Today I want to show you how to ‘produce’ free mulch to improve the fertility of your garden or food forest, from the stuff already on your site, as a byproduct of things that you would be doing anyway.
WITHOUT having to deal with dishonest landscape material suppliers or conventional farmers wanting to sell you mulch that might have nasty chemicals.
SO THAT you can have peace of mind that you are not importing pesticides, herbicides, microplastic, or heavy metals and that the fruits of your labor will be beyond organic, as you deserve!
Because permaculture is all about growing HEALTHY food in less time, with less effort and money invested — and this “hack” I’m going to teach you is a perfect illustration of that.
I do it for the food forest on my farm, but you could equally do it for your garden or backyard.
Same technique, just scale it up or down to match the space you have.
First though… why do we need mulch?
As you know, everyone who has a food forest or garden filled with perennials needs to:
- keep feeding the microbes in the soil so that they can feed the perennial plants and
- keep weeds at bay so they don’t hinder the growth of the desired “productive” plants.
To do so, you need mulch in as many different forms as possible—woodchips, compost, grass, hay—year after year, until your garden/food forest matures enough to become low-maintenance. But the thing is, sourcing all that mulch is logistically complex and pricey – PLUS: labor-intensive to spread it all out.
Since I’m all about working more effectively and saving time and labor wherever I can, I’m always looking for ways to ‘hack the system,’ so to speak, but still get the results I want.
So, I developed a workflow where I can supply all of my food forest mulch needs simply by using the resources I can find on my own site, WITHOUT having to import any and think about who to call, where to source it, how much it’s going to cost me, where to put it, will I have enough of it…
How do I create mulch out of “thin air”?
In summary, my strategy involves stacking layers of mulch on top of each other as the season progresses and the resources become available.
- In spring, (a) I cut the grass (or ideally: cover crops sown in the previous fall) between the rows and then (b) use that green grass swath as mulch for the tree rows just meters away.
- In summer, I do another cut, but this time, because it’s so hot and dry, I ‘make hay while the sun shines’ and pile that brown mulch around my trees.
- In early fall, when we start getting more rain, (a) I chop and drop my N-fixers (black locust trees), which grow between my “food” trees, and then (b) pile that as mulch on top of the hay from Step 2.
- In late fall and potentially early winter, when I usually have more time on my hands, I spread woody mulch everywhere around and inside the “food” trees row.
I already talked about Steps 1 to Step 3 in a previous post.
Now, here’s a quick video that explains that last step:
Speaking of Step 4…
This year, I got my woody mulch from an old pine tree we cut down and put into a pile near the food forest in spring. Still, almost every year, I cut down unwanted woody vegetation somewhere on the property unintentionally or intentionally for this purpose. There is plenty of that around to keep me supplied for ages.
So that’s how you ‘produce’ free mulch for your food forest, from the stuff already on your site, as a byproduct of things that you would be doing anyway. And by doing so, improve the fertility and growth of your perennial plants, all for less time, labor, and money.
Checkmate you dodgy landscape material suppliers and conventional farmers!
If you are interested in these types of ‘hacking the system’ strategies and workflows, I invite you to sign up for my newsletter, where I’ll help you grow food in less time, with less effort and money invested, by using ingenious permaculture tools and methods.
Enter your details in the form below, and we’ll be in touch.
All right, until next time,
– William
