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Make Your Own Mulch With Limited Space

Make Your Own Mulch With Limited Space

Even if you don't have a lot of space or equipment, you still have options available to you for making your own mulch - and some of them might be going into your rubbish bin right now.

If you have lawn and trees, the obvious mulch ingredients to collect are your grass clippings, bark and leaves. If you don't have a chipper, simply run your lawn mower over your leaves and catch them along with your grass in the grass catcher.

From your kitchen, there are a number of food by products that are also excellent for mulch - nut shells (walnuts, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, almonds, and other nuts). Also avocado seeds, peach, nectarine and plum stones, cherry pits and coconut shells. The nuts will need to be smashed up and you do need to be sure your pits and seeds are all dried out so that you don't end up with any surprise trees in your garden. 

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Science Notes

Mulch is essential to retaining water, keeping weeds at bay and managing ground temperature in your garden.

Nut shells are made from the same material as wood, but considerably denser and more compact.  This means that the shells can take years to decompose so they make an excellent addition to your mulch pile. While your leaves and grass decompose quickly, your nut shells and pips will remain as a good base. Just keep mixing them in each time you add new mulch.

Related Tip

Make sure anything you add to your mulch is organic and has no pesticides or chemical treatments that you might inadvertently add to your vegetable patch.  > > Also think about the PH of your mulch material in relation to your garden. Don't, for instance add pine needles to your mulch unless the plants you are putting them are acid lovers. See also Mulching with Seaweed.>