Whoflungdung, what it is and when to use it
Whoflungdung, what it is and when to use it
Whoflungdung is Neutrog's composted mulch, and the thing that separates it from a bag of bark chips is that it's fine and it's already broken down a long way, so it feeds the soil while it's sitting there rather than just covering it. That's the selling point and it's also the trade-off, because a mulch that breaks down faster is a mulch you top up more often.
Water the bed before you mulch it
This is the one that undoes people and it costs nothing to get right. Mulch slows water moving in exactly as well as it slows water moving out, so laying it over a dry bed seals the dryness in, and then you water all summer wondering why nothing is getting through. Give the bed a long deep soak first, until the water is down where the roots actually are, and put the mulch on top of wet soil.
Same thing applies afterwards. Water for longer and less often, because a short water just wets the mulch.
How deep, and where not to put it
- Roughly 50mm to 75mm for a fine mulch like this one. Thinner than that and weed seed still gets enough light to germinate.
- Don't go much deeper on a fine mulch, because it packs down and starts shedding water off the top instead of letting it through.
- Keep it pulled back a hand's width from stems and trunks. Mulch heaped against a trunk holds moisture on the bark and rots the collar, and a lot of dead young trees died of that rather than of drought.
- Keep it off the crown of anything with a crown, so strawberries and the like.
What mulch does and does not do about weeds
Mulch stops what's underneath it, so seed already in the soil that needs light won't come up through a decent layer. What it can't do is stop seed that blows in and lands on top, and a fine composted mulch is a beautiful seed bed for anything that arrives that way. Those ones pull out with two fingers because there's nothing holding them, so it's a completely different job from digging a weed out of hard ground.
If a fine mulch has been down a while and water starts running off it, run a rake through it to break the surface up. They cap over.
When a different mulch suits better
A vegetable patch you're turning over every few months does well on something loose like pea straw or sugar cane, because you dig it straight in at the end of the crop. Whoflungdung earns its place around shrubs, trees, hedges and the beds you aren't disturbing, where you want it feeding as it goes. Under a hose or a dripper it works either way.
Shop related products
- Neutrog Whoflungdung Mulch 20kg. The fine composted mulch this post is about.
- Martins Organic Sugar Cane Bale 11kg. Loose and light, and easy to dig in at the end of a crop.
- Easy Wetta Garden Mulch 50L. Treated so it takes water back up instead of shedding it.
- Seamungus 500g. Feed underneath before the mulch goes over the top.
Did you know we also stock pea straw by the bag and by the bale in the shop. It's not all on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.
The rest of the Neutrog range is in our garden centre, along with the wider garden range. A few 20kg bags is a solid load, so we deliver Tuesdays and Thursdays on anything bought from us, $5 around Strathalbyn and $10 on the regional run. Local delivery.
Read next
- How mulch keeps your soil cool and cuts your summer watering
- How to keep weeds down without wrecking your soil
- Soil amendments, and which one your garden actually needs
It is called Whoflungdung and it smells like it, and I still buy it, which tells you how well it works.
Candeece
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