What material can be used?
Any shredded organic material is suitable as mulch. Examples include grass clippings, leaves, chopped branches, bark products, and straw.
Here's how to do it right:
Before you cover your beds with mulch, you need to roughen up the surface a little with a rake and remove all weeds, as otherwise they will sooner or later grow through the layer and be even more difficult to remove. When you apply the mulch to your beds, you need to make sure that the material is applied evenly and is sufficiently dry so that it doesn't clump, as this will quickly attract slugs and cause the soil to compact rather than loosen. The mulch layer should be about 3-4 cm deep. You can leave some space around the plant so that enough moisture can reach it. For very large plants, such as tomatoes, you can mulch right up to the plant. However, only close enough to allow sufficient air to reach the stem or trunk.
The mulched areas should be left undisturbed after treatment. New material should not be added until the decomposition process has progressed. The smaller the organic components, the faster humus formation will proceed.
What else should I consider?
When mulching, it is particularly important that the layer is not too thick so that the soil does not become suffocated and thus no longer able to convert nutrients into energy. The thickness of the mulch layer also depends on the amount of rainfall. As a rule of thumb, mulch less as rainfall increases to keep the risk of rot as low as possible. There is no specific time for mulching. Mulching can be done all year round, from spring to autumn, i.e. whenever there are open areas in the garden. If you mulch shortly before winter, the material must be worked well into the soil. Mulching should generally not be carried out after new seedlings to avoid suffocating the seedlings. The rule of thumb is: organic material can be introduced onto the plants when they are 10 cm tall or larger.
