Transform Your Garden With These 5 Free Magic Mulch Materials

Five fantastic no-cost ways to improve your precious soil naturally. This is Kim Stoddart, an award-winning environmental journalist from the UK, here with you for Gardening Know-How. I like to refer to mulch materials as magic because they really, really are. Firstly, many of these materials are no-cost and you can easily source them from around your garden, your homestead. homestead and also potentially from your local community. They will improve the quality of the soil, they will provide slow release food, they will help to provide protection for your soil, your garden, your plants over winter and they will also help to feed the fantastic microorganisms that live in your soil that help provide extra resilience also. So there are many ways to go about it and it's something to get incredibly incredibly excited about also know that by mulching your garden you are further helping to boost biodiversity you'll provide attractive habitats for many different creatures wildlife you will also help to keep potentially carbon in the ground and you are potentially also using waste materials and you're turning into them them into a fantastic resource that can be used in your garden so seriously what's not to like so i'm going to share with you today my favorite five no-cost soil improvers first of all number one we have leaves which have the potential to turn into leaf mold which is one of the best soil improvers for the garden so come the fall if you have trees nearby in your garden in the community they will provide an ample supply of this amazing free material now with the with the leaves there's a few different ways that you can work with them to make leaf mold you can either create a dedicated bin that actually contains the leaves and after a couple of years they will break down to provide what we have here which is actually leaf mold or what you can do is if you have the the lovely leaves you can use them in around your garden in corners out of the way to make impromptu more free spirited piles which will eventually break down just do so in a place you don't think the leaves are going to blow all over the garden maybe apply some some water over the top if it's not due to rain but this will also provide a fantastic habitat for loads of insects over winter which can then further help with your natural pest control efforts for the garden. Lots of beneficial predators such as earwigs and ground beetles like to hide under leaves and the birds will thank you because there's bound to be lots of insects in there for them to to rummage through the leaves to find over winter. So that can be another option. Alternatively you can also use the leaves directly on your raised if you have any raised beds as a direct mulch around plants they will not break down over the fall over the winter they will then need to be removed come the following spring but what they will do is provide some leaf mold down below so they will produce some leaf mold they will also protect the soil with their covered layer and further to that they also help to boost microbial activity and earthworm activity below the ground and it can look rather attractive to have these spread in and around your plants in existing beds then we have homemade compost lovely lovely homemade compost the one of the best things you can do if you're feeling a bit stressed if you're feeling you're having a bad day, make compost. If you've had an argument with a friend or family member, make compost. Any excuse whatsoever I say, make compost because it makes you feel so incredibly good and you can take so many different waste items that would otherwise potentially go to landfill and turn them into this amazing free soil improver to use around your garden. So compost can be used directly as a mulch at this time of year also to provide protection and it works incredibly well then we have chop and drop which is a permaculture principle which basically means chop or snip in my case and drop so as you're clearing the the garden in the fall into winter then it's good to leave some foliage actually on the ground in situ so leaves for example like this beetroot that you might you see there's a slight nibble here that might otherwise well you could eat it actually you could just give it a wash and eat it but you might otherwise like to compost something like this can actually be used directly in a chop and drop scenario so you can just pick off any slightly nibbled leaves or foliage that you find to hand and you can spread it on the ground it will eventually break down again it will provide a useful habitat for wildlife over winter for insects and it will also slow release and help effectively to feed your soil wouldn't recommend doing this with weeds especially not if you have any invasive weeds do take them and remove them but if you have weeds that are considered not invasive and they're going to stay in situ and they they don't have any seed heads then you can also consider that with the likes of for example nettle leaf, you know, dock leaf, they could actually be laid down. Just make sure there are no seed heads. Then we have wood chip. Wood chip is an amazing mulch material. It's another magic mulch material for your garden to improve the soil and to provide protection. Wood chip is a material that you can source if you have a wood chipper, if you have trees and you can make your own also if you happen to know a tree surgeon or can find a tree surgeon in your local area often they have a lot of wood chip available for free if you have the space you do need to have space in order to keep your wood chip alternatively often electricity companies have wood chip available if they're going around the area cutting back trees so it can be quite good to source and you can do so often online freecycle various other online communities where you can swap and exchange with neighbors but it is an amazing material to have so with wood chip as with all of the other materials just apply a very thin layer you're talking roughly about an inch or so around your plants it is good to have some airflow for your plants over winter and but the the wood chip will again lie on the surface of the soil and it will slowly break down now with wood chip and also with leaf mold which is one of the magic mulch materials that i mentioned earlier they can actually provide a hundred percent free seed compost as well with um with leaf mold it takes a couple of years to break down with wood chip it will take about three or four years but there's been loads of tests done in the uk and wood chip actually makes after three four years makes a brilliant seed compost for free completely peat free all these materials are peat free so you're actually helping the planet in the process and you're also saving money and you're boosting resilience with these magic mulches for your garden then finally other free materials that you can source depending on where you live include materials such as seaweed if you live near a beach seaweed is a brilliant soil improver you can add it to the compost heap you could chop it wash the salt off and add it to the compost heap or you could just add it in around your plants you might want to chop it up a little bit so it breaks down more quickly but it's a brilliant material to use so with seaweed just be aware that there are foraging rules and depending on where you live just do check the foraging rules some of those will be don't remove seaweed obviously from if it's living plants only pick seaweed that has actually been washed up and do check first that you have permission in order to do that if you live on a homestead or in a rural community then sheep wool is a brilliant material to use it will help to improve the structure of the soil it can be broken up into compost but also it can be used directly as a mulch you can use the what's called the sheep dags in the UK which basically means some of the off-cut parts the dirtied parts of the sheep wool work brilliantly and it's supposed to be a really good repellent for slugs as well for slugs so it's another good reason to give it a go further to those other potential mulch materials include grass clippings they can also be sprinkled thinly around soil you can also use cardboard also I would use heavier layers of cardboard and water it just remove staples first and any tape that can actually be applied directly in situ around your plants and again will encourage earthworm activity potentially create shelter for invertebrates over winter and will slowly feed and protect the soil as well so it works really well the other the material you can use is if you've had container plants or plants that you've grown for the year that spent compost is not wasted that is also a really good free mulch material which you can use so just try and take waste items try and take things you have lying around be it be it nibbled leaves be it cardboard from for example things that you've bought online and turn that into a fantastic material for your garden. It feels really, really good and it helps your garden to become more resilient. You're helping the planet and you're also helping your growing efforts for the following year. So I recommend using mulch now at this time of year, but also to use mulches during the summer or when there are periods of a heat wave also, because you can water first. So the water permeates deep into the soil and then you can apply mulch on top to help keep the water locked in. This works really well also if you do container growing because with containers they dry out a lot more quickly, they can be more vulnerable to the elements so a mulch over the top also affords extra protection. You don't need to do anything with your mulch other than apply it on the soil in and around any existing plants. You certainly don't need to dig it in and i would recommend a no dig system because that helps to protect the the soil web system below below ground it will help to keep carbon in the soil and it will also help to feed the microorganisms which can actually help with plant health and vitality that afford extra protection so it really is as simple as taking your mulch and just spreading it in and around existing plants and borders so all of these different options that i've outlined are also peat free so they are helping the planet they are helping to preserve peat bogs which when they have been harvested their peat can take up to a thousand years to to repair and to to grow again so these peat bogs are amazing habitats for a myriad of wildlife and they also help to hold carbon in the ground so by looking at these free or no cost low cost options for providing mulch materials for your for your garden know also that in the process you are helping to protect the planet and protect peat bogs so it does feel incredibly good so these are very low cost or indeed no cost materials that you can use for mulching that will help to feed the soil provide protection over winter and you're also helping to do your bit for the planet because all of these materials are peat free so they are helping to keep carbon in the ground you are potentially using waste materials and turning them into useful materials for your garden so it's a really really great way to build resilience from the ground up and to feel that you're doing your bit