Go Green with Mulch and Save Dollars too

[missmanors]

Mulching generously with compost makes your plants happy, transforms the lawn, and savsyou countless hours of weeding.

You can make great compost for free with recycled paper and grass clippings or just plain old leaves. Lightweight and extremely easy to move around, paper, grass or leaves are really just as effective at suppressing weeds as any commercial compost you can buy.

If you have access to a large paper shredder, run all the newspapers you can muster through it. Even if you shred newspapers by hand, your compost will mature faster and look a bit nicer than when you use whole sheets. If you don't have a paper shredder, then you can simply cover up the paper layers with a bulky but light natural material. Whole or shredded leaves, grass clippings, straw and sawdust or wood shavings are some common ones and are very effective.

If parts of your garden are seriously weed infested, this is an excellent time to use lightweight, recycled newspaper to solve your weed problem.

Among my favorites is smother mulching. This involves heaping as much mulch as 12-18" deep , which is more than the weeds can outgrow. Do this now and let it sit all winter, in the spring the weeds will be dead. At that point, you can rake away the excess mulch or simply plant right into the bed.

A modified version of this technique is especially valuable for those who are gardening from scratch or renovating existing gardens where total plant removal is impractical. To give this simpler technique a try, choose an area you want to plant come spring. Mow or weed-whack the weedy mess, then layer on newspapers with only black ink. Glossy color supplements are apt to have heavy metals in the inks.

Work on a damp and drizzly day, or wet down the paper with a hose as you spread it out. On windy days, keep newspaper in place with wood, rocks or soil. Many garden writers suggest that stacks of four to five sheets of newspaper is enough, but I believe it's better to use 10 or more.

On poor soil with a long-term weed problem, stack a whole daily paper, opening each section fully and wetting it well. This is also a great way to mulch garden paths, especially if you then cover the paper with something more attractive, like wood shavings, sawdust or finely shredded bark. Well-wetted, these thick pads of paper will break down slowly but surely (left dry, they can take years). As they gently molder, they prevent almost anything from growing beneath them.

In garden beds, cover eight to 10 sheets of newsprint with a deep layer of shredded leaves or dried glass clippings. A foot or two of these absolutely free materials works wonders on poor soil. So will a blend of grass clippings and chopped straw.

Plain straw is always a good option too. Bales of straw or spoiled hay are sold cheaply by farmers and each bale goes a long way. (Even bales that aren't spoiled are fairly inexpensive.