and ask them what they are doing. If you buy from a feed store, you have no idea where it’s coming from and very well could have been sprayed.
As far as hay vs straw, never put hay on your garden. It does have all the seed in it. Also, you should make sure the straw had the seed harvested from it first before being bailed.
Jennifer says
I agree with the above that organic straw is tricky to find. Intuitively, it seems like if it’s gonna go in an animals mouth, no straw should be so toxic as to kill garden plants. I’m sure it happens, just seems crazy that it would! I’ve never ever had a problem with using straw or hay from my local feed store with my chickens or gardens (except for wheat growing from the hay seeds that the chickens miss!).
Chris says
If you intensively garden as suggested in The Market Gardener http://www.themarketgardener.com/, Jean-Martin Fortier plants so closely together that his veggies create a canopy that helps shade the soil and eliminate a need to mulch.
T.J. says
Can you have a load of mulch (wood chips) delivered there? Here a truck load of mulch is about $40 and the delivery fee is $10. Otherwise I would you straw as the hay will seed and starting growing and you will have a huge mess.
Jennifer says
lol–in CA where I live, wood chip mulch is $25/cu yd and delivery is $50 or more. But you can order it free from tree care companies if you don’t mind an entire truck load, and getting on their list of folks wanting free mulch.
Wendy says
Hey Mavis! I have always loved using hay/straw for my organic garden bed mulch and have had the best weed free garden crops! HOWEVER, last year I mulched with some straw from my favorite local feed and seed store and much to my dismay, ALL of my tomato plants wilted and died! After a lot of research, I believe the hay I used had pesticides in it which killed all of my tomato plants. I planted some new tomato plants nearby (without any mulch) and they thrived without any trouble. Ever since then I’ve been reluctant to use any type of hay or straw around my plants.
Thanks for such a wonderful post (as always!) xx
Elise says
I was going to try Coir this year. Anyone else use it? I have been really impressed with it as soil amendment and noticed the bag said it could be used as mulch. We have always used hay in the past. However, we cover our raised beds each fall and we never have had problems with reseeding as the beds are solarized by the dark covering.
Martha says
For those of you that use wood chips, what do you do at the end of the season? Do you just let it stay there? Do you till it in? Do you rake it all off? I just don’t see it decomposing and don’t want a build up of wood chips accumulating year after year. What do you do?! Thanks!
Wynne says
It depends on how thickly you mulch, but for me (in Virginia) a 2″ layer of Shredded mulch mostly decomposes by the next spring. I try to let the earthworms do all the tilling. Not so for straw, which I rake off and reuse. But then, I’ve heard straw will decompose better if you soak it with a good nitrogen source.
I did use some nugget mulch last summer (it was all the store had) and regret it. I’m going to add shredded to it and give it more time to break down.
StaceyE says
Here in the deep south, mulch=cockroaches in the garden 🙁
this was a surprising and unwelcome discovery to me last year, as I am from the Northeast. I’ve tried several things: pine straw (terrible), hay (just as bad)…. Wheat straw seems to be the best so far to keep weeds down in garden paths (between raised beds) and *hopefully* uninvited guests….