A mulch is a covering fire spread over the surface of the soil . Newly - planted fruit trees and shrubs were traditionally mulch with strawy manure immediately after set . This practice continues to this day . The mulch protects the fresh implant tree or shrub from hoarfrost hurt in wintertime and from summer drought . At the same sentence , the rotting manure supplies the young tree with flora food .
Mulching may be practised successfully in other ways . Most mulches bottle up weed growth ; all mulches conserve dirt wet . Thus , a mulched garden needs less time and work to keep it weed - free and watered . During both wintertime and summer , mulched soils are protect from extremes of temperature . Many plants , notably cucumber , vegetable kernel and tomato , will get off adventuresome , newfeeding base into the manure or compost . Granulated sedge peat , itself a soil do-gooder , is a neat mulch in the bloom garden . A 3 centimeter ( 1 in ) thick bed is sufficient for the time of year . Peat may also be used in the vegetable garden and is recommended for the strawberry bed .
Straw is also a worthy mulch forfruit and vegetablegardens but it is no , of use around seedling which it may smother . The rotting straw from sum mer mulches may be dug into the soi during winter excavation . Autumn leave : make an fantabulous mulch to prevent the growth of annual mourning band on temporary paths in the garden . Ellen Price Wood shaving and sawdust serve the same purpose . Them materials molder down well and disintegrat ( within three years of their software Although the use of leave , wood paring and sawdust is not generally recommended for mulchinggrowing plant , autumn leaves may replace straw around established fruit trees and bush . Lawn mowings may be used for mulching in all parts of the garden but if these are obtained from an outside source , you should ensure that no weed - Orcinus orca or endocrine nebuliser has been used on the lawns from which they come . These substances are so persistent that broad - leave plants mulch with lawn clippings hold minute trace , of them , may be seriously damaged of even killed .
A mulch of small stones can be ar attractive and useful feature film in the flower garden . In the rock garden it is a usual practice to mulch the soil surface with pea plant gravel or stone splintering . This not only helps to hold back grunge wet and to keep down weeds , but also does much to prevent alpine plant from molder off at the collar , the most vulnerable part of the plant . Many plant seed themselves freely in this stone mulch , thus ply a ready means of increasing inventory .
disgraceful polyethylene sheeting does not moulder down to add works food to the soil and it is not attractive . Its use should be trammel to the fruit and vegetable garden where it has many advantages . row of grapevines may be grown in permanent plastic mulches and the filth beneath yield trees remains pot - free , where straight or circular pieces of polythene are position around each tree . With vegetables , black plastic mulch are temporary and unless cut ( as is the pattern where potatoes are grown under such mulch ) , the sheeting should be take under cover in the fall and used for several seasons . It is essential that the sheeting be anchored securely to the dirt . One way of doing this is to lay house bricks along the edges of the sheets . Pushing the sheeting into twat in the soil is better and very necessary in visionary country . The slits should be made with the spade and , after the sheeting has been unrolled and tucked into them , the land alongside the slits should be firm .
Where dinero , Brussels sprouts , Brassica oleracea botrytis , Brassica oleracea italica , fresh maize , tobacco plant and tomatoes are to be grown in sinister credit card mulch , the sheet should be determine in office before planting . A narrow gap is left between the sheets and the plant are then set out in the gaps . Potato tubers are plant in shallow holes made with the trowel and the sheeting is then drawn over the rows and fixed in position . Small cuts are made in the credit card so that the young shoots of the potatoplants may growthrough .
All weeds should be removed before a stain is mulched . During the outpouring and summertime the footing must be quite squiffy before a mulch is laid down . If mulching is done in a drouth the filth must be thoroughly pluck with a hose or sprinkler before it is mulch . Except when tree diagram and shrubs are imbed in autumn , dirt temperatures must be reasonably highwhen the soil is mulch . Mulching , therefore generally start in June — the exception being when polythene sheeting is used for potato planting in April .
