Black plastic has many advantages. It is a very effective weed and moisture barrier, it installs neatly and it warms the soil.

The only real negative about black plastic is that it is not biodegradable and uses petroleum. It is pretty economical though and might be worth it. You decide.

The nicest commercially available natural mulch I have seen is Mainly Mulch. It is very attractive. It has a fine texture, making it easy to spread and a more effective weed barrier than many other loose mulches. I don't know how widely available it is.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Mainly Mulch

The size of your bed is important as it will determine your pain threshold as it relates to costs! You can mulch with anything really, shredded newspaper, cardboard, hay straw, cypress. The goal is water retention and weed control.

Thanks for your suggestions. I called on the Mainly Mulch. It is only sold out east and costs about $60 per bail to ship. I will see if I can get a garden center here in Minnesota to order a pallet and then it can be shipped by truck.

I was thinking about Cypress. I wasn't sure if when it starts to decompose if it has any negative affect on the soil.

Teresa

i did wood cedar mulch last year - don't do it!! Been picking out the wood chunks for months now, lol!

Leaves are what I use here in the desert. They work great for me. The upside is they're free plus they can be composted when summer's over. The downside is they have a tendency to blow out of the raised beds in anything more than a breeze.

Wood mulch attracts ants, pill bugs and others.
Down here in Georgia we have lots of pine trees and pine needles,
often called pine straw, is the most common mulch used everywhere.
That is the one I use. By the end of season it is brokend down and serves yet
another purpos as soil amende.

I'm testing shredded paper. It seems to reflect light to the plants and keeps soil cooler. We have had a very wet and cool winter/spring - but my early plants have done well. The only insect that I've encountered so far is aphis on some cabbages, but too late to delay heading.

We are facing water rationing this summer, so am eager to find a solution. This seems to be working so far.

Blowing paper hasn't been a problem, as it is contained in board foundation boxes with cage structures inside.

I was disappointed with straw mulch, as it seemed to harbor pill bugs, spring tails, etc., and I felt it might possibly have been treated with herbicides - as my vegetable yields were spotty when I used it.

I'll know more about the success/failure of shredded paper at the end of summer, after months of irrigation - and no rain.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

Thanks all! I would love to be able to get pine straw here in Minnesota. So far, none of the garden stores I have tried carry it. They have pine bark mulch which I have in my hosta beds - but no pine straw. :-(

Lawn clippings. I don't use any broad spectrum anything on the lawn, only spot treatments. It retains moisture, keeps weeds down and it is free, plus a good source of nitrogen and it degrades by fall. Veg. garden is production space and doesn't have to be pretty.

Steve

You know, newspaper makes a good mulch if you put it down about ten sheets thick. Wet it, and then cover it with a thin layer of purchased mulch if that's all you can find.
Leaves, grass clippings, or pinestraw over paper works well too. Paper does the job and at the end of the season, it has rotted in. Very convenient. Cover the entire bed with the paper, then just cut holes in the places where you want your plants. Don't use the shiny colored inserts. They don't break down.

It's not attractive, but old carpet makes a very effective mulch too. Very good in paths.

what donnabaskets said!

It sounds like I could cut back on a little mulch in the veggie beds if I put down layers of newspaper. I'm thinking I could use the brown shopping bags as well as they are compostible. That should save a few buck on the mulch as I can use a little less mulch in combination with the paper. I am looking at least 300 bags if I go 3" thick. Wow!

Lawn clippings can cake up.
papers can get like mashed potato.
They, both prevent water from going down, especially if dried up.
In the absense of hay or pine straw, very fine pine barks is good too. It will let the water go down, preven drying up, reduce weeds growth, AND it is pretty looking and insects are not attracted to it.

Personally i used cypress mulch. I have found it retains moisture pretty well and is also not to bad to look at. Plus the better half prefers it to look decent and not to shabby. I set out about three inches this year around the veggie seedlings and only a thin layer for the beans. When they sprout and have a little growth i will go a little more heavy around them. This last week i scored big time on the cypress, Lowes was having a sale at .99/per 2cf bag. I asked Home Depot if they would match it and they did plus 10% off. With a deal this good i bought a whole pallet full for my neighbor and myself.

Never pay for mulch, Teresa. And mulch depending on your plans. I prefer wood chips because I plant many vegetables through them, and they last two or more years. So I do not have to mulch every year. OTOH, I also need a few unmulched beds for carrots, lettuce, radish, and the like. For those, I mulch with leaves, grass clippings or cardboard, which disappear by next year. Chips (call a tree company and get a load dumped), cardboards, leaves, and grass clippings are all free.

I use dried lawn clippings. Used them last year with really good success, kept the weeds down and helped keep the soil moist. The only drawback was that sometimes after a rain I'd be picking little pieces of dried grass of my green beans (I think that's how velcro was invented...by a green bean farmer who used grass clipping mulch).

I have one bed right now with a newspaper cover topped with cotton burr mulch, is working tremendously. I left spaces around each plant, similar to how one would use black plastic, and the tomatoes are growing almost before my eyes!!

For those using leaves, do they need to be shredded? My garden is not raised and I have it fenced (all the rabbits in the area considered it their salad bar before I fenced it)

I do not shred the leaves. I just make sure to have a good 4-6 inches around the plants.

I've been using hay (spoiled hay, not weedy stuff) for almost 40 years in many different gardens. I use shredded bark for the paths.

I'd like to add a question about mulch; I've got a bunch of old hay I was considering using for mulch. My only question is, its not bales of hay, its the leftovers and stuff I've cleaned out from around my horses round-bales. Alot of it has urine on it, will the ammonia from the urine affect the plants? I'm not looking to mulch between plants, just down the rows. Its my first year garden and I have quack grass and nut grass up the wazoo, I can weed between plants but I can't keep up on the areas between my melon hills or down rows.

Any advice?

The old hay like that is fine. Urine an amonia have probably all evaporated and/or decompsed.
Plus, the concentration, even if existed, will be very low and with watering
it will be further dilutes and will not reach the roots right away.
JMO

I found aged horse manure this stuff looks good. It is rich black looking and does not smell. I will get it wet tonight and see if it does and if it does not I am going to put it around my plants.

Another source I know of is the state refuge recycle center. They give it away if you haul it, I may try them.

I'm a big fan of last fall's leaves. Lots of people in my neighborhood bag their leaves. Guy across the street must have put out 20 bags last fall. Grabbed them all, unbagged and piled in an extra compost bin I have. Bin is about 10 x 5 x 5 and I filled it to the top and then some. By spring, they've compacted down quite a bit and have made a nice "layer" of composting mulch. Entirely free.

Incidentally, another neighbor uses the same method and he just keeps them bagged all winter.

testing

If you mulch with straw, can you just put new straw mulch on top of it at the end of the year? Then just replant in it in spring?

OK... So ..Let me get this straight...

Pile up some kind of mulch next to the plants ???

I can't see the soil, so should I just pile it up on the plants and let it seep down ;-)

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"If you mulch with straw, can you just put new straw mulch on top of it at the end of the year? Then just replant in it in spring?"

Sure. The straw will be mostly decomposed by the next spring. But I would say the better method would be to add a layer of compost, plant and then mulch with straw the next spring.

You don't have to have a formal raised bed to do lasagna gardening.

jonhughes, are you going to eat all that or sell it? Very impressive garden!

Thank You

I eat a little (mostly a carnivore ;-)

I donate all my vegetables to the Food Bank to feed the hungry. There is always someone hungrier than me out there,and since I am so blessed,I assume Jesus would want me to bless others in return.

Hi, Jon! I've seen many photos and posts of your raised beds. Outstanding job! :-)

Wow - beautiful garden. What a great idea with the cinder blocks!

Hi all - just thought I'd toss in that we purchased a big sheet of heavy fabric 15 years ago from a professional company that lays it on hillsides to prevent erosion. I cut it in strips - narrow ones about 12" and wider ones about 18". After we till in the spring, we roll them down in whatever arrangement works for the season - use the wider ones for the main paths and between the tomatoes and the narrow ones between smaller crops. Then we mulch the dirt areas between the plantings with layers of newspaper, lay soaker hoses on top, and cover the entire thing including the paths with straw. Once it's done it really is pretty much done for the season. We don't do the sweet corn and we have a huge huge area of it (I argue with my husband about this annually) so it generally gets weedy even with tilling with the Mantis between the rows a few times but the rest stays very nice. In the fall we roll up the fabric and just stack it in the corner and the remainder of the straw and newspaper gets tilled in with compost the following spring. It actually works extremely well. I will have to snap some pics later.

Here's a pic from last year early in the season.

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So I have my first vegetable garden this year, and I mulched in early April with straw. It's been very effective at preventing weeds (except the darn thistle!) but I noticed that there is moss starting to grow underneath. We are about to have a hot week in the 90s, so I presume it'll dry up. However, did I mulch too early? Is it bad that there is moss? Should I pull back the mulch around the tomatoes & peppers to give them more heat?

I wouldn't worry about the moss - it will dry up soon enough as long as the garden is in the sunshine.

We always argue about when to mulch - my opinion is that it's best to wait until things are really starting to grow which means you have to either weed it or let the weeds go until then - but the ground warms up and I think overall things do better. We mulched yesterday - perfect timing after the ground was saturated from the rain and right before this big warmup so it helped to transition the plants. If you can easily pull back the mulch a bit it probably is good - where are you? I'm near St. Louis.

Well, next year I'll wait, because I was out there planting a bit this morning and the soil was downright chilly under the straw... definitely more approaching 55-60 degrees than the ambient 88. My greens aren't growing as quickly as in some of the other unmulched plots, either. (community garden)

I'm in Madison... 5a is a stretch here - we're more like 4b. We're several weeks ahead this year, though.

I've been contemplating adding newspaper under the straw, since the thistle and the occasional dandelion keep popping through. I have a little toad that lives in my garden that I don't want to disturb (he can stay as long as he is devouring my bugs!) nor do I want to inhibit airflow.

I've been reading everything I can on mulch and it's been hard to any definite answers.