What mulch is best for the garden?

I've planted tomatos, zucchini, banana peppers and cucumbers. As summers here in Colorado seem to be especially hot the past few years I'm thinking mulch would be an excellent idea. The only mulching I've done in the past was just throwing grass clippings around the plants but I'm sure there's a better option.

What's the best mulch for keeping weeds down and holding in moisture without rotting my plants?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I've used newspaper in the past, but recently went to planting everything very close together, which seems to keep everything wet, but not alot of room for weeds. I use stakes and baskets for tomatoes to get them off the ground and I recently also used an open tomato basket to grow cucumbers up instead of allowing them to lay on the ground. I read a great book about French Intensive Gardening which gave me some of the ideas because I have limited room. Good luck!

Every seasoned gardener has a specific mulch they like over others. It will differ from gardener to gardener just like their preferred soil mix. Much of the time it depends on what is available to you. In years past when I had a huge vegetable garden and enough space to have big compost beds we made our own mulch out of composting garden greens, grass clippings, tons of fallen leaves and a small about of kitchen waste. Sometimes we would add some wood chips and other lucky finds like composted manure from the local horse farm.

Now that I am living in a mulch smaller area I am using something called Orchid Mulch that I buy by the yard from a local commercial supplier. It is mostly well composted wood chips, stems and leaves that have come from tree trimmers and allowed to compost. It is dark and rich and looks much like what came from our old compost bins. It seems to be clean of weed seed and over the past 3 years has added greatly to my clay based soil.

If you want to mulch a small area, I think you could probably buy something very similar in bags but read the label to be sure of what you are getting.

I like it because it looks nice and dark and rich. It does not blow away or shift in the garden so coverage is really good. And I can pile it pretty deep and it does not damage the plants.

Avoid wood chips or grass clippings that are too fresh and green. As the break down they rob the soil of the nutrients your plants need.

I have also used newspaper or shredded newspaper and covered it lightly with a more expensive mulch. The newspaper is a great help in reducing weeds and the mulch holds the newspaper in place and makes it look great and at half the cost.

As Liliana says, I think every gardener has their own favorite mulch. I make my own with all the vegetative kitchen leavings that I don't give to my wee worms. (The worm castings get fed to the seedlings & the houseplants
) I also really love mushroom compost! If you can get the type which is not made from bark, but rather from straw, you will not have a nitrogen-binding problem. My garden loves this stuff!

There is also a bagged product by Teufel, and another by Black Gold which is an organic compost which is a fine alternative for smaller gardens. This might be something that may work for you.

Happy Mulching! Your garden will love you for it!

>^,,^< kat