Mulch is your friend

One of the downsides to having an organic, herbicide free garden is weeding. Mulching is an effective way to alleviate a lot of back breaking labour doing manual weeding. It also helps keep the soil moist and creates a drought resistant garden that will save you lots of time and money.

Sometimes I plant my seedlings first and then mulch around them. When I plant zucchini or squash I like to dump a bucket of kitchen scraps where I plan to plant my seedling. Then lay a bed of straw mulch over top to cover up the compost, then add a small portion of soil to plant the seedling and then mulch around the top. Garlic is planted in the fall with a generous layer of mulch and harvest the next summer. With enough mulch kale and swiss chard will over winter here where I live in a zone 6 area.

You can purchase straw and save leaves and lawn clippings throughout the year (provided the lawn is not chemically treated). The decomposing straw acts as a fertilizer itself and I also often throw kitchen scraps directly into the garden as mulch and natural fertilizer.