Fruit trees, on the whole, do best with a living mulch, which is simply a covering of plants as in the photo above (yes that includes grass and weeds!) A living mulch is not only super fertile, but its loads easier for you too – read more about it here.
There’s a time and place though for good old woody mulch. (Don’t be using grass clippings or pea straw or manure for fruit trees please, trees aren’t at all like vegies, they need wood!)
Use it for:
- Newly planted and young fruit trees to help them boost away strongly until living mulch establishes.
- Low growing fruiting plants like shrubs, berries and dwarf citrus – they don’t always suit a living mulch especially in high rainfall places or where groundcover plants grow strongly and swamp them. An annual woody mulch helps keep air flowing around and through, and overall health high.
- Places with poor soil and sparse groundcover – mulch helps cover the ground and bring vitality.
The best woody mulch
The ultimate mulch, the one that excites the beneficial fungi ergo benefits the soil and trees the most, is a woodchip made from the small branches and twigs around the outside of the tree. This is called ramial chip and it’s full of carbs and nutrients and enzymes – all the goodies that the tree sends out to the new growth, buds and leaves.
Chip made from trunks and large branches aren’t as nutritious but even so they add carbon and organic matter. Improve them by letting them break down first before using. Get a load in ahead of time and let it sit on the earth and grow fungal threads.
DIY mulch
- Roughly chop prunings of small branches – these are un-chipped ramial chips, awesome! Use fresh or stack them up to breakdown.
- Scrape up the rustic collection of chips from under the wood pile/ wood shed.
- Leaves are also awesome, natures way after all!
- A chipper is a very fertile investment that means you can create your own ramial chip. Get a grunty one that can easily handle branches without jamming up. A very groovy thing to share in a community.
Bits and pieces are all good, use what you’ve got or can scurry up. No need for one type – nature appreciates a mixture.
How to mulch
Mulch can be applied two ways, as a weed suppressing mat, or as a health promoting sprinkle.
Mulch to suppress weeds: Do this if you need to subdue strong grass/ weed growth around young or poorly trees. Slash the grass back in about a 1sqm area around the tree, then lay wet cardboard or newspaper on top and cover with woodchip. Leave an air gap around the trunk.
Mulch to boost health: When weed suppression isn’t required but you feel that your orchard could do with a little pick me up scatter ramial chip hither and yon – on top on the groundcover plants (living mulch) beneath, around and between fruit trees. As if you were ye olde peasant sowing seed. These little nuggets will entice microbes, adding a bit more life.
Do established trees need mulch?
Whether established trees need mulch or not comes down to your own observations of soil and tree health. There’s no need to apply mulch if:
- trees grew lots of new wood during last growing season (spring thru autumn) – that shows you they are thriving and have all they need.
- your soil is fertile and awesome (lucky you!).
- trees have an established living mulch and are growing strongly (like the peach above).
Hi Kath,
Thanks for the mulch info.
I’ve been growing thyme around my lime tree but have bene thinking of removing it as it makes it hard to know if the tree wants water.
Would a woody much around citrus trees temporarily deplete nitrogen while it’s breaking down?
Johnny
Christchurch
Not if it’s Ramial chip Johnny.
I agree to having an empty mulched space beneath citrus, especially if you want to be adding compost each spring.
K
I have read (over on the yates website) that any leaf litter remaining under the tree should be tidied up and burned. (because of risk of pests and diseases). Apart from seeming to contradict nature it also seems to contradict your suggestion of chopping up the prunings and leaving them there as a mulch. Any comment of the risks with using leaves and prunings from the tree itself?
Heyo Rob, You are on the money, and no disrespect to Yates but they are gardening in the dark ages, advice from a time before the current understanding of the complex and brilliant soil food web (ref Elaine Inghams work, John Kempf and many other scientists).
So humancentric this idea that humans are required to tidy up after trees to keep them healthy – hilarious huh! From that view point forests wouldn’t survive!
Here’s some facts:
Leaves and prunings are mineral/ enzyme/ hormone/ nutrient/ biologically rich.
The more diverse biology happening on and beneath and around our trees the healthier they are.
Little bits of disease introduced into an already thriving biogically active garden stretch the biology further, calling in the right movers and shakers to outcompete the disease – making the whole system stronger and more able to cope with disease – a most virtuous cycle to buy into.
If you remain ‘afraid’ of disease and keep everything separate/ raked up/ tidied up, the whole system/ orchard/ garden is weaker because only a very narrow range of biology remains.
A very exciting time in gardening right now! Yates could do with catching up though then they wouldn’t have a market for all their products which are required where biology is low and trees are therefore under resourced and all the poorer for it.
great question!
K x
Hi Kath
Thx so much for your advices. After reading your newsletter these past years I have found that all the big garden chains appear (but I’m no expert) to give out dated gardening tips generally to support products (including chemicals) they sell. So I’ve learnt not to trust everything they say. Thx again
Nice one Kevin, always good to question the claims,
K x
Thanks for this Kath! We’ve started using woody mulch on our citrus and starting to see the benefits already with glossy leaves and more flowers. Any hints on our Waikanae Beach orchard on a slope, it’s currently kikuyu which is great for keeping the slope intact and green, but not so great for the Apple, peach and feijoa roots?
We intermittently weed the kikuyu around the base and have tried some mulching but honestly it’s so nuts, it seems to grow through the mulch so quickly. Shall we try several layers of cardboard then mulch? Or mulch, cardboard, then more mulch?
We can borrow a neighbour’s mulcher and have access to heaps of prunings from our native tree hedging,but just want to make sure our effort is worth it, gardening on a slope is intensive work lol
Thanks!
Hey Anna – so wonderful to watch a tree flourish!
Don’t weed the kikuyu out, it will just keep coming back. To build your soil and move it on (it will always be there but eventually less dominant) use a combo of slashing it back (chop and drop) and smothering and mulching – all my strategies are here https://www.ediblebackyard.co.nz/smart-weeding-no-spraying-required/
enjoy, K
Thanks, as always, for your wonderful advice and inspiration Kath!
What are your thoughts on chipped bamboo (starting to rot down) as a woody mulch under fruit trees? We have an enormous supply from our kind neighbours, but it doesn’t seem quite as nutritious.
Best regards, Amber
Thanks, as always, for your wonderful advice and inspiration Kath!
What are your thoughts on chipped bamboo (starting to rot down) as a woody mulch under fruit trees? We have an enormous supply from our kind neighbours, but it doesn’t seem quite as nutritious.
Best regards, Amber
Hi Amber I have never used bamboo so cannot help but see no reason as to why it wouldn’t be good. I presume the same pattern will apply in that the thicker older stuff be more carbon and the young thinner leafier stuff more ramial style – if it is mainly fibrous older wood can you mix in some other chip? Otherwise just use it and see what happens!
Kath you are amazing …such common sense .
I’m growing on a sand dune I seem to be needing to put mulch on regularly to grow depth of soil so I mainly use seaweed and woody mulch but I have been using grass clipping around citrus for nitrogen needs ..is that unnecessary??
Ah yes sand! Nothing gobbles goodness like sand – seaweed and woody mulch is a perfect combo and in your scenario some grass mixed into that for citrus sounds like a brilliant solution, nice one! Ho are your citrus looking? Your trees show you if what you are doing is working,
Hi kath
I have planted Comfrey around our fruit trees. In my enthusiasm I planted several comfrey plants around the trees, and because we are on very fertile soil the thrive very well. We chop and drop when they get too big around the trees. What are your thoughts on this? I wrap the larges leaves around as many apples as I can to discourage the birds eating them.
That is perfect Heather! Chop and drop is the best way to manage comfrey and promotes fertility too, not that you need it by sounds of things. Cool idea to wrap the apples!
K x
Hi Kath, thanks so much for your advice on fruit tree mulching. Will get on to it once it stops raining!
Hi Kath, what are your thoughts on the creeping comfrey as a living mulch. Would you just leave it doing its thing or cut it back periodically? If I wanted to use wood mulch as well would I just throw it on top of the comfery? My apple trees are not doing that well and are prone to mildew, they have thick beds of creeping comfrey under them.
Hi Fran, do you mean dwarf comfrey? yes! chop it back – first cut in spring and a few more through the season. Yes chuck woody mulch on top. Though if you trees are poorly this wont be a miracle cure in and of itself – get to the heart of why. Are your trees in good light and airflow?
Hi, Over the last 3 years I have been converting my backyard in Melbourne to a food forest. Last year my husband and I built 10 raised garden beds that are 2 metres long and about 46cm wide; with the possibility of two more. I hugelkultured them. Because we have blackbirds that love to dig OUT EVERYTHING, I have to place chicken wire over them and let the vegies and herbs grow through, but this is difficult when I need to fill up my ollas. But, I was reading your articles and you mentioned about using living mulches.
1. How would I do that in my rather small garden beds? I cannot use too many big plants as the ollas take up room and I want to grow as much stuff that we can eat, because of the costs of living. I have purchased some pink and red crimson clover seeds to try, as mentioned in your article. Do you have any other recommendations? As I am hoping to get rid of the wire and use living mulch to fill the rest of the beds in between where the veg will be growing; blackbirds don’t dig where there are plants.
2. If I can use living mulches, how does this work as I want to direct sow all my vegies and do away with pre-growing seedlings? Thank you. Regards, Mary
Epic question Mary – thats going to require a few pages of answer and as such is perfectly suited to a garden coach session.
Otherwise I suggest trialling an area following my instructions and learning that way
best
Kath
Hi Cath,
Any tips or insights on an ongoing Cherry /pear slug infestation (it started on our brand new cherry trees but has spread to plum, pear and apricot trees now 🙁 The trees are only 2-3 years old and doing very poorly. We live in rocky/well drained, fertile Te Horo soil and they get CPP, and organic seaweed fertilizer. There’s lots of leafy mulch, and comfry growing around them, lots of sun, maybe a tab bit of extra wind as the shelter belt matures.
Nice observations regards the poor vigour – thats at the heart of it and your primary concern right about now. Many things may be the reason from variety/ rootstock choice to stresses like drought et all.
Plan to spread compost and much late winter/ spring. Seaweed fert is grand but an instant, short term fix – continue along with it. Get into some woody mulch if you can. Focus on the vigour.
Use neem, as in naturally neem (see my useful stuff page) because its the best – at the first sign and in a regular way.
best
Kath
Hi, we have had cherry tree slug problem over the last couple of years, where they defoliated our plums, cherry and quince. We tried lots of methods but the ones that helped the most was to pull off the leaves that we found any slugs on, as we learnt they contain multiple egg hatchings on them, we used DE around the soil below. But the greatest longterm solution we have found, has been one of Kaths recommendations in an artcle saying, every time you add a plant to your garden you are attracting another beneficial insect and over time you will create a biodiverse ecosystem that will keep the balance. So, we have been adding lots of plants each year and now we are 3 years along this path and we now have something in our garden (I think it is some type of parasidic wasp) that is killing the cherry tree slugs in huge amounts. We find the slugs dead and stuck to the leaf like someone has run over them with a steamroller. We no longer have to use DE or pick off leaves, but we do keep a look out for tree health and cherry tree slug populations.
Brilliant Mary!
Thanks for sharing
K x
I hope you don’t mind perspective, but I had this issue on multiple years almost decimating my young apple tree. I found that using talc powder was recommended; I sprinkled this all over the tree leaves and within a week – no more slugs, and the tree reflourished!
I think you can’t get actual talc now, and I can’t recall if I tried with what is sold now which I think is usually cornstarch, but I figure it’s worth a shot, because I tried the hand-picking as well and I just couldn’t keep up!
All perspectives welcome Astra! Flour does the same job and woodash too – by dehydrating the slugs.
The trees flourish because of the absence of slugs – works for sure! Though the flour isnt so great (tough better than talc 🙂 ) A primo tool to use occasionally when populations get over burdensome all the while establishing a diverse groundcover that in turn brings ever more predatory insects until the slugs have enough natural predators that the flour is no longer required.
Thanks Astra
K x