Forget about weeds: how and when to mulch your garden
Weeds can only be gotten rid of temporarily, and no matter how carefully gardeners weed out every blade of grass, they will soon have to do it again.
There is an alternative to exhausting weeding, and it does not necessarily involve chemicals that destroy all living things in their path. You can mulch the beds.
However, in order for mulch to help cope with this problem, you need to know what material to use and when.
Experienced gardeners have long since switched to mulch.
This can be either straw or hay, or a layer of green manure. Some even leave green manure after planting the main vegetable crops.
But the main thing is not what to use, but when.
If you rush, the mulch layer will prevent the soil from warming up after winter, and then the seedlings will grow and bear fruit poorly in the cold soil.
After the soil has warmed up, you need to weed out the weeds and cover the bed:
- layer of tree bark;
- a layer of peat;
- humus;
- straw;
- prepared sawdust;
- black agrofibre.
It is important that the layer is sufficient to cover the bed from sunlight.
It is noteworthy that mulch not only protects the soil from weeds, but also from drying out, overheating, and beneficial insects start to appear under its layer.
At the same time, the risk of spreading insect pests that are attracted to weeds is reduced.
