Wheat Straw for Mulch

[Prater 75]

I picked up 10 bales of wheat straw to use as mulch, anyone else use wheat straw and can give me some pointers? The farmer told me they might try to sprout a few wheat stalks but the heat would kill them off pretty fast. I mainly want to use this for keeping moisture in the soil since our hottest months are approaching and then till it in when the garden is done for the year.

[Grueling48 0]

hey prater, i see your the gardener of the site. i can dig that. its probably too late for this advice this season but for the future ill pass on some knowledge. growing up on a produce farm we had to use plastic to mulch just for the fact of cost and easibility. Now that im older and still mess around with a smaller garden, i always use straw for mulch. basically anything that is decomposable will work fine. Being a strawbarry farmer from mid michigan it is a must to use straw as a winter mulch for different reasons. ill explain later. when using straw for a mulch on row crops, make sure to use a thick enough layer to suppress the weeds because that is the main benefit. it is also to retain moisture from evaporation. just remember if you have suppressed the weeds, you have won half the moisture retaining battle. so if you are growing plants that dont like living in mud you need to keep an eye on the moisture. remember im from michigan so some of our tactics may confuse you. we use straw on strawberries for a couple of reasons...one is to prevent deep frost from damaging the plants in the winter, insulating the ground from the event of minus zero temps. two is to prevent or control the action of thaw during early spring or late winter when you get those days when the sun is out during the day yet it hits 10 deg at night. the straw insulates from the sun and prevents the freeze at night and thaw by day syndrome. three it makes a very nice pad to kneel on during the picking season and keeps the fruit clean from the spring downpours splashing. which brings me to my next benefits, erosion and compaction. the straw breaks down the rainfall to smaller droplets before it contacts the soil around the plant. the tomato varieties that we grow up here really dont like to be wet, yet they do need moisture when they are fruiting. therefore we use a trickle or drip irrigation under the mulch to keep the moisure more constant to prev ent dry rot or the splitting from too much water at once. now when you purchase straw you need to check out a couple of different farmers for quality. you want straw as weed free as it can be. the straw, as with uncomposted manure, is the main supplier of the new weeds. thats why is important to have a thick layer of the mulch to prevent those hitchhikers from germinating. they will, eventually, but by then they wont cause any problems unless they are perennials. you can always use a post emergence herbicide for those as long as your not starting seeds in your garden .for tilling, straw, rye, grass clippings, newspaper anything is great. just be carefull of using 2-4d treated grass clippings around tomatoes or grapes. Hey, you asked!

[Prater 75]

Thanks for the advice. The straw I used has worked great. The farmer had let me know there may be a few wheat heads left but that he has his thrasher tuned often to keep his yield high so I did not have any wheat sprouts in the garden like I expected. Tthe one thing that has caused a few issues is the squash bugs love taking refuge in the straw, I am working better at controlling them but have loved my decision of using it. The straw makes it nice to kneel down on the mulch and not get dirt and mud all over you.

[IthacaJeff 151]

Just a tangent note on this topic. I picked up 40 free square bales of hay this spring from a guy who no

longer wanted to feed them to his horses. spread them over the majority of our garden, as we are

looking to do some "no-till" gardening. Put down heavy layers, but we had more weeds this year

than ever before, and weeds of the like we've never seen. I'm assuming the hay was pretty weed filled.

Any thoughts on the next steps? We are still picking tomatoes and the pumpkins will be nicely sized in

a few weeks..

Jeff