Topic: Mulching

[Sarah-b]

I've been looking at one of Joy Larkham's books and she seems very keen on mulching. Does anyone here use it as a technique and in particular, has anyone tried using bracken as she suggests? If you used bracken is there no way you'd end up with an allotment full of bracken plants?

[rdak]

I've heard of people using bracken, but haven't used it myself. I believe it is acidic, but someone may correct me.

[gilgamesh]

Be careful with bracken. There's something quite carcinogenic in it (probably the spores) so you shouldn't mess with it after it starts to set those. The old dry stuff used to be used as animal bedding, but I'm not certain if that is still thought to be risky.

[derbex]

I mulch quite a lot, but not with bracken. I tend to use either lawn clippings (sometimes on top of newspaper), leaves/leafmold, or compost. We get quite a lot of hedgeprunings and lawn thatch in the autumn which makes a rough compost for mulching in the spring.

Jeremy

[ken (69)]

Hi Sarah....this is the second year that I've grown spuds under a grass cuttings mulch.Bumper crop and clean with it.Literally 'no dig', seed pots just placed on the ground and gradually heaped over with the mowings. As a weed suppressant it works too but you would need several inches worth, and doesn't look great in a border.I reckon most top crops could be grown this way..like beetroot..turnips and so on...i.e...without digging and using just mulch.Unfortuneately these allotments are being sold orf, so can't experiment anymore.Tin opener time cometh..regards Ken

[Sarah-b]

I'd like to try that "no-dig" approach to spuds. I'd have to get the grass cuttings from a friend though - we only have a tiny lawn.
Ken - What's happening to your allotments? Is it the local council who have sold them off for development? Whereabouts is your site? (I have a fear of this happening to our site.)

[rdak]

with my new plot, I am planning to go for a complete no-dig plot. Look on the internet for 'Ruth Stout'

[derbex]

I'm hoping quite a bit of mine will work out that way. I have two large beds covered in cardboard and horse dung, plus some mowings now. As well as a no-dig potato bed, covered with the above rough compost and mowings, I haven't looked at the spuds yet as they are maincrop.

Some weeds seem to work their way through just about anything, bindweed, thistles and dock -not in great numbers and I just pull them up. They don't seem to have any more perennial weeds then the beds that I dug and weeded, and no annuals.

Jeremy.

[rdak]

and weeds that do manage to grow up through the mulch tend to be very weak and easy to pull up, I've noticed.

[ken (69)]

Yes ,I've noticed that weeds coming thru are weak.That newspaper idea sounds interesting, Jeremy.....I'm in Norfolk, Sarah, hard land and not many plotholders left...mares tail..and all that.All old codgers.If I had my time over again this is the way I would go.Strim down...poison once only..old carpets to deny light..do a deal with a jobbing gardener who has to pay to get rid of debris.Bobs your uncle. This is already being done with the smallholders in this area  (via council recycling)but in it's infancy. My dad was bought up in the sticks..nothing bought..nothing wasted....tis back to the future.