Burlap
I love to walk out into the garden every day wandering around and watching the plant growth. Is it small, large, a sudden burst? How did the weather affect it? what about the techniques I'm trying? I recently experimented with loosely woven burlap to cover a mammoth crimson clover ground cover group. it worked wonderfully! The next step is to determine how much will get eaten by garden pests. I have sprinkled a layer of straw over it as well as slug bait and finally some diatomaceous earth (but with the rain heading my way the last isn't likely to last long.) I've had to re-apply the slug bait once more since the original planting back in March and have added other areas of clover.
Mammoth Crimson Clover as cover crop
These tiny seeds were simply scattered rather randomly over the barely worked earth that had been partially prepped last year (see previous blog re: no till earth prep) You can see that it has taken well. I wet down it down after planting, it rained about 36 hours later and a nice green carpet has emerged. The burlap I have has a tighter weave unsuited once the seeds are up. The Burlap should be pulled up once sprouting has begun to prevent damaging seedlings by either crushing them underneath or pulling them out when it's removed.
Wonderful! Not only will the clover add Nitrogen to the soil but it will be lovely when it blooms. As you can see from the photos below, there have been been big changes since last year and the the clover is coming in well.
Now that the clover is in, I'm re-using the Burlap as a basic mulch and for Basil seedling germination. It worked very well with annual/perennial flower seeds now starting to bloom. Basically, I highly recommend Burlap as a starter for seed!
