If you’re maintaining an eco-friendly garden, sometimes the best option is to recycle what your garden has already produced.
- Lawn clippings: after you’ve mowed the lawn, make use of the clippings by applying thin layers under shrubs and hedges and to open surfaces of the vegetable garden;
- Dead leaves: shred fallen leaves to spread as an effective mulch around the trunks of fruit trees and shrubs;
- Pine needles: “pine straw” acts as an effective carpet-like ground cover for areas between trees and in flowerbeds around rhododendrons and azaleas;
- Straw bales: put these leftover Halloween decorations to good use by covering vegetable garden pathways with straw in the spring and spreading straw between vegetable plants.
Note: although recycled mulch is effective in most of the vegetable garden, do not spread it around onion, garlic, and leek plants.
