Thursday 13 June 2013

Keeping the garden healthy


Our friend, Gail, drove down the F3 this morning, through the fog and the sleet, carrying two sacks of lucerne mulch for our veggie garden. The produce must get through, you know. Inside the sacks are sweepings from her prep shed in the stables. Not the horse pens, not manure and all. But sweepings from beneath her feet.

When I was up at Gail's horse stud two weeks ago, waiting for her at the stock feed store, I tallied up the various types of mulch available, and asked for her opinion re best for my purposes. She assured me that lucerne mulch fitted my requirements perfectly, as not only would it retain the moisture in the soils, but also it would add organic nutrients which neither pea-straw nor hay-stalks would.

I am hoping it will reduce the quantity of weeds that are currently sprouting ... everywhere. We are getting near the pointy-end of this garden-creating lark. Coming up to five months of work.



2 comments:

head in the sun said...

5 months - Man oh man - that's a lot of preparation!
You certainly believe in doing things properly.
I use different mulch for different things.
Hay is definitely the best for suppressing weeds in Victoria.
I have learnt in the last couple of weeks what works in Vic does not necessarily work in QLD.
Things grow about three time the rate up here coz of the rich, rich soil and milder climate.
So consequently, there's stacks more maintenance work to be done here - which can get a little boring.

Julie said...

Yes, I have done lots of weeding this week, but at least the raking is down by about 75%. Now I can get into the garden beds themselves and reduce the litter. Then I need one of those long handled top loppers on a rope. I only want my plants to grow as high as I want them to grow (in case you dont recognise that sentence structure, it is modelled upon Alannah's 'betaws' reasons ... )