Fall Mulching – Preparation

Originally posted – September 20, 2020

There are a number of benefits of mulching in the Fall including providing protection to the plant roots and reducing early weed development in the spring.   For me, I have time now and the weather seems to be pretty good.  In years past, I have been delayed in getting mulch in due to poor weather.  So I have decided to mulch this Fall.  Plus I have a few areas that need mulch anyway due to recent plantings.

Most advise of maintaining about 3 inches of mulch.   Most areas of this garden are currently between 1 and 2 inches, while other areas are bare, while other areas have more.  

One of the first tasks will be to break up the mulch mat that has developed over the summer.  This mat prevents water from getting to the soil.  For that, I purchased a a garden weasel cultivator (about $30).  In the past, I had used a cultivator rake, but after watching YouTube video of someone suggesting the use of the garden weasel,  I had to give it a shot.

I have to say, this tool works great for breaking-up and aerating the mulch.
I will also have to weed the garden prior to mulching.  Since I constantly weed the garden, this should be an easy task.  On another video I watched, a gardener shared that he patrols his garden and pulls the weeds at first sight, that way, he never has to have a day long weeding task.  By getting that weed as it starts, it never has a chance to solidly root itself.   So I have practiced this all summer long, and indeed, it is so much easier to manage weeds.

The other task will be to straighten up some of the garden boundaries.    For example, this boundary is too close to the plants, plus it requires an extra pass of the mower when cutting the lawn.  So this edge will be expanded to have more of a straight line.

Then the area around the spicebushes will have to be mulched.  I dug a trench around the two spicebush plants.  I put that dug-up material back in the area that will be mulched to increase the soil level.  I had to plant the bushes a little higher to start with due to the shallow depth of the top soil above the hard clay substrate.  I plan to cover this middle area with cardboard immediately prior to mulching in order to prevent the grass from growing into the mulch.

At this point, I am not exactly sure when I will mulch, but I have enough preparation work to do over the next few weekends.  Plus I may consider a few additional plantings.  Some experts have suggested waiting until the plants are all done for the season, but my thought is to do it before that so that I can keep the mulch lower in between the same plants to allow for better self seeding there, but hopefully reduce in areas between different plants.