Applying Straw Mulch

the seed is now in it's embedded you should have the soil moist and this is your job now to keep it moist not muddy you have to anticipate what mother nature is going to do as well because she may have a torrential downpour and let's talk about how you can protect your seed and preserve that moisture and that's by adding a layer of straw now let me just point a few things out because some people may say well i don't i don't have straw okay and i get that you don't have you don't have straw right you may be tempted to use grass clippings or leaves let me just tell you a little bit about the negatives of those before you go and use them grass clippings are pretty fine and they tend to blow away although they'll help you preserve your moisture for a short while they really don't do the same thing as true true straw now this isn't true straw but it's very similar now how about leaves they're too big leaves just have too large of a surface area which can block the sun underneath it and shade it so that the seed won't germinate properly how about straw let's look at straw straw this is not straw but very close straw stitches the soil together it also allows good sun penetration and you see how it interlocks and inner weaves like this but it has length to it so the individual pieces are fairly long and that's beneficial because then the longer the heavier the material still allowing nice penetration like you can see here the better it is for your soil and this would be about as dense as i would go over any area if you go too dense you're now blocking your seed okay if you go too light the straw doesn't interlock right so you really just want to have this nice screen or mesh and they actually have it in rolls and you can just roll it out and it's got a mesh fabric behind it and you got to staple it down and it takes a couple years for that mesh to go away or you can just do this get a couple bales of hay a couple bales of straw and lay it down and that's our video guys i know we went pretty deep huzzah there you are all right guys that's our video for today hope you enjoyed it it was a real fun