Gardening tips using mulch

Using mulch is one of the easiest way to protect plants, stop weeds and insulate soil. There are many options available: besides the dead leaves and grass clippings you can collect from your own yard, check with local agricultural businesses and local governments to see if they have waste material to give away. Ask for chippable bark, salt marsh hay, prairie hay, pine straw, wheat straw, pecan shells, peanut shells, or cotton burrs or hulls.

A sawdust mulch benefits strawberries in two ways: it gives them the acidity they crave and keeps snails and slugs at bay.

Raise the foliage of each plant and mound sawdust five to 7.5 centimetres (two to three inches) high around the stem. Know what you're using: avoid sawdust from black walnut, cedar or chemically treated wood that contains toxins that do garden plants no favours.

What to do with the leafy tops of the carrots, beets, radishes and other root vegetables you grow? Once you've harvested the roots, lay the tops between rows of your veggie garden to mulch the crops that remain.

If you have a tiny garden, don't bother to buy the black plastic mulch sold at garden centres. (Black plastic is the standard weed-eliminating underlay for bark chip mulches.) Plain black plastic trash bags will do the job equally well. Just spread out the bags side to side. When it comes time to restyle your small garden months or years later, you can use the bags for their original purpose: to hold trash.

Money doesn't grow on trees. But if you're a blueberry grower, free mulch does. If you have pine trees in your yard, naturally acidic pine needles will not only leach the acid blueberries crave into the soil but also will help protect the plants' shallow roots. Just rake up needles and spread them beneath the blueberry plants to a height of about five centimetres (two inches).

Smother weeds or other undesirable plant growth with a newspaper mat. Wet several sheets of paper to help them cling together, then place the mat so that plants are completely covered and no light can reach them; anchor the edges with rocks or soil. Top with wood chips or other mulch as camouflage and remove it once the weeds are dead.

Two mulching don'ts:

• Don't pile mulch too close to trunks or stems. It can smother plants, promote rot and let slugs, mice and other pests hide near a food source.
• Don't use plastic mulch around shrubs and other hardy plants. Because it's not permeable, it cuts off air and water to roots and can cause soil to heat up excessively in summer.

If you love your garden, you will love these great tips on how to use mulch to help your plants flourish and grow.