That white webbing spreading through your mulch every July isn’t mold at all—it’s mycelium, the underground growth of beneficial fungi quietly rebuilding your soil. By scraping it away, you’re undoing months of free work that helps plants access nutrients and water they couldn’t reach alone.
A backyard gardener discovered that spreading mulch around tomato plants eliminated fruit splitting after storms. The secret isn’t luck—it’s about stabilizing soil moisture between rainfall. Here’s why this simple fix works and how to do it right.
Fresh grass clippings piled around seedlings generate extreme heat—up to 140°F—that damages roots and stems within 24 to 72 hours. What looks like tidy mulch is actually a composting pile that’s cooking your plants from the ground up. Here’s the science and how to fix it.