Essential Tips for Mulching Your Vegetable Garden with Straw

Tips for Mulching Your Vegetable Garden with Straw

Mulching your vegetable garden with straw can provide a long list of benefits. For starters, hay is cheap, easy to work with, and good for your soil. Straw mulch between your vegetable rows will keep your plants in place and keep your garden neat and tidy. Although it takes a little effort upfront, mulching with straw will save you time in the long run when it comes to weeding and watering. Unless you're gardening on a large scale, only one or two bags should be enough to mulch your entire vegetable patch. Here's what you need to know about using straw mulch around your edible plants.

What is straw?

Straw is the dry stalks left after wheat or oats (or other grains) have been harvested. Once the grains are removed, the dry stalks are tied into bundles. Ideally, a hay bale will contain very few seeds or weeds. (Pine straw is simply a good way to mulch pine needles and ornamental beds.)

Benefits of Mulching with Straw

Straw mulch not only suppresses weed growth but also moderates fluctuations in soil temperature and moisture. "A good mulch of straw will keep plants cool and reduce stress during the hottest parts of the day," says North Carolina Horticulture Extension Agent Jean Fox. And because straw reduces evaporation from the soil surface, frequent watering is not necessary. Keeping the soil moist has many benefits. "Regulating humidity throughout the day is critical in preventing physiological problems such as fruit cracking and eventual blossom rot in tomatoes," says Fox.

A good layer of straw mulch helps prevent diseases that are often spread by rainfall. "As raindrops hit bare soil, particles become airborne and often land on the undersides of leaves, spreading bacterial and fungal diseases. Organic mulches [such as straw] can slow down the raindrops to reduce soil splashing, which slightly inhibits the spread of disease to garden plants," says Fox. Growing melons, pumpkins and squash will look neater when resting on a bed of straw mulch. It's also great for strawberries. "My best strawberry patches are straw mulch between a few rows," says Beth Chisholm, Whatcom County Community Garden Coordinator for the Washington State University Extension Service. "Watch for snails," she adds.

Tips for using straw mulch in your vegetable garden

While straw makes an excellent mulch for your vegetable garden, there are a few things to know about getting the most out of this type of mulch. Use these tips when mulching with straw to help your vegetable plants thrive.

Use a clean straw -

not a straw! Although they are similar, hay and straw differ in one important respect: hay, which is grown to feed animals, contains seeds. If used as mulch, these seeds will germinate and create a weed problem. Good quality hay contains few seeds. When buying hay, check the bale for weeds - weedy hay will seed the garden with weeds - exactly what you don't want. It's worth asking around to find a reliable source of quality hay; A local grower, nursery, or garden center can usually help you.

Apply a nitrogen source to the soil before planting. 

As the straw breaks down, it temporarily robs the soil of nitrogen. This is easily avoided by adding compost, well-rotted compost, worm castings, or balanced organic fertilizers to the soil before planting and mulching.

Don't apply mulch until your vegetables have been growing for a few weeks. 

Mulching over newly planted seeds can prevent them from germinating. Chisolm suggests an exception to this rule: "When planting peas or beans, straw is a good way to protect the planting from birds robbing the newly planted seeds." But use a light layer of straw until the peas or beans grow and develop.

Weed your garden before mulching. 

While mulch prevents new weed seeds from germinating, it's important to remove existing weeds before spreading your hay. "Most annual weeds require sunlight to induce germination. By preventing sunlight from reaching the soil surface, garden "We can cut almost all the annual weeds that bother us," says Fox.

Apply straw at least four to eight inches deep. 

Although it may seem like a lot, straw compacts quickly, and to get the maximum benefit from mulch, you need good protection. This insulating layer encourages beneficial microbes that help build soil. It also helps prevent corrosion.

Do not mulch up to the base of the plant. 

Keep the space between the rows well covered, but not right up to the plant stems, which can encourage fungal diseases to catch on. A good rule of thumb is to leave one to three inches of space around plant stems to provide good air circulation and avoid rot.

Add more hay if needed during the growing season.

Because hay breaks down quickly, you should check it halfway through the growing season and add additional hay if needed to maintain good coverage. A thick enough layer of mulch is especially important during the heat of summer.

Use a straw to build your soil. 

At the end of the growing season, straw mulch helps improve your garden soil. Fox explains, "Because it breaks down so quickly, straw can be turned into soil by plowing, which helps with microbial activity. The whole process can keep the soil healthy and produce the nutrients our plants need to grow."