[tomato] mulch around tomatoes?

Ian & Laurie Stoba (stoba@earthlink.net)
Sun, 13 Apr 1997 20:28:39 -0800

Hi All,

Glad to see a little bit of activity on the list!

We were over in our community garden today, and we put a strange mulch
around our plants. It's shredded redwood bark (in this locale, it's local
and reasonably sustainable, believe it or not) and is very fluffy and forms
a sort of matting. Has anyone tried anything like this around tomatoes
before? The seedlings I've got in so far are Azoychka, Stupice, Black
Krim, Palestinian, San Francisco Fog (in a shady spot) Great White and
Orange Queen. I pulled the mulch away so that it's not directly touching
the tomatoes, but the basic idea is to keep down some of the prolific weeds
and conserve moisture since we're only able to get out there once a week or
so, and don't have direct control over the automatic watering. The garden
site ends up getting pretty hot sun through a good part of the summer, but
also has a fair amount of morning fog for another month or two anyway. Any
suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,

Laurie
San Francisco (gardening in Marin, zone 10ish)