How thick did you lay it down. I've used hay as a mulch for decades with no problems but it needs to be at least 5-6" thick. What few weeds do sprout if we we get lots of rain germinate very superficially and pull right up or I just lay more hay on top of them.

Straw works even better but many people don't have access to it. Of course any mulch is better than none as it provides so many other benefits too.

Dave

I'll add that hay itself may have a bank of weed seeds. Around here, hay is often contaminated with thistle and lambsquarters seed.

Hay itself can be a source of weeds seeds. !!

I've been mulching with hay for almost 50 years, in gardens in four different states. You lay it down very thick, and it suppresses weeds, helps keep the soil moist, and feeds the soil with organic material as it breaks down. The trick with hay is to get hay that was cut at the right time and isn't full of weed seed.

Before I use straw or hay I let it overwinter outside to kill weed seed--otherwise it just adds to fighting more weeds.

I have used it for years as well as those above...with success. It must be used with an educated/experienced hand and not just willy-nilly. If not available as an early cut or free as i get it, then another choice may be better suited for you. In my tomato bed and other raised beds with herbs and such i use clean weed free straw.
I did see a pic of dave's tomato beds somewhere and it is a perfect example of the best use of it.
It does take some tending as any mulch does...
My first year using it was a bit frustrating until i understood all its benefits and how thick i needed and between certain rows i add a thick layer of soaked newspaper first.

I have used what I have available to me and that's pretty much fallen maple leaves and grass clippings. Right now I am out of leaves, but come the fall, I will mix chopped leaves when we mow the lawn and that will stay on the bed all winter and in the spring, there will still be plenty left to act as mulch for that growing season. I do have raised beds, so maybe that makes a difference.

woodyswife- Do you leave the hay bundle right outside & that will truly kill any weed seeds? I don't like the idea of wet newspaper--too messy. Another annoyance was had hay blowing off the garden.

A bundle of a dozen weekend NYTimes soaked in a 5 gal bucket 24 hrs. Lay down sections, not a single sheet here and there. Heavy and wet/soaked. Cover with a thick layer of hay and get it wet. Very wet and walk on it. My garden in the mountains is nicknamed 'windy top'.
If it feels a bit light/airy for a week or two i might lay down a board with a big rock on top...the leading edge where the wind might catch it.

I had a hay bale in a black garbage bag all winter that baked in the sun and is almost a composted mess of ash....i'm just adding it weekly to the compost with some fall leaves.

Do you leave the hay bundle right outside & that will truly kill any weed seeds?

Sure. More exposed the better. If a round bale, break it open for more exposure. Kill seeds? Maybe not all seeds but most.

Better yet most who use hat get year old bales or what is call "spoilt hay" - hay that has been out in the weather for at least a year.

We grow and bale our own for the livestock so always have left over bales to use or sell to gardeners. Many prefer the older the better. Plus if you can be picky when getting it ask for 3rd mow hay as it has minimal seeds.

Dave

YES! Biggest mistake I ever made was mulching with straw. The feed store swore it was straw and not hay, which is supposed to not have seeds. Not only did it make a mess of everything, I had hay growing all over my garden and flower beds for about 2 years. I've never had to do so much weeding in my life!

That's gone on my "never again" list. I now stick to newspaper and shredded redwood.

loribee, I read that putting mulch down like the shredded woods takes away nutrients from the soil & adds too much nitrogen to the soil for a garden. Cuz that was my first choice--since I've always used natural unstained cedar shredded mulch around my roses with no problems. Do you think I could find this now??? arghhhh

nickjoseph: I think what you're reading refers to tilling the redwood into the soil, and even then, the nutrient issue would be the case only while the redwood is breaking down. That's true for anything being composted, which is why people typically compost off-site then move the finished compost into the beds when the process is complete.

Even so, I probably wouldn't use a disproportional amount of redwood in compost because of the Ph (is it low or high? I forget). My veggie garden is framed, raised beds (below). I lay the redwood down over a layer of newspaper after planting. At the end of the season, I pull the redwood off and relocate it to my landscape beds, which are always in need of more mulch. With that process, I have never experienced issues.

>> I read that putting mulch down like the shredded woods takes away nutrients from the soil & adds too much nitrogen to the soil for a garden.

You probably read it here!

There's no one-sized-fits-all method. If you look at it, mulch really isn't in the dirt. It's on it, and lighter mulches (like straw) touch it even less than the slower-decaying heavier mulches (like the finer chunks of wood). The rest of the soil is so very far more massive than the surface so the effects of most mulches is negligible on soil chemistry, especially if the dirt's loaded with organic materials already. On top of that, things happen slower to the organics in and on the dirt than one might realize. Sort of like cold composting...

Weeding is probably a combination of skill and local climate. Some people get weeds big-time and others hardly at all. The heavy mulchers TEND to have fewer weeds because once they get the hang of it, it does work well. Usually. Knock on wood.

Also note that some people treat mulch as a decorative thing while others as a best-final-product-at-all-cost thing. Both have merits, but It's good to understand who's who and which attitude is important for your site. For example, I am not a neat person when it comes to the back of the house.

If you have the space, try different ways and see.

straw I use cardboard first and try to cover all openings and slits in the cardboard with thick newspapers
Use mulch (mostly free) back in 2011 in old house .. No till. fabulous garden in my front yard then......
Here using cardboard then 2 year old straw bales broken , and weathered apart
Happy gardening all
Got over 20 something raised beds this year....

Down south where there was plenty of pine straw , i used that. It is almost weed seed free, it wont get mushy, it will let air and water in . But now up here in the PNW I use small pine nuggets. What I like about both pine straw and nuggets is that they also make a good soil amendment when tilled in. Actually I added some pine nuggets into my new raised bell filling to give a good drainage and aeration.

I always use straw with newspapers underneath it. I get some weeds but never many. The ones I do get come out very easy.
I try to get spoiled hay or straw, they just give it away sometimes.

Yup, I can't be wasting money if I'm getting it for free! :) I use hay (did I mention it is free?), and while I probably don't lay it quite as thick as Dave mentions I do put down more as areas become thin over the long growing season we have here. Sort of like patching it up as it breaks down. Do I still get weeds? Of course! But it is maybe as much as 10% what I would get otherwise, probably less. If I had more time I could show you a side-by-side comparison of the herb garden that was bare when I left for the wedding 7 days ago (ran out of time to get the mulch down) and the garden which is mulched with hay. The herbgarden has so much grass, medic, and smartweed that it looks like lawn, the garden has a couple of spots of green here and there that aren't veggies.

I think cold_weather said it best, there is no one size fits all weed control method, just the one that suits your time, budget, garden size, local resources, and level of energy. Cheers!

seysonn... are you ever concerned with the acidity that comes with pine straw (to you put down lime with the pine straw?). I have two enormous 20 year old pine trees that put out so much pine straw... even in the summer time I can still gather up good amounts of pine straw.

I use it to mulch my blueberries and raspberries which like the acidity or in the compost bin if I need some browns but I haven't mulched with it out of concern for acidity.

prachi - This question comes up often over on the Soil & Compost forum and discussions there state that the claim that pine straw/pine needles will acidify your soil is rated as a myth by several different studies.

I know Organic Gardening magazine printed a series of studies several years back where all found that pine needles had so significant affect on soil pH.

Check out link below for links to several different articles about the issue.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: What is the pH of pine straw?

I've been using fava bean stalks with pretty good success, and never really had problems with straw before.

I don't know why anyone would use hay for this, hay is much more expensive and contains the seed head. Straw is what is left over after the seedheads have been harvested, it's just the stalk. Yes, there are some heads in there, but then I just pull the 3 wheat plants that have grown and all is fine.

You need STRAW .... NOT HAY!

Hay is feed for animals and contains many weed seeds.

Straw is a bi-product of wheat, and contains very little if ANY seeds.

Straw is more expensive than hay around here ($7 for small bale vs $5 for larger hay bale - HD wanted $10 for small straw bale!). My dad has some 2nd cutting from last year, I'll have to see how much he wants for it. DH is just brush-hogging our fields now, gotta get them back in shape.

I'd love to plant oats for the straw but I'm afraid the deer will eat it all!

Straw bales are free if you go around collecting them after Halloween. People buy them as decorations then toss them once the holiday is over. Not only is that a waste of money but it's a waste of resources. It bugs me that people are stupid but on the other hand I'm happy to get free bales.

Rodney

Straw is 4x the cost of hay around here and that's if you can get it in any way - which you can't. Even hay is used for Halloween decorations in this neck of the woods.

The availability of both straw and hay is regional folks. So if you can get straw - great. If you can't, get hay. And both have advantages and disadvantages to their use just like any other form of mulch does. But either one is far more beneficial than no mulch at all.

All the other benefits of mulching aside, you want to see weeds (in all caps)? Just don't use any mulch.

Dave

Of course, things are different down here. I mulch with leaves. My lot has LOTS of trees. many live oak, but many with leaves that drop and, around here, they don't really drop until January. Cottonwood, cedar elm, and a humungous red oak next door. I mow over the leaves on the grass, which mulches the turf, but everywhere else, like between the houses, they just pile up. In the spring, when crops are up, and it's getting hot, I till gently between the rows, and then pile on the leaves. At least six inches deep. I have to water half as much as I would otherwise and, once I water, the leaves bind together so they won't blow away. At the end of the season, they're pretty well digested, and I just dig them in.

I have neighbors who garden, but who don't have that many trees. In January and February, when lots of people are raking and bagging, and leaving the bags out for city pickup, they just grab the bags and stack them up until summer.