Mulch Nation Part One

When I decided I wanted to put the herb beds on the south, I needed to figure out a fast way to prepare the soil. I had several mature perennial plants and the soil was not very soft. Tilling the soil and adding amendments was out. Too much work and money. And our clay soil structure is so fragile I could easily damage it. I could have done heavy mulch and waited for it to loosen the soil underneath. What I ended up doing was a medium mulch and putting the plants straight in. The mulch hadn't even had time to do it's work yet. Or had it?

We had precious little rain this last winter when I put the mulch on. Not nearly enough to saturate the cardboard, newspaper and rice straw I had laid down for the bed. This required me to water the beds much more than I had planned. If I didn't water them at least once a day, the wind would start to pull them up at the edges and take them away. I felt pretty ridiculous watering mulch in the winter with no plants evident. But they were all there. I had transplanted many large plants and distributed the Jerusalem Artichokes more evenly along the herb bed's western front sides. And then I waited. Would the plants survive in this soil and regrow?

As fate would have it, there had been a miscommunication with the yard maintenance crew at the old house. Prior to moving my plants, they had all been hacked down with a weed whacker. Luckily, I knew where they were and excavated the mangled stumps. I was worried that the trauma would be too much for them. I was wrong. All the plants came back in the late winter. Some were planted more deeply than others due to the time I had to plant and the softness of the soil. Regardless, they all seem to be doing well. Actually for the first time ever I think I will get to see the Rue flower! My sage has grown three times its original size.

The mulch idea actually started from the eastern corner near the kitchen door. The reason it started here was that I was smothering a patch of puncture vine. The puncture vine has a multi-faceted spiked seed. It looks more like a weapon than a seed. And it can do some severe damage to tires and skin. It likes full sun and gravelly soil. I just started dumping kitchen green waste and water on top of a patch of straw I piled there. The main difference between the planned mulched beds and this "smother" bed was the mulch itself. For the herb beds I brought in decomposed straw from another part of the farm on top of a layer of cardboard or newspaper . The straw for the smother project was in good condition ie not broken down at all. It needed much more help to stay down and do it's job hence all the water and kitchen waste.

Dealing with the puncture vine helped me clarify what to do when I have a very unwelcome addition to our plant family. I let many western weeds go just to see what they are and what insects like them. The puncture vine got established while we were building the house and not really paying much attention. It is tenacious. It grows through the several inches of mulch I dumped on top of it. I have been picking out the seedlings for the whole growing season thus far . We will see how it goes next year. If the seeds didn't inflict wounds that immediately get infected, I might let it go. But in this case my needs outweigh the needs of the plant.

The smother bed receives the bulk of the kitchen waste water. I have a large plastic pitcher on the counter where I put water that is fairly clean but going to be tossed out. It is amazing how much water you can accumulate this way. Other things get in there as well - the odd tea bag, some old rice, oat meal or noodles, but mostly just water. The bed didn't seem to change much for the first month. And then things started growing in it. Not the puncture vine but other strange new plants. I even found a volunteer lentil plant and transplanted it to the garden beds! Now we have sunflowers, tomatoes, an unidentified mint or salvia, various weeds not found in my Weeds of the West book and crowder beans.

The thing that really surprised me was what was going on underneath the beds. Unfortunately most of the strange and wonderful decomposition and inoculation of the herb beds and smother bed didn't get captured on film because I wasn't doing this blog then. But I will describe it in part two.