Mulching
Tis the season for mulching beds and borders. In my own garden the surface application of spent tub and pot compost, combined with what I can glean from my compost heap and rotted leaf mould from collected autumn leaves provides a layer of organic material that will soon be incorporated into the soil by organisms and fungi. I don't have a big garden so it doesn't take me long - but it makes a difference to soil fertility and the health of the plants I grow.
At The Garden House the principle is the same - but the scale is vastly different. Their compost heaps are fed are by numerous barrow loads of collected weeds and prunings from the garden...
..add in tons of shredded Dartmoor bracken, grass clippings from lawn mowings and long grass cutting in the Arboretum, and fallen leaves and, after suitable composting time - not long with big heaps - the end result is a rich, dark mulch that spreads easily on the beds and borders that make up a large amount of the garden. The annual intake of two horticultural students get a good winter workout. Filling their barrows from the deposited heaps...
...and raking the mulch over and between the plantings.
Accompanied, of course, by the ever present European robins, ever on the look out for a tasty worm or grub in the newly applied mulch.
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