Benefits of Using Mulch in Your Garden

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THE BENEFITS OF USING MULCH IN YOUR GARDEN

Those of us with a green thumb have two challenges when it comes to gardening: maintaining a healthy and moist garden bed and keeping the weeds from invading. Daily watering is not always possible for a variety of reasons, including conservation of water and summer watering restrictions. Regular weeding, especially with a large garden plot, requires not only a good amount of time but also puts a repetitive strain on knees and back which can hinder a gardener’s ability to keep up with the job. Reducing the amount of energy and water required to maintain a garden can be found in utilizing more sustainable gardening practices. One excellent option is to introduce mulch to your garden.

THE KEY BENEFITS OF USING MULCH IN YOUR GARDEN

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There are a number of benefits of using mulch in your garden; here are a few that may encourage you to get started.

 

  • Keeps the weeds away. A layer of mulch on top of the garden soil may be the best solution to creating a weed-free bed. A good coating of mulch will inhibit the germination and growth of weeds in your soil.  

 

  • Holds in moisture and nutrients. Not only are weeds an embarrassing sight for sore eyes, they can steal both nutrients and water from the plants in your garden. Laying mulch will help the soil hold in its moisture and nutrients so the plants can absorb what they need, and organic mulch will also release additional nutrients into the soil. Laying mulch will also help ensure your soil will not dry out too quickly, especially while at work during a hot summer day, or on vacation and asking your neighbour to water for you.

 

  • Regulates soil temperature. Mulch also helps regulate the temperature of the soil so plants or trees don’t get stressed from high to low fluctuations. This means that adding mulch to your garden can actually be beneficial not only in spring and summer but also act as a protectant for your soil and year-round plants in the cold and wet weather of winter months.  

 

  • Makes a home for the bugs you want, and repels the ones you don’t. Mulch can increase biodiversity in your yard by giving a variety of insects and other tiny creatures homes and shelter, such as earthworms who continue the process of improving soil structure. Certain types of mulch can also help repel ticks, gnats and fleas.

 

  • Protects the soil from both nature and people. Mulch breaks down very slowly, protecting from the elements such as the drying heat of the sun, but also from heavy rainfall, preventing it from becoming too compact, or even eroding. A stray weed whacker or lawn mower that comes too close to your garden can also do damage, but mulch can protect your plants by providing a buffer.  

To receive the best benefits from using mulch in your garden, add a layer of at least 5 – 7.5 cm (2 – 3 inches) and maintain it as long as you have plants in your garden. A vegetable garden will appreciate the added support for its season, while trees and shrubs in your yard can benefit all year round.

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WHAT TYPES OF MULCH ARE THERE?

There are many types of mulch to choose from, but most of them can fall into one of two groups.

ORGANIC: This includes wood chips, leaves, compost, peat moss, grass, pine-needles and straw. This may be the superior of the two because as the organic mulch decomposes, it will add beneficial organic nutrients to your plants. Be careful to ensure the grass clippings or leaves used do not contain pesticides or fertilizers, as these can contaminate the natural processes of decomposing.  

INORGANIC: This includes stones or rubber chips or any similar material. These mulches will still inhibit weeds and moisture loss, but will not improve your soil condition or add any nutrients.

A FEW TIPS FOR MULCHING

Mid-spring is the best time to lay down mulch, in order to keep plants at their healthiest from the start. If this is your first time adding mulch, remember to weed your bed thoroughly before you begin. If you already have a layer of mulch from the previous season, be sure to break it up, or remove some of it, before adding a new layer. If the layer gets too thick when adding to existing mulch, your mulch might not decompose and will hinder the possible root growth. Be sure to stay within the 5 – 7.5 cm range at all times.

While mulch can benefit your trees, be sure not to pile it up around the trunks of trees. Excessive mulch can rot the tree’s trunk and will create a haven for insects that will damage the tree. It also encourages the tree to grow a secondary root system away from the rot. When this happens, the original, deep roots can start to wither and make your tree vulnerable in dry spells. Be sure to keep mulch 6 – 12 inches away from the base of your trees or shrubs The same holds true with your plants: be sure to give your plants some breathing room by keeping mulch about 2.5 – 5 cm away from the plant crown.

 

WATERING WITH MULCH

You have prepared your garden, planted, and added the necessary layer of mulch: the hard work is done! Watering should now be very easy. At the beginning of the season, and for the first 3 – 4 weeks after planting, a deep watering that thoroughly soaks the garden will be needed at least once a week. If you have great soil, a nice layer of mulch and water efficient plants, your garden should thrive off natural rainfalls only (depending on the season). If you add plants later or experience any times of drought, more water will be necessary. If you are growing crops to eat, once food begins to grow, you may need to water more often as your crops will need the excess water to create lush and nutritious food.

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Interested in experiencing the benefits of using mulch in your garden? Let us know!

 

 

Rock Blowing 101: Aggregate Installation, the Smart Way

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Team Canada Plays to a Bronze Medal in Women’s Softball

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Team Canada Plays to a Bronze Medal in Women’s Softball.

During the week of July 15-24 Team Canada hosted and participated in the 2016 Women’s World Softball Championship tournament at Softball City in Surrey BC.

Team Canada won five straight games leading into their quarter final game against Japan.  Unfortunately, they fell 11-1 to Japan in a mercy-ruled four innings in Sunday’s semifinal before a the home crowd of 4,500.

To finish the tournament, the U.S. were crowned world champions again, after they defeated Japan 7-3 in Sunday evening’s final. It’s the sixth straight World’s that the two teams, Japan and the U.S., have battled for gold.

Canadian supporters where not disappointed as Canada’s bronze marks their highest finish since they took the third-place hardware at the 2010 worlds in Caracas, Venezuela. They finished fourth at the worlds two years ago in Haarlem, Netherlands.

Denbow would like to officially congratulate our 2016 Women’s Softball team. Great job team Canada!

In addition we would like to express our appreciation to  the City of Surrey, the official host city of the games. We supported Surrey through our Playchip top-up program as well as our mulch blowing services to get the Softball City park in tip top shape for the games.

If you enjoyed the article please feel free to share it with your family and friends.

You can read a great article summary on Team Canada’s bronze medal run by Steve Ewen of the Province News Here.

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20 Reasons Why You Should Use Mulch In Your Garden

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20 Reasons Why You Should Use Mulch In Your Garden

Are you interested in saving time and money while giving your garden the best chance to succeed? Are you losing too many plants in the heat of summer or the frost of fall? Here’s our “simple” solution that should help you out. Use Mulch!! It’s nature’s best way to protect plants, add nutrients and save on water.

Here’s are 20 reasons why you should use mulch, bark mulch or coloured mulch in your garden.

 

1. Adds organic matter to your soil, which helps make your garden healthier and more resistant to pest and plant disease.

2. Provides valuable slow-release nutrients and prevents vitamin loss in plants which saves you money on fertilizer and ammenders.

3. Helps retain moisture in the soil. Mulch acts as a natural roof and insulation layer to protect the soil from the sun. This helps prevent excessive evaporation of water and helps regulate the soils temperature.  This helps utilize the minimal amount of rain water we get in the summer and helps save with the amount of water we use.

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4. Shades delicate seedlings from too much sun since it acts a natural roof and shade.

5. Reduces time spent watering. More time to tend to other tasks and (this is getting redunant) helps save water!

 

“Mulch can retain up to 70% more water in the soil than unmulched soil.”

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6. Is a great insulator by regulating soil temperature – keeps roots consistently cool in summer and warm in winter which reduces the amount of plant stress and typically provides for a richer, stronger plant.

7. Provides a natural barrier to help prevent weeds. The interlocking layer of mulch prevents the air born weeds from getting rooted in your gardens soil. If weeds do get a start, mulch makes pulling weeds easy.

8. Increases biological activity in your soil by providing beneficial micro-organisms and earthworms with food. Both of which are great for your plants!

9. Improves soil conditions – helps to bind sandy soils and open up clay soils.

10. Saves you time and energy in prepping and cultivating your soil.

11. Stops nutrients from leaching out of the soil.

12. Protects plants from frost damage by acting as a protective covering. We’ve mentioned this before but we felt the insulating factor of mulch is too important to not mention again.

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13. Provides a clean surface for produce like fruit and nuts to fall, ready for harvesting.

14. Improves soil drainage and structure as it decomposes.

15. Provides support around plants especially young seedlings. You can “pile up” a little mulch around weaker steams giving the young plant the extra help it needs to thrive.

16. Recycles waste materials. This is one of the main principles that we operate from. We LOVE to recycle forest residuals into useful products.

17. Protects plants from heavy rain. The protective interlocking nature of mulch protects and helps bind together the plant structure.

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18. Prevents erosion and soil compaction particularly from foot traffic on pathways and play areas.

19. Improves the visual appearance of your garden. Especially if you use a beautiful coloured mulch.

20. Can provide a home for plant-friendly insects.

We love to hear from you so please either share this with your friends or you can email us any questions you might have. We hope you enjoyed our 20 Reasons for Mulch.

Thanks to the Micro Gardener for the some of the ideas we used for this article.

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Rain Water Harvesting

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Rain Water Harvesting

British Columbia rain: too much in the winter, too little in summer

The “leftcoast” gets a lot of rain in the winter, so much it causes problems like flooding, sewer overflows, stream erosion, and polluted runoff into our waterways. But during our summer we get very little rain (less than Tucson, Arizona!).

So it’s hard to store enough water from spring rains to last long for summer irrigation. You need large cisterns or multiple rain-barrel systems to store enough water to have an impact on water usage. Simple practices like amending soil with compost, mulching, and smart watering are the first steps to storing and conserving water. The next step is capturing all that beautiful rain water that falls on our wet coast.

How much rain water can I catch?

The lower mainland of BC averages about 1,200 mm of rain per year, but 2/3 of it falls from November to March. Most areas in the region average less than 87 mm total rainfall for July and August.

The roof of your home is your greatest tool to harvest rainwater. To determine the amount of rain your roof catches, multiply your home’s width by its length (in feet) to estimate its footprint. Then estimate the portion of this area that drains to the downspout you’ll be using to catch your rain.

To calculate the runoff in liters from a metal roof’s 9 meter 10 meter “footprint” (90 square meters) in a climate averaging 304 millimeters of rain a year:

90 square meter roof 304 millimeters of average annual rainfall = 27,360 liters of rain falling on the roof in an average year.

90 m2 304 mm = 27,360 liters/average year

Multiply the above figure by the roof surface’s runoff coefficient 0.95*: 27,360 liters 0.95 = 25,992 liters running off the roof in an average year.

Storing Rain Water

Storing your harvested rainwater can be your greatest challenge. However, most homeowners don’t have room to store the thousands of gallons of collected rainwater that they use in landscape irrigation through our dry summers. Plus the cost of installing storage containers with enough volume to give you water through the entire summer would be very cost prohibitive and it would take a very long time to see the cost savings pay off it off.

Capacity and cost are directly related: decide how much you want to spend on building rainwater storage. Couple with this the practice of using mulches to regulate the soils moisture content and evaporation and you’re on your way to saving money and water throughout our hot summers and help you save water.

 

Vancouver Area Average Monthly Rainfall

MonthJunJulyAugSeptOctNovDecJanMarAprilMayJune
Rainfall (inches)112067.841.8112.8170.8230.2167.2130.4161.62451

source WeatherStats.ca

Before you launch into a big project like rain water harvesting you can start with a few simple ideas. Begin by building soil with compost and mulching, choosing low-water use plants, and implement Smart Watering practices. Couple these ideas with simple indoor water conservation practices before investing in big rainwater collection systems to help you get on the road to water conservation without having to encounter major water expenses.

Remember, it isn’t rainy season but it does rain. So why not set up your rain harvest system now, while it’s sunny, so you don’t have to do it in the cold wet of our fall. Hope you enjoyed the article if you liked please feel free to share it with your friends!