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Mulch is a layer of material spread on top of the soil to conserve soil moisture, discourage the growth of weeds, help prevent erosion and prevent large fluctuations in soil temperature. In other words, mulch modifies the soil micro-climate around your growing plants.

Ideally, mulch is light and permeable enough to allow water and air to pass through, yet dense enough to inhibit or eliminate the growth of weeds.

Mulches may be organic (usually plant material), mineral (crushed stone or gravel), or synthetic (plastics and geotextiles). Understanding their differences will help you choose the best mulch for your situation. Generally speaking, organic and mineral mulches cool the soil while synthetic mulches warm it up.

Any biodegradable material can be used as an organic mulch. Some of the most easily attainable materials include shredded or chipped bark, shredded leaves, hay, straw, and peat moss.

Avoid using whole leaves unless you mix them with straw or some other light material as they tend to mat down and get soggy. They can actually prevent water and air from reaching the soil beneath.

Grass clippings are an excellent choice of mulching material. They're so small they start breaking down and enriching the soil almost immediately. If you do use grass clippings, be sure they don't have pesticide residue on them. Many lawn treatments contain herbicides that kill broadleaf plants, including those that you may be trying to grow in your garden. And of course, if you're mulching a vegetable garden you don't want to be adding poisonous chemicals to it.

You may be fortunate enough to live near a source of industrial by-products that are useful for mulching. Some ideas are sawdust or shavings from sawmills, spent hops from breweries, or composted manure from mushroom growers.

Careful with the sawdust. It's deficient in nitrogen so you might want to mix it with some compost. Also, softwood sawdust is acidic, so you don't want to use it too close to plants that prefer a neutral or alkaline soil.

Advantages of mulching:

Mulched plant roots

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3-Point Hitch Tractor-Mounted Top-Discharge DR® Chipper Wood Chipper Shredder Mounted on the back of your tractor, the 3-Point Hitch DR® CHIPPER goes wherever you need it to, for quickly clearing your property of unsightly brush piles and woody material up to 4-1/2" thick. With a top-discharge feature, the 3-Point Hitch model DR® CHIPPER can easily expel chips into a pickup truck bed, a large cart or wagon, or even into a wooded area or field. The head of the chute can be angled down, for filling a truck bed or for creating a large pile of chips. Angle the head of the chute up and chips are dispersed evenly over a large area. It can also be rotated side to side. Constructed of heavy gauge steel with a 35-pound flywheel. Tractor Horsepower: 19 HP to 45 HP Tractor Mounting: Fits category 0 or 1 three-point hitch PTO Details: Quick-attach, shielded PTO shaft for 1-3/8" 6-spline PTO with clockwise rotation PTO RPM: 540 Mulch It!: A Practical Guide to Using Mulch in the Garden and Landscape What do you do with all the wood chips you make with your new Wood Chipper Shredder?  Weeding. Watering. Soil improvement. Frost and heat protection. Wouldn't it be wonderful if these gardening and landscaping chores could be simplified with one easy method? They can! This book is a reader's guide to the gardener's secret weapon for healthy, carefree and beautiful gardens and landscapes - mulch. Advice on every kind of mulch and on how to use mulches on everything from landscape plantings to vegetable gardens makes this the one book that gives readers everything they need to know to use mulch most effectively. Order Mulch It! today to learn how to get the most from your Wood Chipper Shredder machine...   are not subjected to extreme temperatures. Unmulched roots get hot and dry in the summer and can be damaged by the heaving of soil during sudden frosts and thaws in winter. Organic mulches and some mineral mulches contain nutrients that gradually wash down into the soil and fertilize the plant roots. Weeding and hoeing the garden are practically eliminated when you mulch! The few weeds that manage to poke up through the mulch are easily nipped out, and there's no need to cultivate because the mulch keeps the soil loose. Mulch protects the soil from the drying action of the sun and wind, and protects it from erosion from wind and hard rain. Mulched plants can often endure a long dry spell with hardly any watering. Mulch protects vegetables such as squash, cucumber, unstaked tomatoes or strawberries that lie on the ground when they're ripe. The mulch keeps them clean and dry, preventing rot and mildew. Likewise, low growing flowers will not be splashed with mud in a mulched flower bed. When not to mulch: Seedlings planted in very moist soil should not be mulched until they are well established, as the higher soil moisture can encourage damping-off, a fungal infection that is usually fatal. If the soil is waterlogged from spring rains, let it dry out a bit before mulching perennials to avoid crown rot, another fungal infection. It is best to leave an open circle a few inches in diameter around the base of each plant for air circulation. Don't mulch a low-lying, wet soil. There's too much to learn about mulching to fit it all into one article, but I hope you can see that mulching has great benefits for your garden and for you. Your plants will benefit by having their roots protected from heat and dryness in the summer and from frost heaving in the winter, your soil will stay loose and friable, weeding will disappear off your chore list and you'll save water too! Merry Mac Tow-Behind Wood Chipper Shredder - 18 HP, Model# SC183-16VEM The professional's top choice for lawn and garden clean up! Ideal for growers and landscapers, for municipalities, corporate grounds, campuses, parks and golf courses. 48 shredding hammers make it possible to level the brush from a 60ft. tree in 55 minutes. Includes: 1 1/4in. bar screen. Electric start. Highway-towable. Truck ship. U.S.A. Overall Rating: 5 / 5 Order the Merry Mac 18 HP Tow-Behind Wood Chipper Shredder... We strive to provide only quality articles, so if there is a specific topic related to wood chipper shredder that you would like us to cover, please contact us at any time. And again, thank you to those contributing daily to our compost piles website.

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