Back To Gardening: Chapter 2, Part A

All of the advice in this book is based on an approach to gardening that I call "organic mulch gardening". In this part of Chapter 2 I explain what it is.

Chapter 2: The Organic Mulch Approach to Gardening

A. What is it?

My first exposure to organic mulch gardening was by accident. I had a rose garden that I mulched every year with tub-grinder woodchips from a local community compost site. Every spring, when I bought my tomato transplants, I would have too many for my vegetable garden - so I would plug the extra ones into the rose garden. Despite having slightly less sun than my vegetable garden, and competition from the roses for sun, water and nutrients - the rose garden tomatoes often outgrew the vegetable garden tomatoes.

What was going on? Every year I would turn over the vegetable garden soil (till it), amend it with manure, water it as needed, and care for the tomatoes - whereas with the rose garden tomatoes - I stuck them in the ground and did nothing. The only work I ever did in the rose garden was to prune the roses, and add a couple inches of mulch each year.

What I didn't know then, was that I had stumbled upon the organic mulch approach to gardening. The rose garden tomatoes grew better because organic mulch gardens develop better soil over time and retain moisture, with less work. How is this possible you say? Let's "dig a little deeper” and find out.

Every bed in may garden is mulched with something - and everything grows great!

"Organic Mulch Gardening" is a shorthand I like to use for the common characteristic shared by many popular organic and ecologically responsible approaches to gardening. These have many labels, and many champions. If you are in a "googling" mood, any one of the following terms/names can easily occupy hours, days, or even years of your life:

Big Names Associated with Methods that Employ the Use of Organic Mulch

• Permaculture - Bill Mollison, David Holmgren, Geoff Lawton

• Back to Eden - Paul Gautschi

• Ruth Stout - Ruth Stout

• One Straw Revolution - Masanobu Fukuoka

• Hügelkultur - Sepp Holzer

• Lasagna gardening - Patricia Lanza

• No Dig - Charles Dowding

• Plowman's Folly -Edward H. Faulkner