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Show Mulching Hailed as Vital Aid to All Garden Plants 11" p' " 5Sa , 1 g3g $ Is f$ v . rK a i r - . .. L - u Tomatoes Should Always Be Mulched to Keep Weeds Down and the Soil Moist. While the leaves of lawns, vegetables, vege-tables, and most flowers demand sunshine, and lots of it, researchers agree that shade on the soil over their roots is good for practically all plants. At first glance this might seem a difficult prescription to fill, but it can be done by covering the soil with a mulch. The latest argument in behalf of mulching is that it prevents erosion. A recent government bulletin says: "Raindrops come hurtling out of the sky and hit the soil so hard that the soil is splashed up on "your lettuce. let-tuce. Scientists have measured the splash and found that it may be as high as two feet. Then, the detached soil may be carried off in the water which has accumulated from the rain. Or, those fine particles of soil in the water will settle down into the pores of xhe soil and fill them up. That will prevent the water soaking into the soil as rapidly as it should. When water doesn't soak into the soil it accumulates on the surface and ultimately has to flow some-" some-" where. "Happily, there is something the average gardener can do about raindrop or splash erosion. He can put a mulch on his garden. All of us would like to have enough straw to put a layer of three or four inches over the garden. But, often, we can't get the straw or it costs too much. But, we can take the mowins from around the edge of the garden and put them between the rows. Later the lawn clippings can be spread out between the rows. An hour or so spent with a hand sickle cutting down weeds and spreading them in the rows will pay handsomely. hand-somely. "Men who have gardened for years, but who were not taught to use mulches continuously, express surprise at what a wonderful help they have at last found. It prevents the raindrop erosion by intercepting the raindrops and leads the water down to the soil gently. It keeps the weeds down and lowers the soil temperature tem-perature in the hot summer days and helps conserve the moisture which goes Into the soil." Paper mulch, and even stones and slabs of concrete have been experimented with. But tests by the Ohio state experiment station, emphasizing the importance of soil aeration, indicate that the best mulching material's allow free circulation cir-culation of air through the top eight inches of soil. Mulches of fresh organic material, materi-al, such as manure, straw, alfalfa, peat moss, lawn clippings and others, stabilize the granular structure struc-ture of soils and prevent surface compaction. Waste lumber is used by some gardeners, to shade the ground between be-tween rows. By laying down boards when planting the garden, and walking on them rather than the soil, the ground is kept loose, and by shifting the boards between rows, weeds can be killed without hoeing. Excellent results can be obtained from a heavy mulch of dry lawn clippings, applied a little at a time. The first application should be well mixed with the top soil; and then it may be built up to several inches in thickness, so that weeds are kept down and evaporation checked, but at the same time rains are allowed to penetrate the soil. Tomatoes especially like a mulch of this kind. |