Mulching: The easy way to weed?

The lawn that died after being (inadvertently) covered by mulch for almost 2 weeks

The lawn that died after being (inadvertently) covered by mulch for almost 2 weeks.

I discovered this by pure accident. When I wrote my article about recycling plant waste in the garden, my efforts at shredding the fallen tree leaves were interrupted by rainy weather. A spread as well as a pile of shredded leaves were left abandoned when the rain got heavy.

As it happened, after the rainy weather, I came down with the flu and couldn’t exert myself too much. So, the shredded leaves stayed where they were for about two weeks.

By the time I was well enough to work in the garden again, the leaves had started decomposing. So had the grass beneath the pile of shredded leaves. In fact, the grass had died off completely!

This got me thinking, because without our contract gardeners around, and as much as I enjoy burning calories pushing the manual lawn mower around, I’ve been starting to view grass with an evil eye.

Some of the mulch helping me to widen my planting bed.

Some of the mulch helping me to widen my planting bed.

I’ve also been intending to clear a patch of the garden of grass to use as a dedicated area to grow vegetables. So, those shredded leaves have been moved to the area that I want to clear of grass, and are hopefully stifling the grass and weeds to death as I type this.

I don’t have enough shredded leaves to cover the entire area completely, but I reckon in two to three weeks, I can shift the pile of leaves to the adjacent area, and start planting on the cleared land. Will it work? I hope so!

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