Mulches

 I am putting in my lovely veggie bed this weekend. What are the pros and
cons of using hay, pea straw and sugar cane mulches? I'm interested in
personal experience.
Cheers
Liz

 
I prefer pea straw or lucerne hay as it breaks down into good food for
soil biota after it's done it's job of protecting the soil.  I don't
like plain hay - too weedy.  Never tried sugar cane.  Have used old
leaves too and they work well.

 Farm1 wrote:

Re Pea straw, this has the advantage of also adding a few peas to the
mix, which flower nicely, as well as adding nitrogen to the
soil...w\then you dig them in if you want to.
Best shot to re liven up garden throw  in a few hand fulls of peas in
very late winterand dig them in before planting  your summer crop to
make soil even better for growing nitrogen loving plants.  Has the
advantage of worms being attracted...

 

We use sorghum SWMBO got 2 trailer loads yesterday. The bad news was that
she had to get it, as the bales (300kg ea) have broken and so the good
farmer no longer delivers at no charge for delivery or product. It got wet a
few years ago and he could not sell it, but our small gardening community
has been helping by lowering his stocks of it. Also breaks down well and
conditions the soil beaut.
Jim

 Staycalm wrote:

We jusy go with whatever is cheapest. Tend to prefer baled straw or
lucerne as it is chunckier and has more structure, which shelters
emerging seedlings a bit better

The chopped stuff in compressed plastic bags seem too fine and dusty to
me (lucerne). The fine stuff will probably break down faster.