I miss my pickup truck. When fall came around I used to be able to load six bales of hay into the back of the truck and use it as mulch. We have low temperatures of -15 or so every winter, and possibly lower, so protection of surface roots is a must. A layer of mulch can also mitigate the extreme differences in temperature of a Maine spring – minus 10 degrees in the morning to 40 by 2 in the afternoon. Today I decided to use materials at hand, and mulched several perennial beds and fruit trees with bark strips from our firewood. I’ll post more pictures tomorrow.

So far, it seems like a pretty good idea.