Pros: Fairly inexpensive; lasts a couple years before it rots; easy to use

Cons: Can increase the acid of your soil, however strawberries are quite tolerant to acid soil

What is pine straw? thank you.

I was wondering the same thing about using it to mulch in my strawberry beds. I have white pines as a windbreak around half of my old property line and the needles have been gathering under them for years. It seems to me it would be a tidy mulch with much less tendency to mat up like straw.

I also have never heard about pine straw, so I googled it, and found a place that actually sells it on the internet! I guess you'd REALLY have to want pine straw!

http://www.pinestraw.com/pine-straw-faqs.html

Carla in Sac

It's an excellent mulch and has been suggested by some ag U.s as a new industry- gathering and bundeling pine needles. I guess it's starting to take off. I would definately use it if I had large enough white pines on my property.

My son lives in the Paradise Pine area near Chico California. Residents there are required by law to keep the pine needles raked up as a forest fire prevention scheme. My grandsons made pocket money while in high school clearing the yards of elderly retired folks in the area. They hauled it to the local dump. It is very slow to compost, which makes it a good mulch. In a dry forest however it is a fire hazard. Al

how about pine straw on grass, or places where you'd LIKE to have grass. I have an abundance of pine trees on my place, and I'm about tired of burning pine straw...thought about just mulching it, but I don't know what it will do to the grass!!!