North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[mIEKAL aND <qazingulaza@gmail.com>]

We mulched more than 500 trees by laying down layers of unprinted
cardboard & then topping with well rotted compost.  In most cases I
put enough cardboard that it suffices for 2 years.  After 2 years
trees done this way are sometimes 2-3 times larger than nearby
unmulched trees of the same varieties.

I wish I knew my mushrooms because it also really seems to encourage
their growth as well.

~mIEKAL


On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 11:18 AM, Dr. Lucky Pittman
<lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu> wrote:
> Steve,
> I think you'll rue the day you ever used a synthetic landscaping fabric,
> whether woven or not.
> Yes, they allow water to penetrate, but every time I've ever had occasion to
> deal with that stuff, it looks like a desert underneath them - they don't
> allow the soil microherd to do what it's supposed to do, with respect to
> deep-cycling nutrients from the decomposing woody mulch placed on top of the
> fabric.
> And, while it will 'block' germination of most weed seeds beneath the
> fabric, roots of weed seedlings that germinate in the mulch layer on top
> readily penetrate both woven/nonwoven fabrics, and become entangled in the
> material, making it difficult to pull them out.
>
> Just put down several layers of newsprint, or a single layer of corrugated
> cardboard, etc., than overlay that with your woody mulch material.
>
> Lucky
>