Grow Your Own Mulch

A key objective for the organic farmer is to create a closed-loop system that recycles all of the nutrients and organic matter back into the property from where it came.

Directed by principles such as ‘Catch and Store Energy’ and ‘Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services’, our permaculture properties should also follow this important objective. Growing your own plants to provide mulch becomes a critical design feature to consider if a closed-loop system is the desired outcome.

The focus of this article is on fruiting orchards and food forest systems; to identify the support plants we can grow to achieve the ‘chop and drop’ technique of mulching. Chop and drop refers to those plants we grow which can be cut periodically with the branches and leaves thrown underneath and around our fruiting species as mulch.