How to Find Free Garden Mulches

Mulch is one of the biggest timesavers in the garden. Spreading mulch over bare soil helps prevent weeds, keeps soil moist longer and makes your yard look neat and tidy. Mulch can even prevent soil borne disease from infecting plants and adds nutrients back to the soil as it decomposes. But you don't need to shell out cash for a load of beauty bark to reap all these benefits-all sorts of mulches are available for free-if you're willing to do a little legwork to get them.

A single bag of wood chips or bark runs $5 or more, but this popular mulch is easy to get for free. Rather than pay to dispose of trees they've cut down, arborists typically run the trees through a chipper/shredder and give the chips away. They will bring you as many chips as you want and even deliver them for no charge. Look online or in the yellow pages for a list of local arborists and give them a call to schedule a wood chip delivery.

Coffee shops generate a huge surplus of spent coffee grounds. Many shops-including Starbucks-bag up the grounds and give them away. Don't worry about the grounds raising the acidity of your soil-spent grounds have an almost neutral pH. I like to spread the grounds around the base of my tomato plants because they have a nice texture, add nitrogen and blend into the soil.

Coffee shops are also a great source for free burlap bags. Bulk coffee comes in the bags, which can be used to cover vegetable beds in the winter. Burlap also makes a great weed barrier cloth underneath wood chips.

Grass clippings are my favorite mulch for vegetable gardens. I spread a 3-inch deep layer over my beds after planting seedlings. The clippings form a nice mat over the soil, break down quickly and look great. Just be sure to spread the high nitrogen clippings soon after mowing because they begin to decompose-and turn smelly quickly-if left in a bag. If you need more clippings than your lawn produces, call up a local lawn mowing service and see if they will drop clippings by from time to time.

Shredded leaves make a great mulch under the trees they fall from and in ornamental beds. Shred the leaves by running over them a few times with your lawn mower. Then, spread a 2- to 4-inch layer of the leaves around plants.

Pine trees shed lots of needles, which look great when used as a mulch in ornamental beds. Simply spread the needles between plants and tamp them down with the back of a spade.

Many municipalities sell mulches, especially wood chips and compost, for a very good price. Call your local parks or Natural Resources Department to find out if this is a benefit in your area.