{"id":16830,"date":"2016-01-22T13:27:39","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T18:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=16830"},"modified":"2016-01-24T21:01:58","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T02:01:58","slug":"mulching-with-purpose-and-precision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=16830","title":{"rendered":"Mulching With Purpose and Precision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"post-featured-image wp-post-image\" src=\"http:\/\/permaculturenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/A-Mulched-Garden-Bed.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 690px) 100vw, 690px\" srcset=\"http:\/\/permaculturenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/A-Mulched-Garden-Bed-300x130.jpg 300x, http:\/\/permaculturenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/A-Mulched-Garden-Bed.jpg 690x\" alt=\"A Mulched Garden Bed\" width=\"690\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/permaculturenews.org\/2016\/01\/22\/mulching-with-purpose-and-precision\/\" target=\"_blank\">MULCHING WITH PURPOSE AND PRECISION<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"post-meta\">Mulching is a top priority for a healthy garden. It does so much work that it\u2019s hard to oversell the importance. A proper mulch maintains the integrity of the soil beneath it, protecting the earth from drying out under the sun and\/or washing away when the rains come and\/or blowing away in the wind. It creates water retention, mulched gardens credited with requiring as little as ten percent of the watering that other gardens do. Mulching prevents weeds, provides habitats for useful insects and microorganisms, and moderates soil temperatures. The right type even feeds the soil as it decomposes. In other words, it\u2019s a good idea.<\/div>\n<p>To be completely honest, I have been a crazy advocate of mulching, especially when people with modern gardens invariably ask what I think they should do to improve their plots, but I am not always the most productive of mulchers\u2026mulchsmiths\u2026mulchmen. I\u2019m lazy, simply throwing down whatever organic matter is on hand, and perhaps, in my defense, this has been because I\u2019m doing my best to use what\u2019s on site. Despite having had success with my devil may care method of mulching, I know it\u2019s not actually the best way, that just as different plants require different inputs, different mulches deliver different goodies. So, while I know my mulchful ways are a good practice, I\u2019ve decided it\u2019s time to start practicing them better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A GENERAL RULE OF GREEN THUMB<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For me, and I think many fellow permaculturists, the idea of mulching with inorganic materials\u2014those popular plastic sheets particularly\u2014is simply not part of my MO. I\u2019ve also come across the idea of using shredded car tires, which I, of course, appreciate in its repurposing but ultimately would not choose for my gardens.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MULCHING WITH PURPOSE AND PRECISION Mulching is a top priority for a healthy garden. It does so much work that it\u2019s hard to oversell the importance. A proper mulch maintains the integrity of the soil beneath it, protecting the earth from drying out under the sun and\/or washing away when the rains come and\/or blowing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[9357,9185,11500,622,8748,8713,1091],"class_list":["post-16830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-compost","tag-design","tag-jonathon-engels","tag-permaculture","tag-permaculture-news","tag-plants","tag-soil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16830"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16832,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16830\/revisions\/16832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}