Mulch for a Healthy Garden

What are the benefits of mulching?

Mulching is nature’s way of combating soil erosion and, at the same time, ensuring that soil retains the necessary moisture. This reduces the need to frequently water your plants. It also works as an inhibitor of weeds and certain kinds of diseases, and reduces compaction from the onslaught of heavy rains. We can call mulch the “insulating blanket”. That’s because, in peak summers, it helps to cool the soil, and in biting winters, it retains heat. Apart from all these benefits, there’s also the aesthetic factor. When you mulch your garden, it gets a clean, groomed look. Besides, you can access the garden even when it is wet, helping to keep your porch, driveway, and feet clean.

What are the different kinds of mulch?

We can classify mulch into broadly two categories – organic mulch and inorganic mulch.

As the name suggests, organic mulch is made from material that will eventually decompose and become a part of the soil. For obvious reasons, these are considered eco-friendly. By disintegrating and returning to soil, they add nutritional organic matter to it, making your plants healthy and lush. However the flipside to this is that you will have to mulch your garden periodically. The different kinds of organic mulches include wood chips, pine needles, hardwood and softwood bark, cocoa hulls, leaves, compost mixes, among others.

Inorganic mulches include a variety of stones, pulverized rubber, crushed gravel, volcanic rock, geotextile fabrics, and other materials. The points in favor of inorganic mulches are that they don’t need to be replenished often, they do not deplete soil nitrogen and they do not allow the growth of weeds. However, they are not preferred by lots of gardeners and horticulturists because they do nothing to improve the structure of the soil, and, most importantly, they don’t add organic matter to it.

Can I make mulch at home?

Of course, you can! If you look around, you will see things that will serve as excellent mulches for your garden. For instance, the grass clippings that you were planning throw away works wonders for a vegetable garden. They can be spread evenly around the plants thanks to their fine texture. That stack of old newspapers in your basement that you don’t know what to do with? Mulch your garden with it and see how it keeps weeds at bay. Leaves are also excellent for mulching and it is something that is available in abundance. Hay, straw, home-made compost….there is no dearth of materials that you can use from your own house to mulch your garden.