Beginner Gardening: Is mulch necessary? And a fertilizer question., 5 by eweed

eweed wrote:
Don't over do the fertilizer as tomato's don't require much after they are off and running. You are ok to use that on all your garden just remember a little every two weeks is way better than a lot once. Safest is a band of fertilizer for row crops to use once their roots grow down into it. worked into the soil

Mulch will hold down the weeds some and help the soil from drying out. Additionally it stops the soil from being splashed up on things. I don't mulch much anymore I am old and lazy.

Grass clippings are effective but only use your own unless you know for sure they are free of weed killer. Don't pile them on to thick around your plants though as it can burn them. no saw dust either as it will deplete the nitrogen from your soil after it is tilled in . Oat straw is great but expensive. You have a lot of choices.

Oat straw mulching garlic and shallots 2nd to the left. The theory was to afford the plants some protection as they grew over the winter. It worked great for the garlic but was dead wrong for the shallots. Now I know shallots are not strong enough growers to come up through it so they just rot.