Now that it’s well established, our garden is very low maintenance – on average, we would spend less than two hours a week on it.
As I’ve mentioned several times before, the chickens do most of the hard work. They rotovate the soil, eat the weeds and grubs, and fertilise the beds for us. Worms help a lot too, both in the ground and in the worm farm, where they produce liquid fertiliser and castings that further enrich the soil.
The final essential element in our low maintenance approach is mulch.
We had originally hoped to make our own mulch as per Linda’s plan – but it didn’t work out. We just couldn’t source the necessary organic material to create sufficient groundcover.
In our second year, we started buying mulch, and it has made the world of difference. Apart from conserving water and keeping the weeds in check, the mulch makes the beds look pretty, which in turn makes the whole gardening experience far more enjoyable.
We mulch heavily when we plant out a bed, and don’t add to that cover until the next rotation (unless we’re hilling up potatoes). The weeds that do manage to grow through are easily seen and pulled out. By the time the mulch has started to break down and the weeds are beginning to spread, the bed is just about ready for the chickens to do their thing.
It’s taken a little trial and error to figure out which mulch best suits our garden.
We started with lucerne hay, but found it hard to use, as the hay is baled very tightly and difficult to tease out. Then we tried pea straw, which is great for the soil, but has two major drawbacks – firstly, it’s often full of peas which shoot all over the beds, and secondly, the birds seem to love it and will often scratch out seedlings planted in the beds.
At the moment, we’re using organic sugar cane mulch. It costs $15/bag, which will cover nearly two beds to a thickness of 5cm (2″). It seems to be doing the trick – the birds have learnt to leave it alone, as it’s free of any seed or other edible material.
Mulch shades the ground on hot summer days and helps to hold moisture in the soil. I honestly don’t know how we ever managed to garden without it!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
I agree with you, Celia. Mulching a garden bed can make a world of difference. I’ve not seen sugar cane mulch, though, and use one made from cypress trees. One thing is for certain, I won’t be using pea straw. It sounds like its disadvantages far outweigh its usefulness. Thanks for the tips.
John, I think a really overgrown messy garden can be quite intimidating – nice mulched beds feel much more approachable.. :)
Hi Celia, I love looking at your garden. Its so wonderful. We don’t get sugar cane mulch here but I have heard it is great. We have been using straw and we are getting weeds from it. I guess we will have to undertake a bit of trial and error too to see what is the best of our available products.
Glenda, I’m sure there’s something! It’s taken us a while to figure it out too. I think really high grade pea straw might be seed-free, but we’ve never found any…
I’ve never seen this here but I will enquire as we’ve got a huge cane industry in SA :)
Tandy, look out for organic if you can – apparently the chemicals can cause problems in the garden otherwise!
And, it’s a renewable resource that would probably go to waste otherwise ;) Lovely shot of your garden.
Thanks ED! The back garden is looking very pretty at the moment. We have to take deep breaths and build up our chi and tackle the front one next.. :)
Your garden looks great. I could use some of this stuff in my Italian pots, perhaps I could smuggle it across in my suitcase. There are lots of chooks on my latest post…some a little more strange than yours.
Deb, your Ekka chooks were great, but the pigeons were unbelievable!
I find this the best as well, pea straw was such a nuisance! This is one of the jobs I’ve got slated for the weekend- I hope it stays fine!
Becca, fingers crossed that the weather holds for you!
I like sugar cane mulch too, but use lucerne hay with blood and bone for the roses.
Thanks for your wanting to follow me on Instagram, but my photos are really boring shots of cats, a bit of cooking, cats, weird stuff, patchwork and more cats, that I take for my kids. I’m very flattered that you asked to follow, but just warning you that my photos are very dull!!
bye
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Amanda, your IG feed is great! :) Thanks for letting me follow..
You’re right Celia it does make it look pretty too. Maybe I should get some for my planters?
That’s funny about the peas sprouting!
Claire, it was funny to start with, then it got really, really annoying.. :)
I use pea straw and you are right – the peas shoot prolifically and the blackbirds make a dreadful mess of it. My nice tidy beds end up scratched all over the place.
Amanda, I think if we could find pea straw without any pea seed in it, we’d be fine – the birds are only after what’s edible, I think. I’ve just never been able to find any!
I wish I had some working chickens. I love sugar-cane mulch too and yes, it’s great spreading it around because it instantly makes everything look so much neater and tidier xx
Charlie, it’s like pulling a doona over an unmade bed – instant tidy room! :)
Sugar cane mulch, you must have the sweetest veggies. Cannot get sugar cane mulch where I am.
That’s a shame, Norma. What do you use for mulch in your part of the world?
Your garden is doing well. I’ve used sugar cane mulch before but it can be quite breezy where we are and I find the pea straw mats better and is more “stable”. Also lots of nitrogen in pea straw I think. Last lot of pea straw – no peas – go figure! But have had the pea seed issues in the past.
Dave, I agree with you – the pea straw makes a wonderful weed mat once it “sets”. Good for the soil too. I’d go back to it if you could figure out a way to keep the damn birds from scratching up all the seedlings! :)
I have also recently developed a love for sugar cane mulch – and seem to have followed the same path as you!
That’s great, nice to know it works for lots of other gardeners too!
I lol’d over the pea straw. I paid a landscape guy to do a house for us years ago and it was beautiful. Until the peas started coming up. What a pain in the neck. Every morning I’d have to pull up the peas and it went on for weeks. I learned my lesson. :) I’ve never tried cane mulch but I see it everywhere up here.
Your garden sounds magical!
Maureen, we were excited the first time, thinking we’d get edible pods! But we just ended up with those hard blue peas they use for stock feed! :)
I love sugar cane mulch, I use it all the time. And I make my own pea straw recycling the peas that are spent into mulch. You are right idt does sprout a bit but that’s easy fixed by pulling them out or by letting them brow as a nitrogen fixer… and it does look pretty!
Louise, I’d love to use it as I know how good it is for the soil. But it just doesn’t seem to do the trick here…
Worms love the sugar cane mulch too, once it gets a bit damp underneath. I kept forgetting the chook weed part of the circular bed and so found the beds too big to manage and have converted each round bed into 2 smaller rectangles.
Jo, in our last two beds, we planted potatoes in the back of the beds rather than chook feed. I hope the girls are ok with that.. :)
I think your chooks know that they’re in chooky heaven and would be happy with anything you did. here’s a link to some photos of my garden if you are interested. We recently hosted a local garden group here and one of the visitors took some photos. Scroll down to Brent’s comment and click the link to his photos. http://www.loganfoodgardeners.org/forum/topics/august-2012-garden-visit-to-jo-smith-s-place
I WISH I was a good gardener like you!!
Thanks Dakota.. not good gardeners, just following a really good plan!
Your garden looks great Celia! Mulching does make a huge difference, doesn’t it? I’ve never heard of sugar cane mulch though. I learn something new every time I’m on your site. Thanks :)
Emilie, I didn’t realise the sugar cane mulch was so region specific! And yes, mulching just makes things so much prettier! :)
I’ve always been a fan of sugar cane as a mulch and like the fact that it is a waste product. I’ve just used 5 of the huge agricultural round bales of spoilt lucerne around our garden, a litlle more cost effective on a big scale! Did you ever find Linda’s blog? It is witches kitchen…
Alison, thank you, I’m a big fan of Linda’s blog! :)
We do the same!
Cool! :)
i love that overtime the mulch rots down a bit, starts to change colour from goldilocks yellow to soft weathered grey. that’s when i get bags of mushroom compost, dig everything over, and put some fresh mulch down (i too have discovered the benefits of sugar cane over pea). however, it doesn’t keep the birds away in my garden! i must admit though, even if i’m cursing and shouting “go away, blackbirds!” i do love watching them and knowing that i’m helping feed their tummies.
That’s interesting Elizabeth – since we switched from the pea straw, the birds have been largely leaving the seedlings alone! Maybe yours are smarter than ours.. :)
I love your mulch Celia! I agree on all your points…it does make the garden look better, the plants seem more visible and easier to admire!
Jane, Pete also pointed out that weeding is easier, because the weeds seem to grow in the mulch and can kind of be pushed over…
That is wonderful to learn that the birds leave it alone. I use pea straw and the birds make one hell of a mess. You have convinced me to switch.
Jas, make sure you buy organic sugar cane mulch. Apparently there can be problems with the non-organic stuff, especially on tomatoes (not that we’re intentionally planting tomatoes). So far it’s been fine on our beds! Re the birds – we had a little bit of pea straw leftover and used it to mulch the asparagus bed, which is tiny and off to one side of the garden. The birds found it, and left the rest of the sugar cane mulched beds alone!
The first time we used the cane mulch, we watched the birds swoop down, walk over the bed looking for pea seed, and then fly off again. They’ve now learnt there’s nothing there to eat! :)
Ooh that looks great! Straw mulch doesn’t work particularly well for us, and I’ve heard similar from other English gardeners, because of the slugs, who just love it, maybe it’s something to do with the climate here and the lack of chickens, I keep telling the frogs – eat more slugs :)
Mulch is good! I usually go for pea straw. One notable year we went to a local street that was full of autumn leaves and, much to the resident’s amusement, raked and transported them all home. The leaves, not the residents.
Well now I know for next time! I had a “garden” if you can call it that at our previous home. It ended up being muddy and certainly not pretty! There are so many other projects that we have going on in our new (fixer upper) home and right now I don’t have time to do a garden. I will remember this idea for when I am able to start my garden. Thank you!
It’s great to see how your garden and gardening has come on. Mulch is a fantastic way to garden for the reasons you’ve stated. We’ve traditionally used grass clippings, but have given that up now as we’ve been getting such wet summers, the mulch just gives the zillions of slugs somewhere else to breed and not be seen.
[…] if it was worth trying sugar cane mulch and found a few stories of similar bird woe, including this blogger in Sydney who had the same bird-loving pea-straw problem and had success with using sugar cane mulch! Sounded […]