Bales of straw is the key to my system of providing mulch for my vegetable garden. It's main advantage is that it is a relatively clean material with few weed seeds in it. The down side is that while it is fairly cheap to buy (when compared to Lucerne or hay) it still costs money (some mulches can be gotten for nothing) and it is relatively low in nutrient value. The easiest way to buy straw is from Stock and Station stores. However the cheapest way is to get it directly from a farm, especially if it is rain damaged straw, which is actually an advantage to gardeners as the breaking down process has already begun.


Hay bales have a higher nutrient value then straw, but they usually contain more weed seeds. Hay also costs more then straw, though again if you can buy rain damaged bales they will be much cheaper.


Pea straw is dried pea bushes after the pea crop has been harvested. It is coarser than hay or straw, but is quite useful as a mulching material as peas are a nitrogen fixing plant. It is generally sold in bales and can be bought at garden centres as well as stock and station stores. I usually mix  a couple of pea straw bales with three straw bales to make my mulch.  Once you could get pea straw incredibly cheap but since it's value as a mulching and composting material has been recognized it has become much more expensive.


Stable sweepings is mainly made up of straw used for horses in stables, though it may also contain some scraps of hay and chaff. It has great nutrient value as it generally includes a lot of horse manure, but the best thing about it is it is usually free!

This is because horses generate large quantities of stable sweepings, to the point that it is a pollution problem. So stable staff are usually happy for people to take it off their hands. Ballarat has a number of stables just out of town but even large cities have racecourses and police horse stables that regularly discard stable sweepings. Some gentle enquiries with a smile on your face will usually get results.

The one down side is that stable sweepings are usually full of seeds as horses are messy eaters and tend to spill their grain feed all over the straw. I have also had loads that have been contaminated with a synthetic material that appears to be shredded recycled plastic.  Horses stomachs also do not fully digest the grass and hay that they eat..


Lucerne is sort after by gardeners because of the nitrogen fixing properties  and is regularly mentioned in organic gardening textbooks as prime organic material. There is not doubt it has great nutrient value, however it's main drawback is that it's very expensive. Even during a normal season Lucerne is a prime fodder crop, but during drought periods the price tends to soar. Personally I rarely use it because there are so many other materials around that are almost as good but very much cheaper.

Traditionally lawn clippings are used as a composting material and not applied directly to a garden bed as mulch, but I find it makes quite a good mulch.  The main advantage of it is that it is made in your garden,  all other mulching materials (straw, lucerne etc...) have to be imported from somewhere else.  As most people have at least some lawn that they cut it is also usually  readily available.

The main disadvantage of using lawn clippings is that it can contain weed seeds, so by using it as a mulch you run the risk of introducing new weeds to your vegetable beds.



Sawdust is not normally considered a mulching material as fresh sawdust actually draws nutrients out of the ground as bacteria tries to breakdown the sawdust's tough cellulite structure. But if it is processed correctly it can be used both as a mulch and as part of the material used in seedling potting mix.  See  Using Sawdust As A Mulching Material   on the Processing Mulch webpage for details on how to process it