Cottage Garden Design, Part III: Re: Mulch

» Cottage_Garden - Re: Mulch

Gay, I think mulch and soil preparation helped my garden come through the horrific drought we had year before last. (When many of the editors here wrote drought articles and were nearly afraid to look out the window each day, more and more difficult week by week. Something very wearing about ongoing dry weather, so out of our control and making us feel insignificant maybe. With all our technology for predicting weather we still can't control it.) Anyway, things looked so sorry here but most did survive and looked just fine last year, none the worse for wear. If anything they outperformed. I do hope it will be the same for your garden! Is there any long term break in the weather pattern?

I am wondering if this series will be helpful to new gardeners. It has been so long since I began that I can't remember if "enclosure" would have been meaningful or not. Maybe not at all! I was worried about getting things to stay alive, not about the finer points of how they actually looked!

For that at least, the soil part comes in time to remind people that the beginning is really a prime opportunity for soil prep. It is just an impossible task to go back, rip it all out, and start again by finally taking time and effort to do the soil right. In my mind anyway. I couldn't imagine that!

-- posted by Cottage_Garden