Yesterday the tools in Blogger began acting up, once the old set was replaced with a new version. That went back and forth, causing great frustration.
That continues today. When I click on the image icon, nothing at all happens. I put up a humorous Calvin photo just now, using old methods, but that is too funny for this woke age. I switched to cats - I cannot go wrong with cats.
Today's lesson is about slandering mulch, that all inclusive word for putting stuff on top of soil to shade it and suppress weed growth. Plants like sunflowers and Joe Pye will mulch themselves, creating enough shade and exuding substances that retard the growth of other plants (a sunflower trick). Those two also grow faster than a grasshopper can eat, keeping both happy.
We had 1/4 inch of rain, our bonus from Christobel sailing up the Mississippi Valley, far East of us. That was only enough to dampen the mulch. So maybe mulch can keep the soil dry - howzabout them apples? as we said in Moline.
The sun evaporates moisture from the soil, so anything organic blocking that solar radiation will
- hold moisture in,
- provide a home for various good creatures, and
- slowly rot into the soil.
Plants do not like growing on the equivalent of a hot frying pan, which describes our soil on sunny days. Shade is good for plants, great on the three points above, and often attractive. I use shredded Cyprus, so that builds the soil as it rots away.
Added to that list of virtues is the ability to make compost from mulch - on the spot - and not haul it with aching backs and blistered hands. (Sassy is giving me drama lessons.)
Weeds make good mulch, as long as they are not inclined to take root and multiply. I let tree stumps rot into the Rose Garden soil, but I got tired of tripping over them. I kept only one, near the bushes, to provide an autonomous zone for toads. Birds and toads love dead wood for its attraction to moist, delicious, and nutritious creatures of rot. The speed of wood rotting into the soil is more evidence of the engineering skills of the Creator.
Adding to the monoculture of a grassy lawn will always increase the creature count and the fun derived from that slight change. Our friend has an enormous lawn, so it make sense to mow it with his Moline-centric John Deere tractor and tools.
I mulched the pour-over coffee didies because the white paper made the area look sloppy. I began adding to that area around the birdbaths, so Cyprus mulch helps the view in a few minutes.
As I wrote before, gardening creates happiness in so many ways. Although weeding looks and feels like the curse fallen upon Old Adam, it is also the source of many surprises, like the sudden blooming of a forgotten plant. Lest we forgot - the basic ugliness of the thorny rose bush is forgotten when fat, fragrant flowers hang from every scrawny branch.
