A Self-Sustaining Garden NEEDS Mulch

Covering your beds and bare soil with organic matter, once per year is almost essential if you want to avoid days of weeding and dry soil during drought. What's more, as it decomposes it will improve your soil health and the abundance of your plants and crops! Organising free mulch is  very achievable as long as you go about it in the right way.

Any Organic Matter is Great

You often hear people worry that woodchip removes the nitrogen from soil as it decomposes. This is true, but given that we won't dig it in, we'll just leave it on the surface, it gets the necessary nitrogen from the air instead (so don't worry about it!).

Coniferous (from pines / spruces etc.) woodchip can make soil more acidic.

If you're using the woodchip for paths, get clean hardwood chip in winter. This means there will be no leaves and your paths will last longer!

POST A WANTED AD

Join a Facebook Group 'Wiltshire Tree Surgeons' or wherever you are. They are generally very active. Then make a post with a picture of your tip site:

Tip site on Your-street

I am after (number) loads of chip for the garden. We have a convenient tip site with a tarp down ready, location is shown on the map (either paste a screenshot or share location as a link from Google Maps - right click, share location). I'm happy to offer a few beers or a bottle of wine for each load!

(Optional sentence, winter only for clean chip with no leaves to be used for paths)
This woodchip will be used for paths so I only want clean, hardwood chip.

Please message first to let me know when you will drop it off. 

Thanks,

Mike Gardener

Seaweed - unrivalled nutrient levels!

Seaweed is an excellent mulch choice for coastal gardeners. What sets it apart from other organic mulches is its rich content of micronutrients — elements plants need in tiny but vital amounts. Seaweed contains iodine, magnesium, boron, zinc, copper, manganese, iron, and calcium, all of which support healthy plant growth, disease resistance, and strong root systems. These trace elements are often missing from garden composts or tired soils, so seaweed acts as a natural mineral top-up that helps balance and revitalise your soil over time. As an added bonus, slugs and snails hate it when it dries to a crisp or is fresh and salty!

Make sure you source seaweed after stormy high-tides, so it is dead and above the tideline. Never collect seaweed which is alive and always check local regulations.