Pick and Write [Agricultural Word]👉#08
My Word to pick and write will be Mulch
You probably don’t think much about mulch until your tomatoes die unexpectedly and you find yourself at your garden at 6 AM in your Church slippers and nobody’s around. We all sound boring when you're not an agriculture fan and you read blogs like this but those who understand the value really care. Different crops like different ground coverings.
The biggest factor is the thickness or the materials used for mulching. Straw mulch is heavy and works great for mulching tomatoes, but if the same thing is used on young carrot crops, the moisture retention will eventually suffocate them and they’ll rot before you can harvest them.
Timing is a huge factor too. Planting mulch during hotter and drier weather, you may find out that your mulch lasts longer than the time it should. So what is the purpose of mulch?
Is the mulch used for or being applied, to warm soil or regulate temperatures or suppress weeds?
If you apply your mulch too early, you're delaying crop germination in ways that seem trivial until they keep repeating.
The bottom line is that there isn't an easy answer to the question what is the proper mulch for my crop. I think what would be better thing to think of is to think about what you want from your mulch, the material type for your crop and how your mulch adds to the life cycle of the crop you are growing.
After you're done with that, then continue to watch your crop and your mulch. But whenever you notice anything that may be a bit off, you would need to check your soil. You can usually quickly tell if your plants are failing, but only if you’re able to watch the soil closely.