North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[YankeePerm@aol.com]

Generally I agree with Mark.
    My preference is to use sheet mulching technique except where I want 
plants to sucker or tip layer.  (You can direct tip layers to pots for that 
matter.)  This suppresses the competitive vegetation and makes thickness of 
the mulch a separate matter.  
    As Mark suggested, mulch thickness is a management issue.  It can also be 
a resource issue.  Lacking anything else, I've pulled weeds and used them to 
anchor overlapped newspapers (base level of sheet mulch) as a mulch and 
gotten many of the mulching benefits.  
    I agree also that mulch can be a problem in unseasonable frosts, 
particularly if the temperature drops quite rapidly.   It is also can cause 
heat stress because the soil is not available as a sink.  On the other hand, 
the same insulation moderates the temperature of the soil, which is very good 
for roots as they generally are less tolerant to temperature extremes and 
sudden changes.  And of course any mulch encourages development of a 
fertility stratum right where the feeder roots work best.  (I've covered this 
in an earlier post.)
    Personally, I prefer to let poultry on mulch from time to time to mix it 
up, add their manure, etc.   This also helps control slugs which are a curse 
in conventional mulch or in living mulch if you have much moisture at all.  
With tree crops, I mulch and let the poultry scratch--no need for sheet 
mulching the birds keep weeds from coming through.  If I am concerned about 
damage to roots, I mulch with rocks or concrete paving "stones" around the 
tree.   This is not attractive to rodents, either, so that problem with 
mulches is avoided.  I kind of guess on which trees need this and so far I 
haven't lost any that I left without stone mulching.  (We have no stones here 
except for limestone pieces some previous owner trucked in to have a cute 
stone wall.  Not everything wants limestone, of course.   So we have to use 
thse concrete paving squares which aren't free.  So far we've managed by 
diging up pointless sidewalks.)  I also use circular wire cages to keep 
animals out temporarily, though I keep them on bananas permanently as I don't 
want chickens scratching my mulch away.  I've seen chickens in bananas in 
Hawaii with no ill effect, but we don't have the amount of mulch needed to 
cover a large area and the mulch around the bananas would be quickly 
dispersed.   Another thing I've done to keep chickens from spreading mulch, 
particularly on steep banks of terraces, is to cover the banks with brush and 
tree tops.  These have to be renewed, of course, as they melt into the soil.  
 Apios is a good vine to put under brush as it is a nice N fixer, doesn't 
worry trees and shrubs it twines about and is one of maybe six things in the 
universe that chickens don't eat (much anyway).  And it produces a crop, 
which is all the more abundant under mulch.

    In general, I'd say that mulch is about as complicated as soil in terms 
of management, at least potentially.  If you pile it a foot deep around your 
blueberries and watch it waterlog through four months of rain, you are going 
to get chlorosis.  You can start simple, though, experiment a bit, try sheet 
mulching where appropriate, and you will find it is easy to do and the 
complexities become aparant to you as you go along and get new ideas.

    I should say, incidentally, that mulching technique can vary a lot 
according to the nature of your soil.  If it is highly organic with lots of 
vialbe soil flora and fauna, mulch becomes an immediate slow release way to 
feed the soil.   In poor soil, it can take a number of years to get the level 
of activity where the mulch melts into the soil more or less annually.  It is 
smart to put a nitrogen source, such as chicken bedding down on the bottom 
layer of mulch, particularly with sheet mulching.  You don't need much.

    Ok, one more caution--avoid mulching with materials that form gley.  
Green grass clippings are the classic example.  The slime will close off the 
"breathing" of the soil.  Mixed with sawdust or dried leaves, grass clippings 
are great as they dont form a gley.  The other mulch that can gley up is 
seaweed.  It is an outstanding material for mulching but you don't want to 
seal off the surface of the soil.  With salt-sensitive crops you need to 
rinse it a bit or leave it in the rain first.  Bananas get a burned fringe to 
the leaves but peaches show no damage here.  Rinse the seaweed where you want 
the trace minerals.   If you are in a arid situation, probably you should 
pass on the seaweed or use it only after processing to a liquid "manure."

Dan Hemenway
Zone 9 today

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