My little green patch: A mulch of gold for my green patch !

A mulch of gold for my green patch !

It's spring, that time of the year when nature goes berserk with its paint and splashes strokes of mindbogglingly beautiful colours all over. Right now, apart from the pinks and peaches of the cassias, the mauves of the jacaranda, the last few red spots of the silk cotton, the now-emerging orange-vermillion of the gulmohars, Dharwad is aglow with the almost-florescent yellow of the Peltophorum pterocarpum, commonly called the copper pod tree. It's as if the streets are paved with gold. And what a brilliant sight they make when the warm rays of the morning sun shine on them. They glow like embers, albeit of a wispy enchanting kind...

If spring is the time for colours, it also is the time for a sudden change in temperatures, which in turn causes discomfort and at times shock to the plants in our gardens. This is when the soil get heated up and even after a thorough deep watering in the morning, the soil gets bone dry by afternoon. Thus making spring an essential time for mulching... an attempt at providing some relief from the sudden high temperatures to both, the soil and our plants.

I have discovered the wonderful virtues of mulching since the time we lived on the farm and worked with Mum as hands-on farmers. And that would be some thirty plus years back. Back on the farm, we mulched everything that grew. Right from large trees like mango and cashew to little chilli sapling and the ornamentals we grew all over the farm. And the mulch material was a range of choices that we had on the farm. If it was twigs, wood chips and whole plants for large trees, it was either hay, dry leaves or flowers for smaller bushes and plants. And later when I grew plants (Ornamentals and vegetables) in the balconies of the many homes I lived in, (both as a student studying outside Dharwad, after getting married and living in B'luru for eight years and later since I shifted back to Dharwad in 2003) I have always mulched at the onset of spring (And sometimes even to protect them from the harsh winter sun) My mulch material in the balconies for my pots (I never got the chance to garden in the ground, until now) was mostly, easily available resources. That is, dry leaves and grass or sometimes shredded paper cardboard.

This time around, I didn't have to look far... For I found gold ! The huge tracts of copper pod flowers carpeting the sides of the street in front of my home and also spread in my front yard, just screamed- Look no further ! I had already collected bags of the dry leaves of the Indian Mahogany (There is a grove of these elegant trees in a nearby compound) to use as mulch. But, before I could use them, I discovered that these blooms were easier to handle, very convenient to spread even under small seedlings and would decompose and mix with the earth faster. And I have enough to keep adding a couple of rounds more too. Now the mahogany leaves will get composted.

And very obviously, since the past week, the major portion of my work-time in the patch is being taken up by mulching... And early this morning after I planted some cabbage, cauliflower, capsicum and marogold saplings in the beds of my meshed portion, it was very obviously followed by a round of collecting a bagful wispy gold from the street and going mulch, mulch, mulch...

And before I wind up, here are a few simple, yet valuable benefits of mulching. The reasons for which I now swear by mulching !

Mulching most importantly, helps retain soil moisture and keeps your plants from drying out quickly.
Mulching balances soil temperature fluctuations, especially during spring, the difficult transition period between winter and summer.
Mulching inhibits weed growth.
Mulching not only helps retain moisture, but also keeps rain water from washing away the soil and in turn arrests the draining away of nutrients from the soil.
Using organic material for mulching can encourage earthworms to occupy the surrounding soil.
In cold regions, it helps protect plant roots from a phenomenon called frost-heaving and in warm regions like ours, it helps keep the plant roots cool.
A variety of materials can be used as mulch. Right from easily available dry leaves, dry grass/hay, garden bio mass/waste, chop and drop of plants like sun hemp, live mulching (growing fast-growing greens like mustard and methi and uprooting the young greens and adding them back to the soil), wood chips, saw dust, paper, cardboard and even plastic sheets. Each material has its own unique benefit. Now, I mostly use organic matter that I readily find in and around my garden.
And the bonus... whatever the mulch material you use, it eventually adds some welcome nourishment to your soil and plants as it breaks down over time.
And how could I forget, mulching also adds nice aesthetic touch to your garden in general.
A tip from experience would be, to not mulch to close to the stem or heavily/too thick around young plants/seedlings as that could cause stem rot and eventual wilting of the plant due to excess moisture.
Another tip would be to experiment with watering in the beginning. Check the soil for moisture the first few time to determine how much gap you could leave between two watering sessions. Once you determine that, you could follow the routine regularly. The time gap may differ depending on the kind of mulching material, the thickness of material, the amount of sunlight that spot receives and also the size of the plant.