Colorful Garden Chat Picture Thread

Depends. Plants have different needs.

I have bark mulch, wood chips, stones, straw, grass clippings as mulch
Straw for strawberries
Vegetables get grass and wood
Apple tree thin grass (too much harms)
Prairie garden and heavy lines stones
By the terrace wood, I find it prettier
Rose bed has bark mulch except the roses.
Magnolia, rhododendron and table grape bark mulch
When in doubt, I consult Google for expensive plants or I try it out

And snails love any mulch except fine Mainkies. Even in the raised bed surrounded by bark mulch are the critters. The visiting ducks do not eat any slugs.

Blueberries love bark mulch

No more snails in the new house! What a relief. The new "predators" are deer. But thanks to the fence, they don’t get into the vegetable area. They love berry bushes and especially young privet.

Well, a bird has nibbled on one or the other strawberry, the seeds are also eaten now and then. I can live with that. But those nasty brown things uh

Our landscape gardener strongly advised against the commonly available bark mulch (the kind you can just buy in bags). It’s way too acidic!

We will probably mulch our beds as well, but we’ll get the mulch from the landscape gardener. I looked at it last time and have to admit (I’m always skeptical about such self-praise), it really smells completely different, much more pleasant.
We’ll see!

Otherwise, yesterday I baked and also cooked in the oven for the first time (ideal for braised dishes!).
It wasn’t the “real” sourdough bread yet because my sourdough starter still needs until Thursday to be ready, but a “fake” sourdough bread (with sort of quasi-sourdough from a packet), a baguette, gratinated tomatoes, braised onions, and a bean stew (but that needed overnight, the beans were quite large and also a bit old).



In bread heaven:


This morning the proper tools arrived by mail:


Scraping hooks are still coming!

Overall, everything tasted very good and the bread is really phenomenal. No comparison to a conventional oven, even if you use a pizza stone there.

I am jealous.

You can ask the timber dealer for large quantities of bark mulch or wood chips. It pays off for us. Good quality, cheap delivery if they are driving there anyway.