Winter is a great time to review the structural features of most gardens—things like bed arrangement, layout, soil health, mulch, and composting. While we’ve talked about mulch several times before, today we’d like to focus on some specific mulching materials that are often used in that role. Straw, pine straw, and leaves are all often used as mulch material, occasionally sold commercially, and may have a use in your garden space. As we move through the cold weather and towards spring this might be a great time to consider adding some of these materials to your space. So let’s dig in and learn more about straw, pine straw, leaves, and how to use them in your garden!
What is Straw? Can I Use Straw as Mulch?
Let’s start with straw. Commonly found on farms, straw is a useful material in both commercial agriculture and gardening—but it’s important to know what it is and what it does. First and foremost, hay and straw are different things. In brief, hay is a dried grass crop, commonly either feed grass or alfalfa, that is stored for use as animal feed. Straw isn’t used for feed; it’s the dried stems of crops like wheat or oats that are used for many non-nutritional purposes like livestock bedding or mulching. You may encounter both at your local garden store, so check the label, ask the staff, and remember that hay is usually light green with a sweetish smell and straw is a light yellow or golden color with little scent. To us it sometimes smells “dusty”, but that may be a personal thing.
So with that in mind, straw makes great mulch particularly for vegetable plants which have fruit that rests on the ground. The traditional use of straw as mulch is why strawberries have their name, and it has proven useful for squash, pumpkins, melons, and cucumbers as well. Straw is also an excellent choice as a winter and spring mulch because it helps insulate the soil and isn’t too heavy for the emerging seedlings when spring comes.
Straw does tend to break down fairly quickly when compared to options like wood chips or pine straw (more on that later) but it serves to enrich the soil as it does. The pop of color it adds can be an eye-catching visual feature in landscaping, and its relative affordability in many places adds to its usefulness. Straw bale gardening is another option for a unique, affordable, and effective veggie garden, and we may have a blog about that in the future.
Pine Straw as Mulch
The dried, fallen needles of a pine tree, pine straw is a useful material for many gardening applications. Pine straw can make a fine mulch—it’s relatively long lasting, easy to maintain, and can serve as a moisture barrier. However, when using pine straw as mulch there are some things to keep in mind.
Popular as landscaping mulch due to its durability and lovely reddish-brown color that makes green shrubs stand out beautifully, pine straw may be the perfect choice for your landscaping features. The needles tend to tangle together, creating a settled, level surface which resists blowing away in the wind. They’re inexpensive, long lasting, and will allow moisture from rain or irrigation to flow through while preventing it from evaporating out of the soil. It can be slippery to walk on when placed on an incline or sloping surface, so care must be used if the pine straw mulch is meant to be walked. on.
Dried pine straw will have little if any effect on your soil, contrary to a pervasive gardening myth. Green or “fresh” pine needles can acidify the soil to varying degrees, so care must be used when employing them. However the dried pine straw you find commercially is perfectly safe for most types of garden plants.
Leaves as Mulch
Fallen leaves are a natural gift of autumn, and they have many uses in the garden. We’ve written previously about the use of dried leaves as mulch, as insect or wildlife habitat, or in a stumpery. As with all mulches, when applied too heavily leaves may prevent water from reaching the soil. However, as a mulch or tilled-in soil amendment leaves add nutrition, help retain moisture, and may be free depending on your gardening location. So when the leaves start to fall in autumn, recognize them as the gift that they are and make use of them in your garden.
Right now many of us are looking for things to do in our gardens, and finding effective mulches and installing them may help keep our green thumbs busy until spring arrives. Whether you’re using straw, pine straw, or fallen leaves as mulch, we hope you find the right mulching solution for you. Let us know what you’re up to in your garden—Gardzen is all about community and we love to hear from you!
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