Purchasing bags of wood bark and chips, cocoa shells, or rocks at the home improvement store is an easy way to get mulch for your flower beds and vegetable gardens, but the cost can add up quickly at $3 to $4 a bag. Look around your own yard, house, and community to find cheap, and sometimes free, mulch to keep weeds at bay and soil moist.
Wood Chips, Compost, Leaves
Get wood chips cheap from a local tree service. Find a tree-trimming company near you and ask what they charge for wood chips. Some companies may deliver a load to your driveway for a small fee. Many local governments also either sell or provide chipped wood or compost free of charge. Make sure to stretch your back before receiving your delivery or picking up your mulch – either requires a lot of bending and lifting. Use large contractor-style plastic bags to transport the material.
Wood chips tend to use nitrogen from the soil when they break down, so keep fresh chipped wood away from the base of plants, especially young plants.
Come autumn, shredded leaves also provide a great winter mulch. Gather them either in a mulching lawn mower or a leaf blower with a mulching vacuum. A large wood chipper can run over $500, but will make quick work of small limbs and fall leaves and create home-made mulch.
Sawdust Mulch from Untreated Wood
If there is a carpenter in your family, gather the sawdust from around the workbench to use as mulch. Take care, however, to use sawdust primarily as a mulch for acid-loving plants, such as azaleas, rhododendron, heathers, evergreens, potatoes, and rhubarb. Sawdust has an acidifying effect on the soil as it breaks down.
Cotton Mulch from Sheets, Clothes, Rugs
For a clean, weed-free path through the vegetable garden, use old 100-percent cotton bed sheets, clothing, or rugs headed for the thrift store, garage sale, or garbage. The cotton will disintegrate gradually and naturally, all the while providing a free mulched path that keeps weeds and mud at bay.
Cheap Rubber Mulch
Synthetic mulch made from recycled rubber is by no means cheap or free, but its longevity in the garden makes it an economical choice for some mulching needs. Non-organic mulches like rubber add no nutrients to the soil, but they smother weeds nicely and keep soil cool and damp. On pathways and under children’s play sets, rubber mulch manufactured to look like wood chips is attractive and nearly maintenance-free. Choose a rubber mulch maker, such as Rubberecycle, that uses recycled tires and your mulch cuts down on landfill waste as well.
Grass Clippings as Mulch
Grass clippings from a mulching mower offer the most benefit when they remain on the lawn, decomposing and nourishing the soil. Every few mowings, however, gardeners who use no weed killers on their grass can gather lawn clippings to use as a thin layer of mulch in the vegetable garden or flower bed. Grass clippings tend to mat and restrict water and air penetration to the soil, so spread only an inch of clippings at a time to serve as mulch.
Think creatively when you mulch your gardens, walking paths, or borders. Also, make sure you apply mulch in early spring, before weeds have the chance to sprout.
