I don't like the idea of landscape fabric or sheeting leaving plastic residue on my property

I live in apple country and while I have a good bunch of trees (100-plus) I am a small-timer here in NY apple country. I, too, have wanted to much the trees for weed control and mainly to keep my mower deck away from the trunk and my head and roll bar out of the limbs!

To the man, everyone advised me against introducing any foreign substance (mulch) to the trees, I think mainly because if a guy buys it, no idea what's in it where it came from etc.

I think if I made my own here or got it from a guy grinding stumps or something, it'd be fine. But haven't got the confidence to do it yet!

The Amish us "mulch" hay in their gardens and berries to keep weeds down and I will be doing that with my berries.......

Mulch hay (to them) are old round bales with no feed value that they'd use for bedding etc.

MZ

I have another order of diverse trees in transit from Chief River Nursery. Tonight I was at Hardware Hank. Anyone ever see/use this kind of mulch?:

Yesterday I received a tree order from Chief River Nursery. They had it bundled w/ a bunch of moss in the bag. I used the moss as mulch, which seemed to work good. It occured to me that commercial moss might be a good alternative-- perhaps even better than-- traditional bark mulch (for new trees)

What stores in Ohio carry your red pine shavings/mulch? I'm having trouble finding anything labeled red pine.

Whats the opinion on putting a layer of putting a layer of aged (at least a year and a half) leaf (primarily oak leaves that were collected and piled up) compost as a base layer, then adding wood mulch on top of the leaf mulch around fruit (apple, pear, peach and persimmon) chestnut, and pine trees?

I did put some oak leaves (not many) after planting. I figure it'll help keep the soil from drying out

I haven't had to think about mulching yet this year. The rainfall has been incredible this spring.

Know a couple of people who use it. They really like it. It works its way into the dirt better than other mulches and builds some really nice soil over time.

Plastic and rock under a tree works just fine. I do not recommend fabric. Don't ask me how, but water makes it thru the plastic just fine. I see it all the time where the soil under the plastic is moist but the rest of the yard is dry. Just make sure the plastic is cut back from the tree trunk a little bit. I have seen trees grow around the plastic. This creates a notch in the tree trunk. The most common problem I see with rock under trees is vinyl edging too close to the tree. If you use vinyl edging, it is a good idea to make the ring plenty wide or widen it as the tree grows. The tree roots hit the vinyl edging and begin to circle. If you put a 3' diameter ring around your tree and leave it, you may well end up with a mature tree supported by 3' of roots.

I don't worry too much about nitrogen deficiency with mulch. As has already been pointed out, it is not really an issue unless the mulch is mixed into the soil. In addition, grass sucks up lots of nitrogen. Grass competes heavily with trees for nutrients and is an invitation for string trimmer damage to the tree trunk.

The cocoa bean shells?

I mulch with mushroom soil around my apple and pear trees and it helps with holding water and builds the soil.Ever since I started using this stuff I get a lot more fruit.

Interesting. I don't know as mushroom soil is easy to find though