What to do… let’s chop & drop!

Herbs accumulate a lot of micro-nutrients in their leaves, especially the perennial ones with deep roots, they’re pretty sneaky and can get hidden nutrients out of even the worst soil. So if you can’t eat them all it makes sense to chop up the leaves and mulch with them, as they decompose they’ll make those nutrients accessible to your annuals. A lot of these are also great compost activators and some plants like legumes actually accumulate nitrogen from the air! I use trimmings of the River Wattle bushes we have in our food forest as it is nice and fine. Always finely chop your herb mulches so they breakdown easily and in the case of nasturtiums don’t start spouting! You can even use leafy kitchen scraps, but don’t let your chooks/worms go hungry! Add crushed eggshells for additional calcium.

Just like us plants need a balanced diet to be disease resistant and healthy. In nature leaves fall to the ground adding nutrients back to the soil, some are eaten by animals and insects, but they too add to the soil in the form of manure. How can we expect the soil to remain healthy when all we do is take and take? A diet of sugarcane mulch alone is just not enough! To avoid problems of malnutrition, spread your herb mulch throughout the garden to evenly distributing a broad specturm of nutrients.

So why waste time and money buying fertilisers and chemical additives?! You just need to follow nature’s example, chop & drop the leaves where you found them! It’s not lazy if it’s smart! Ha!

NOTE: Some herbs have negative allelopathic effects on other plants so should not be used as a mulch. These “anti-companions” release biochemicals that stunt growth, cause plants to bolt or just outright kill them dead. Why would they be so cruel? Perhaps as a defense mechanism to ward off herbivorous animals and insects, but is that really an excuse?

micro-nutrients found in some common herbs

If you know of anymore please share with us, let’s add to the list!