Recycling Sugar Cane into Mulch

I've run out of cardboard to use as a mulch/weed barrier so I looked around the driveway and garage and found some other materials to use.  One is the dried, straw-like tops of the sugar cane I cut down about a month ago.  I stripped the dried leaves off the cane and then crunched them up and laid it around the strawberries and the chives as you see in the photo.  If I had that chipper/shredder I've been lusting after I could have shredded down into a nice fluffy mulch, but this will do for the time being.

I am using the thick part of the cut sugar cane to make frames for some of the small seedlings I planted on the parkway so hopefully people won't step on them.  I also plan to make them into stakes and maybe even tomato cages.  This way I will have reused the entire cut sugar cane.

The other thing I am trying out as a weed barrier is the thick rolled paper which is normally used to protect the floor inside the house when painting or doing other work.  I put it around the kumquat bush (at left in the photo) and the little bay leaf tree (at right) and the two tiny long bean seedlings (far right).

At the local park the landscape guy there gave me free wood chips - an entire pickup truck full.  I used some of it around the vegetable seedlings I planted in the front but I see lots of those rolly-polly bugs in there and it looks like they are aiming at eating the seedlings.  Next time I will use only store-bought wood chips around the vegetable plants and use the free stuff from the park around the non-edible landscaping.


Ah well, you can see the sugar cane straw better here.  I just couldn't resist using the photo with the dogs in it at top...