Living Mulch?

18 years ago

Preparing my very first garden.

I've been reading about permaculture a bit and have become interested in the concept of self-sustaining and self-feeding systems. I attended a lecture by Dr. Charles Reith the other day where used these terms.

I read an interesting thread about clover in the soil forum.

Has anyone used clover (or some other low growing nitrogen fixing plant) as a "living mulch" to feed their garden? This is sort of the concept behind a three-sisters garden, except all the plants involved there are directly useful in their own right -- which is closer o the ideal.

Does it out compete the vegetable plants and cause more harm than good (this is what I would guess and I have read such from others).

Also, would clover produce enough organic matter to maintain nutrients in the soil, or would I still have to pump in mulch and/or compost.

Does anyone know of another other way to make a vegetable garden "self-sustaining" or "self-feeding". BTW, space is at a premium. I'm starting with a 16'x34' spot (6 4'x16' intensive beds).

One idea I had was to interplant bush beans (nitrogen fixing legume) with broccoli. I'm not sure what these plants look like when they are grown though -- if one will shade the other too much. Might not see the benefits untill the next season. Not sure.

Thanks.

Comments (3)

gardenlen
18 years ago
g'day,

i just use green mulches eg.,. slashed field grass/spoilt lucern hay sort of things and all the old vege plants get tucked back under that mulch to break down as well, also use kitchen scraps like vegetable peels old cooked vegetables whatever, as well we save our night water into which goes water from soaking pots & pans, we have a composting toilet and this material ends up in the beds as well, that's all the feeding our gardens get and they produce very well.

our composting is kept at around 8"s in depth.

len

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lens garden page
seatofmypants99
18 years ago
Can't grow clover here, but the next best thing is perennial peanut, a legume that fixes nitrogen in the soil. I'm planting lots of that, along with other ground covers.

Cypress mulch is the mulch of choice around here, and the cypress groves are being decimated at an alarming rate.
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crankyoldman
18 years ago
I have used common purslane as a living mulch. There was a lot of it growing in my garden from the previous owner, so I decided to let it cover over in between the tomatoes and peppers. It worked really well until we had a drought. The slugs did like the purslane, but they seemed to stay off the tomatoes. I had previously thought about using clover, but I will just use the purslane again. After I tried it, I read an article about using it as a living mulch from an ag school. Purslane is edible, but I didn't eat any of it.