0:00The last couple of weeks, we've been talking about dealing with weeds, how to manage weeds, how to handle cultivation.

0:06This week, we're going to be talking about mulches, the the pros and cons of using mulches. I'm here at Bountiful Blessings Farm with my dad, John, who's

0:14been a commercial market farmer for 27 years and uh has a lot of experience in this. So, what's your recommendations?

0:21is what are the pros and cons of using mulch? Whether that's some sort of organic material like leaf leaf mulch,

0:28which I know we've used, or or wood chips for certain crops, or plastic mulches like landscape fabric or, you know, single-use plastics.

0:37Yeah. Well, there's pros and cons to to each of them. You know, obviously from an organic point of view, it's always

0:45nice to be using organic mulches. Uh whether that's wood chips or straw or hay or uh leaf mulch, leaf mold,

0:57whatever they want to call it. Um so adding that organic matter is always a good thing. And of course, one thing

1:04that's popular now is just deep compost mulches. Um,

1:12the obvious upside to those is that you're you're building your soil as you

1:18hopefully eliminate weeds. Um, the downside to any kind of mulch is that you eliminate the ability to cultivate.

1:29We talked about cultivation and dealing with those small weeds, but when your ground is covered with something, you

1:37obviously can't use those tools um to to do it. So,

1:46what's left is hand weeding. Mhm. And so that can be a challenge. You know, I've

1:52never used wood chips or straw thick enough to eliminate all weeds. Yeah. You

2:01know, they it certainly helps um get rid of a lot of weeds, but you're still going to have weeds and then you're you're you're hand pulling. So,

2:13that is definitely a downside.

2:16Now, you know, the alternative to organic mulches would be non-organic mulches, um, which would be things like

2:25plastic. There's a lot of plastic culture that goes on where, um, they lay

2:32black plastic over raised beds, and it's actually very effective, not only for

2:39keeping weeds out, but for helping plants to grow really well. Um, and then of course there's quick plant fabric,

2:48which the beauty of quick plant fabric over just plastic mulches is that it's reusable for many years. So that is a

2:58nice thing. And um I'll just tell you in a spring like

3:05we've had this year, we've had so much rain. Um, I think last week we had three

3:12days without rain, which I think was the first time in I don't know 6 weeks or something where we had three consecutive days without rain.

3:22In weather like this, cultivation becomes almost impossible.

3:30And so if you were relying just on cultivation,

3:36you would have a big mess on your hands after 6 or 8 weeks of in uncovered growing space. Yeah. In uncovered

3:44growing. So, because we've largely gone to using quick plant fabric in our

3:51outside beds, um what could have been a disaster has not been because of

3:59most of the ground being covered with quick plant fabric. And you've mentioned a couple of times the need to not cultivate or not weed unless the soil is

4:08dry, like if the soil is still wet or moist, like when we've had just copious amounts of rain. Uh, but just so our viewers understand, the reason for that

4:16is because the weeds in order to die really kind of have to dry out. So if the soil is just wet and moist and it's

4:24raining, you come in and cultivate them and kind of uproot them. Even if they're laying on top of the soil, they can still root right back in uh quickly

4:32unless they dry out. So that's the reason for that. So yeah, I mean with the exception of potentially a deep compost, you're right. you know, most of

4:41these organic mulches you can't really cultivate. I mean, if it was a a loose compost, you could probably do some com some cultivation, but other than that,

4:49yeah, you're you're pretty much uh you know, at the mercy of the weeds and having to get down on your hands and knees and pull them. Um let's talk about the plastic mulches a little bit. So,

5:00for those that that maybe don't haven't heard a lot of the backstory to Bountiful Blessings Farm, um the farm started 27 years ago as primarily and

5:10really exclusively aupic strawberry operation. So, the first year we planted what an acre or more of strawberries.

5:19Yeah. 17,000 plants um directly on the dirt. It was it was in hindsight it's like what in the world were we thinking?

5:28But anyways, it just directly into raised beds and uh and we thought, "Oh,

5:34this is great. We're going organic. It's going to be an organic pick operation."

5:38And it was just a total disaster. I mean, the weeds took over. But not even that, you know, when when we did finally control weeds, sort of control weeds on

5:46a small section of the field. Then when it comes to harvesting or or you know the fruit is starting to ripen, it's just rotting almost instantly because

5:55it's just in contact with the soil and it's just your berries are just terrible. So in in some situations like that, it's just almost no way to avoid using some sort of plastic mulch. Well,

6:07we were young and idealistic and um yeah, we were going to do uh strawberry

6:15plastic culture without the plastic. And I mean, we were planning to put down straw to cover the ground, but yeah, the

6:25weeds took over before we had the opportunity to put the straw down. It was just a a very simple beginner's

6:34mistake. We we didn't know what we were doing.

6:37Um, and we thought the the fall frost was going to kill the weeds, but it didn't. Anyway, yeah, we we have lots of

6:45stories about weeds. It's just an example, I guess, of of certain crops that just it's almost

6:53Yeah, you can be all idealistic about it and and you can hey, give it a try if you really want to, but there's certain things that it's just going to save you

7:02and and really ultimately is the difference between running a profitable operation and not running a profitable operation. I mean, if you were growing,

7:10you know, head lettuce on just bare soil, you know, it's just uh uh it's a mess. I mean, we we would have lost the

7:19farm if we had tried to continue doing strawberries on bare ground. That's the bottom line. The only way we became profitable was to start using plastic.

7:30And we definitely try to limit it. Um but it makes a huge difference. Yeah.

7:37So, and you know, with straw, you end up with a whole crop of wheat if you put down wheat straw. So it Yeah. Well, and

7:47tucking the straw in around the plants just takes a copious amount of work. And so, um, that's a good word. Copious.

7:54Well, you know, I was homeschooled.

8:00You know, I think that, uh, we've talked about a lot of cool stuff here. You know, mulch is a is a powerful tool.

8:08There's pros and cons to all of this.

8:10Um, I think my encouragement would just be think long and hard about how idealistic you want to be about not

8:16utilizing uh plastics. You know, I'm fully supportive of not utilizing single-use plastics as much as possible.

8:24Like just using it once and throwing it away is uh less than ideal for sure.

8:30But, you know, if you go ahead and invest in some highquality woven fabrics that are UVT treated that that are rated for 10 years of life, you know, uh I

8:39feel like that's a good investment and our our sales numbers on that stuff indicates that a lot of people have come to the same conclusion. So, yeah, it's

8:48just uh one of those things you have to weigh the pros and cons and figure out what's going to work for you. Um, I hope this information has been helpful. You have any closing comments?

8:59Weeds are huge. That's there's no getting around it. And and getting coming up with systems for keeping it

9:08under control is is huge. And um cultivation is a lot of work. I enjoy

9:15it. I love it. In fact, I love hand weeding. But you're not making money when you're cultivating and weeding. And

9:24so that's the bottom line. And if you're trying to do this as your income, you got to be making money for sure. All righty. Well, again,

9:34I hope this information has been helpful. And if you have questions, feel free to go to the Farmersfriend website,

9:40farmersfriend.com, and reach out to our customer support team. Until until next time, happy growing.

9:47[Music]