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Diane Palmer asked:
There is a lot of talk about mulching your tomato plants, and the rest of your garden. This is a good thing, but don’t think you have to run to the local garden center and get a truckload of expensive mulch.
Mulching around your vegetable garden, or the rest of your garden for that matter, helps to retain moisture, which helps cut back on watering, which of course helps the environment stay green, but it doesn’t have to be the expensive bark mulch you can get in a rainbow of colors now, unless you are going for a trendy looking garden!
As long as you have not sprayed your lawn, and your lawn is not on any “drugs” you can bag your clippings as you cut your lawn, and use these around your tomato plants. Lawn clippings are full of nutrients. Or you can use that pile of dead leaves you have in your back corner, or hay from a local farm.
But the important thing to remember about mulching your tomato garden, is that you must wait until the soil reaches a good warm temperature, or else the mulch will insulate the cold in the soil.
Your tomato plants, need the soil to be warm to thrive, so depending on your climate, let the plants get a good start first, keep the weeds down, (weeds don’t seem to care what temperature the soil is!) , and make sure they get watered. As the temps start to rise overnight, and the soil gets warmer, then mulch. This will retain the heat in the soil as well as the moisture needed.
Plus as an added bonus, mulching tomato plants keeps those dreaded weeds down. I usually mulch to about 2 inches deep and then turn it into the ground in the fall. It also helps energize the soil for next years tomato crop.
There is a lot of talk about mulching your tomato plants, and the rest of your garden. This is a good thing, but don’t think you have to run to the local garden center and get a truckload of expensive mulch.
Mulching around your vegetable garden, or the rest of your garden for that matter, helps to retain moisture, which helps cut back on watering, which of course helps the environment stay green, but it doesn’t have to be the expensive bark mulch you can get in a rainbow of colors now, unless you are going for a trendy looking garden!
As long as you have not sprayed your lawn, and your lawn is not on any “drugs” you can bag your clippings as you cut your lawn, and use these around your tomato plants. Lawn clippings are full of nutrients. Or you can use that pile of dead leaves you have in your back corner, or hay from a local farm.
But the important thing to remember about mulching your tomato garden, is that you must wait until the soil reaches a good warm temperature, or else the mulch will insulate the cold in the soil.
Your tomato plants, need the soil to be warm to thrive, so depending on your climate, let the plants get a good start first, keep the weeds down, (weeds don’t seem to care what temperature the soil is!) , and make sure they get watered. As the temps start to rise overnight, and the soil gets warmer, then mulch. This will retain the heat in the soil as well as the moisture needed.
Plus as an added bonus, mulching tomato plants keeps those dreaded weeds down. I usually mulch to about 2 inches deep and then turn it into the ground in the fall. It also helps energize the soil for next years tomato crop.
