A good day for mulching

It was so beautiful here Wednesday, and warm for November-- almost 60. I spent the afternoon working hard, cleaning up and mulching beds. Good thing, because we had a wild storm last night-- wind, hail, thunder and lightening. Enough to even wake John up for a few minutes! And now it's going to rain for the foreseeable future.

I had the idea I'd splurge and mulch this year with a load of fresh, nice compost. Then I did some rough math, and realized I'd need about 4 cubic yards to cover all the beds 2 inches deep. I'm not good at geometry, but I remember a cubic yard of anything is a big pile o' stuff, and a friend told me 4 yards might be about 1/2 of a dump truck. The thought of waiting by the sidewalk with my little wheelbarrow while that much compost is dumped on the sidewalk was just too much. Maybe next year.

So... I went back to the cheap leaf mulch method. It isn't fun either, because I have to cross the street with my garden cart many times to help to myself to the maple leaves over there. People probably think I'm a neighborhood saint, keeping the storm drains and gutters clear. But I'm just grabbing some free mulch (not that there's any competition for it!)

It isn't very pretty, but without a mulch, the weeds grow almost all winter here. A mulch also protects the dahlias, lilies, cannas and other borderline Zone 7 plants that I keep in the ground all winter. If the wind hasn't blown it away, by spring the rains have matted down the fluffy layer to a nice thin leaf mold. It's one of the joys of my gardening year to pull the rotted leaves off in April, and see all those happy worms living under there.