Currently, there are around 235 tea plants in the ground. They are looking quite exposed, with all the vegetation cleared away, just little baby tea standing all alone. The intention was to mulch the field, to keep the weeds down and hold in moisture. But how? One suggestion was to just cover all the ground with macnut husks, a popular and easily available mulch here. But, i was a little unsure. Husks might have a fair bit of tannins, which might inhibit the tea a little if used right around them. The other consideration was erosion. A month ago we had some tremendous rainfall, and one of the exposed baby plants was actually washed out. I worry about loose mulch going straight downhill, even with the mild terracing effect of the contour rows.

So, i came up with an idea. White ginger is growing abundantly next to the tea. I used to think of the ginger as a weed, but now i think of it as a nice-smelling, fast-growing resource. I’ll cut and lay the ginger stalks around the tea plants, making a kind of lattice, then apply the mulch on that, with macnut husks down the rows and compost/manure closer to the plants themselves.

Here are some pictures of the beginning. Sorry about the odd color balance, it was late in the day in the shadow:

It looks a little funny – the tea used to stand out, now you can barely see it among all the mulch. But, it seems to work as i expected – the husks and stalks hold each other in place, and it’s still easy to walk down the row.