When we started this project of turning our property into different gardens, the first step we took was to amend the soil from property line to property line. When growing food, nutrient rich soil that retains the correct moisture balance is especially important. The native soils in this part of our county are spodosols which means that they are very free draining and nutrient poor. Our native plants in the front gardens would have thrived in the native soil without amendment, but they also benefit from organic nutrients and good water retention. In our gardens we use mulch and green plant biomass to create healthy soil over time with no tilling and minimal disturbance. Before we began planting, we gathered as much cardboard as we could and laid it out to smother any grass that may try to grow through the mulch. We then proceeded to apply our free local municipal mulch by the ton. We now have well over sixty tons of mulch and counting and absolutely no turf grass anywhere. This is not the 17th century anymore baby! No white wigs and no turf grass for us!
In natural ecosystems, plants are always dropping stuff. Dead leaves, old flower heads, branches, etc. The insects and soil organisms break down that material and turn it into valuable nutrients that all the plants in the ecosystem benefit from. We can be quite fastidious creatures these days when it comes to our lawns, so we send valuable plant material to the land fill or burn it instead of feeding our plants with it. In our system nothing leaves, it all goes back through various composting methods that we use. We like the municipal mulch because it is incredibly biodiverse, and the county does a decent job of cooking and processing it. Not to mention, it is free! Composting in place using green manure from chopping and dropping plants as well as the brown carbon from the mulch makes for the perfect environment for soil microbes to create rich soil. We grow chop and drop plants that not only grow fast and give us green manure for the garden but are also beautiful and provide privacy. We also use the green manure from the garden to create compost tea that also feeds the soil and the plants. This method of adding organics and creating rich soil can also help with soil organisms like root-knot nematodes that can be quite harmful to annual fruit and vegetable plants. We also have little “weeds” in our system. The continual layering of organic material in the garden effectively suppresses weed seeds from germinating. Well, except for oak tree seedlings sprouting from the squirrels burying acorns, but we just drop mulch on those as well.
Mulch not only breaks down to feed the plants, but mulch also keeps their roots cool during hot summer days and aids in moisture retention. Plants in our experience thrive from this method of mulching and creating soil, and we have really enjoyed watching the change in our ecosystem over time.
