Water and mulch!

[smallfrog]

You may have noticed there been no rain forever and things at my lottie are needing a drink. My water butts are empty at home and up there. So i'm having to cart water up there in big plastic bottles :O(

I'm thinking of taking action (on the cheap) strawberries are mulched with straw. I saw on the ediable garden thing Alys earth up her spuds with grass clippings. Would this help retain the mositure as well as in the long term improve my soil?

Soil at the mo is dusty loose with not alot of oraganic going through it. Hope to add more over the winter again but for now any water saving, mulching tricks to save me lugging the plastic bottles about.

Have dug a bean trench for runner beans ages ago and thought of doing something similar for squashes have a fair bit of part composted weeds, clippings from last year and can get manure and shredded paper.

Any thoughts??

[taff]

I use cut grass on my beds, haven't noticed it did much for the texture, but it did it's job as a mulch. I didn't have any problems with slugs last year for some reason [I know!! How lucky?] so can't tell whether you will or not.

[Two_Sheds]

Grass clippings are a great mulch, just make sure you water well before applying and they aren't full of seed heads.

They will improve the soil, as will anything organic that's allowed to rot down and be dug in by the worms.

A mulch can hide slugs, as can wooden bed edging. I keep a couple of slug hotels dotted around the plot: just a piece of wood, an upturned grapefruit half or something that they will congregate under during the daytime. You can then scoop them all up and despatch