The Refuge Permaculture Center

Our part in garden life is to bring together the conditions necessary to maintain or improve the living beings there – plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, microbes, and us. When the plants are big enough, they provide their own winter blanket…falling leaves.

Mulch: maintains soil moisture; insulates the earth above the roots from weather extremes; is decaying food for microbes who decay it more for plant food; home to important fungi that help plants break down minerals to use for their health and ours; nursery, rearing and hunting habitat to many beneficial insects and reptiles; nesting material for birds who manage pest insects.

Local leaves are best. They settle in a way that allows water and air to perfectly circulate, to breathe with the soil and the dormant plant over winter. I do recommend that one uses the leaves found in or very near the garden for winter cover. Bringing in commercial or distant-sourced leaves or mulch of any kind can introduce harmful insects or diseases in the spring as things warm up.

Heavy mulch, mulch that is made up of straw, animal bedding and a mixture of leaves is a treatment. It builds “plates” that can be over-laid to smother unwanted or even invasive plants, and at the same time introduce beneficial microbes and decayed organic material. Because it is so rich and can introduce other unwanted things, it can be tilled into unplanted weak soil or left as a sheet over the top. But it should be removed after one season and composted.

If you decide to remove leaf or heavy mulch, please wait until you see adult lady bugs. Lady bugs are one of our most important front-line beneficial insects, and their voraciously hungry babies eat all the soft-bodied pest insects they can find under the mulch.

And yes, mulch can be an amazing resource in the garden, and at the same time introduce challenges. And this is all gardening. Care is never as simple as one thing or another. It is an interplay and you are part of it. You are the participant and observer.

Now, go outside and enjoy the warm sun, and kindly, with observation, pull back the mulch from the plants. Breathe with them, waking up.