Mulching the Spring Vegetable Garden

One of the things I’ve been working on frantically–between extended family crisises, trips to the Walmart HQ, and frequent rain showers–is getting my gardens weeded and mulched.

The back garden is mulched again this year in straw. I purchased 3 bales from Tractor Supply. They were far to expensive, but it was all I could find. These particular bales were completely cleaned of all seed heads and had been sterilized I believe. So at least I shouldn’t have any weed issues. Because I had let the weeds get a good foothold already, I used newspaper that I wetted down as a weed barrier layer under the straw. Today I picked up two bales of regular old “straw” for half the price from a place called Country Max. I’ll be using that on the very back section you can still see is just dirt there, and then also in the strawberry patch I put in over in the neighbors back yard.

The front garden I again mulched in wood chips. Here you can see some of the wood chips still from last year–I completely filled in the whole garden with new chips so there is a good inch over everything. I still need to remulch the various flower beds and around my fruit trees I planted last year. . . if it would just stop raining. . .