Mulch now, mulch with caution
Posted on June 11th, 2008 – 7:50 AMBy Connie Nelson
I believe in mulch. I mulch thickly and often, but not so early. (I give the garden a while to dry out in spring.) Mulch is a pretty hot topic in gardening circles right now. Dog lovers are cautioning dog owners to steer clear of cocoa bean mulch because it contains an ingredient (theobormine) that’s toxic to dogs — and it smells like chocolate. (Do dogs love chocolate? Are they as attracted to it as I am?)
Environmentalists are urging gardeners to avoid cypress mulch because the slow-growing trees harvested for the mulch are an important part of a fragile Florida ecosystem.
And rubber mulch? Well, the jury’s still out on that one, but early studies indicate it may leach nasty chemicals into the soil. Some experts are saying it’s best to not use rubber mulch (made from recycled tires) in veggie beds.
No worries. There are still plenty of mulches out there. I like to mulch locally — and cheaply. In my perennial beds, I use the free chipped up elms from the city. (My fave chip piles are at Lake Calhoun and the one behind Parade Stadium.) Around veggies and herbs, I use a thick layer of compost from my own composter. (It doesn’t even have to be all the way done. It can be kind of chunky.) You can mulch with hay or straw or dried grass clippings or shredded newspaper or cardboard . . . Hey, just about anything that covers the ground, lets a little moisture in and doesn’t leach nasty chemicals can make for mulch.
When do you mulch? What do you mulch with? How much do you use? And for those of you who don’t bother with mulch, tell us what you use to keep the weeds down.
32 Responses to "Mulch now, mulch with caution"
Perfect timing for this post! I’ve been trying to locate FREE mulch sites in the south metro…I know of a couple in Mpls but am wondering if there are any south of the river that anyone knows of? I’ve tried googling…at 4.09 a gallon I don’t really need to be traipsing around the metro for *free* mulch that I have to spend a billion dollars in gas to get to!
I use cocoa bean mulch in one bed because it looks so pretty, and it’s more of a speciman bed for shrubs and peonies. The other flower beds are planted so thickly mulch would be redundant! I don’t mulch my vegetable bed, except for applying a fresh layer of compost every year.
Connie,
Do I have to be concerned with rabbit/tomato interaction?
Will they harm the plants?
Cocoa Bean mulch is toxic to dogs/cats so I’ve shied away from that. I have been buying Cypress, but now that you just edumacated me, I will be switching to something else! Thanks!!!
Two large pine trees in my yard provide mulch from the needles and pine cones. Squirrels chew the scales off the cones and throw them in my garden bed. It looks cool, keeps the weeds down and all the plants in that bed are thriving. Thanks to the otherwise annoying squirrels it’s my favorite part of the garden!
Judybusy, have you had any trouble with cocoa beans molding? They have a tendency to matt together and get a whitish mold when the weather is wet (like this year). Any problems so far?
Phyllis,
From the research I’ve done, there’s nothing to indicate that rabbits love tomatoes. (They definitely love hostas.) However, if those little bun-buns are hungry enought, they’ll eat anything. Caging your tomatoes will help keep rabbits at bay. You can also try planting marigolds around your tomatoes (some gardeners swear by them) or use sprikle human hair, bone meal, blood meal or shavings from stinky soap around your tomates. All of these methods work sometimes . . . and usually have to be reapplied after a rain.
Darcie,
I’d check the website of your city or give city hall a call. Most municipalities offer free mulch, but may not have the budgets to advertise them. Also, many of the mulch piles have been depleted by thrifty gardeners. It may take a few weeks for the piles to be replenished.
Let me know if you don’t have any luck. I can get you to several sites in Minneapolis, Richfield and St. Paul, but don’t know of much south of the river . . .
Kelsey, you rock! I love pine needle mulch. It’s used a lot in the south, where you can buy big bales of it. I’ve never seen it sold around these parts. Has anyone else? I love the way it looks. From what I’ve read, it does add a little bit of acidity to the soil, but not enough to affect how your plants grow . . .
Didn’t mulch last year, but we have two large oak trees on the boulevard that drop a lot of leaves. I saved a bunch of the leaves, and plan to use those with a mix of bamboo leaves, grass clippings, and now thanks to Connie, some of our compost.
It’s wet and cold in Seattle(colder than International Falls, even!), so I’m not in any hurry to mulch yet.
Povertyrich,
You’re smart to wait for things to dry out and warm up a bit. Some of my beds are prone to mildew, so I usually wait until mid-June to mulch here in good ol’ Minnesota. By then, it’s usually plenty warm. Not this year, tho . . .
I too have pine trees that supply me with pine needle mulch — for my acid-loving blueberries! I mulch around young fruit trees and raspberries with year-old straw. I use the bales over the winter to make a windscreen for my beehives, then just take it apart and reuse the straw as mulch. Still haven’t found the perfect mulch for my vegetable garden though. Maybe I’ll try newspaper this year.
Rob,
You could try straw in your veggies, unless you think that’s too messy. Lotsa folks use a thick layer of composted manure (COMPOSTED, not fresh, which can contain pathogens. ick!) or even not-all-the-way-done compost from home composters. Of course, working at a newspaper, I advocate shredded newspaper, too. It’s the only mulch you can read!
I’ve been a free-wood-chip mulcher, but have a huge compost pile I need to get rid of. Also, the woodchips seem to get matted down pretty heavily and don’t decompose very rapidly. If I put down compost over year-or-two-old woodchips, am I creating a new problem, or should I not worry?
Thanks!
Bsimon,
Woodchips aren’t designed to decompose rapidly. That’s why most people use them as mulch for perennials and trees. You can just top them off with new woodchips when you need to. As for adding compost on top? Well, that might not be the best. It shouldn’t create problems for your garden, but it may not look great. Compost typically works its way into the soil or, in annual beds, can be turned into the soil at the end of the growing season. It might make the woodchips look nasty . . .
I quit using cocoa bean mulch around my perennials a few years ago because white mold did form. Also, on a hot or breezy day, I could smell the musty mold while sitting my open front porch.
I’ve used the city’s free woodchips ever since and they work great.
I used cocoa beans this year (half a bag, left over from a photo shoot), and I think I’m gonna regret it. It’s been a wet spring. Not the thing for cocoa beans. Sure hope they don’t mildew.
I used them last year, for the first itme in a while, and they didn’t mold as they did in years past. I think they’re best in a sunnier spot. To be honest, I haven’t refreshed it this year. My plants are bigger and my neighbor lent us a nifty garden ornament, so it didn’t seem to need it as much. Plus, it’s $7.00 bucks a bag, or 1 3/4 gallons of gas!
I love the way cocoa bean mulch looks (as long as it’s not getting white and fuzzy), but I had to stop using it because every time I walked out into my yard I started craving brownies. It’s free wood chips for me now.
Judybusy, you’re spot on with yard art! I’m using plenty o’ yard art to hide holes this year. But I lost a lot of leaves on some of my plants, so I’m having to mulch. I haven’t mulched most of the garden yet and I’m too cheap to buy mulch, so I’m waiting for the free mulch piles to come back, come back wherever they are!
Ha, Karen, did you gain weight when you used cocoa bean mulch?
I used in my entire garden one hot, dry summer and, for some reason, I kept baking cookies all summer. Chocolate chip cookies, of course.
connie writes
“Woodchips aren’t designed to decompose rapidly.”
Somebody should change the design!
Thanks for the info.
Our mulching situation is somewhat skizophrenic. I use the free Mpls mulch generously, but a buddy did some landscaping for us & used cocoa bean in one are & some gold tinted wood in another. The gold wood is 1) ugly and 2) intermixed with my free wood chip mulch, which makes both uglier. Plus the prior homeowner put some red woodchips down around some yews.
I think I’ll be experimenting with compost & free chips. The real question is whether to cover the ugly gold, or rake it off & dispose of it somehow.
Bsimon,
I’ve never seen gold mulch. It sounds interesting (in the Minnesota use of the word). I’ve got a mix of mulch, too. It looks OK, but if I were to do it again (and I will next spring), I’d probably rake one kind up before I put down another.
Are we overdoing it with mulch? The writer of this Washington Post story says we may be. Check it out:
http://www.startribune.com/a4470 .
I like very finely shredded wood mulch because it decomposes. I hate having to dig through chunky old wood chips.
For long-lasting, good looking mulch, I like mini pine bark nuggets.
I just planted some annuals. As an experiment, I mulched them with shredded leaves that I’ve kept since last fall. I expect them to break down quickly.
I use cocoa mulch and shredded bark, in different beds, of course. My gripe with the cocoa mulch is that it’s lightweight and tends to get tracked (or blown) all over the sidewalk, and then into the house. But I guess that’s just part of summer.
It is expensive, but you don’t need much.
I knew I had been bitten by the gardening bug the year I asked for mulch for my birthday.
Connie: Thanks for the Washington Post link!
Peter,
My ferns loved my leaf mulch. It was also a great way to get to know my neighbor. He has a huge sugar maple in his front yard and I traded him a bunch of kale for three bags of leaves!
Is there any need for landscape fabric if mulch is being used?
Jeff,
Landscape fabric really helps to keep weeds at bay, but still lets the soil breath. Most folks use it in areas that they may mulch but don’t plan to garden a lot in. You can cut thru it to put in plants, but if you’re going to have a lot of plants in an area that means lots of holes in the landscape fabric, which sorta defeats it’s purpose.
I used landscape fabric under mulch in an area of my yard I planned to plant woodland natives in one day. It’s worked well and I’m just now getting around to planting the plants!
I love the cocoa bean mulch. Love the way it looks, love the way it smells, and my dog is not interested in it at all.
But this year I made a new perennial bed and for some reason my brain was not working properly and I completely forgot about waiting to mulch. So I mulched in early May. And now I have mold.
I am going with my tried-and-true “doing nothing but hoping for the best” gardening method. My only saving grace is that I put it on rather too thinly and will need to add more later this year… after the mold dries out. 
Am I the only one who uses “living” mulch? aka groundcovers? My whole design scheme is based on sustainability and low-maint. So far groundcovers far surpass anything else I’ve tried. Yes, it takes some time and/or money initially but then self-replicating & self-spreading! In some cases also functions as critter barrier/repellant.
Greengirls Connie Nelson, Robyn Dochterman and Jaime Chismar are dishin' the dirt from the backyard garden and beyond. Whether you're a greenthumb or greenhorn, they're eager to learn from your misshaps, mistakes -- and most importantly, your sweet successes -- all growing season long.
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