Where to Find Free Mulch for the Vegetable Garden
Mulching a vegetable garden means to cover a garden bed with a layer of
natural (usually plant) material. Mulch helps to keep down the weeds,
slows down the evaporation of water from the soil, and protects a
plant's roots from erosion or freezing temperatures.
Most people
equate mulch with those expensive bags of bark chip that can be
purchased from the garden center. While this type of mulch is pretty to
look at, it's totally unnecessary for gardeners on a budget. If you are
looking for free ways to mulch a vegetable garden, these tips can save
you money.
Grass clippings & newspaper. If you read
the daily paper and mow the lawns on weekends, then you've got a steady
supply of free mulch. Newspaper and grass clippings makes for a
fantastic weed barrier and as it breaks down, will improve the texture
of the garden soil as well. To mulch with grass and newspaper, you'll
need at least a weeks worth of papers (no colored inks or ads) and the
clippings from your lawn or that of a neighbor's. Do NOT use clippings
that have been treated with pesticides or herbicides.
1. Place
several layers of newspaper in the vegetable garden. Make sure that the
paper does not touch the stem of the vegetables.
2. Sprinkle grass clippings on top of the newspaper to a depth of two or three inches.
3. Repeat every 3-4 weeks as the newspaper breaks down.
Used carpeting.
Hit the freecycle.com for this fantastic resource. Used carpet keeps
out the weeds while letting in water to the roots and is durable enough
to last through several seasons. To use carpet as free mulch, merely cut
the carpet into strips and place around your vegetable plants and in
the furrows.
Animal bedding. With chickens and rabbits on
our homestead farm, we have an endless supply of free sawdust and straw
which makes terrific mulch while adding nutrition rich animal manure to
the garden as well. If you don't have pets of your own, ask a
pet-loving neighbor if you can have his discarded sawdust or straw. (Do
NOT use kitty litter!)
Sheets of Cardboard. If you don't
mind a little dumpster diving, free cardboard is another great way to
mulch a vegetable garden. Cardboard strips can be used around the base
of the vegetable plants and down the furrows as well. To camouflage the
cardboard, a sprinkling of green grass will do the trick.
Mulch
is an important step in boosting the health and production of your
vegetable garden. You'll quickly discover that tapping into these free
resources for mulch will boost your vegetable yield while saving both
money and time.
