SUMMER MULCH 



caping, and we put a mulch of dust on the surface 

 instead of grass cuttings or compost. 



All our plants are glad of a mulch but I know of 

 none which like it as well as sweet peas ; they need 

 their roots cool and moist all the time. One sum- 

 mer I tried the experiment of seeing which kind of 

 mulch they liked best grass or dust. I covered 

 the ground both sides of a row for six inches with 

 a heavy coating of grass cuttings, the next row 

 was cultivated every day by simply drawing the 

 rake over the ground each side of the plants. The 

 soil where I live is sandy loam and the sweet peas 

 did best with the dust mulch. 



Dahlias, gladioli, beans, peas, everything that 

 grows tall loves a mulch either a covering of some 

 sort or a dust mulch (which of course means fre- 

 quent cultivation). If tomatoes and melons and 

 cucumbers are trained up, they need it, if they lie 

 on the ground they make their own mulch by shad- 

 ing the soil. Nasturtiums, pansies, sweet alyssum, 

 verbenas, eschscholtzias, parsley, all shade the 

 ground very well themselves though they need to be 

 cultivated, too; but they do not need it as much as 

 tall growing plants. 



I have tried the experiment of growing one of 

 the low growing plants beside a tall growing vine 



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