I’ve never mulched before. My goofy SIL bought me a bunch of cocoa bean mulch for my birthday to give me a break from the constant weeding I have to do here at our Little House in the Big Woods.
So I put the mulch down, and almost immediately I see a gazillion gnats and/or sweat bees swarming around the stuff. If the light is right, I can actually see clouds of the little bastids over the areas where I mulched; yet nothing in the areas that are just my usual dirt and weeds.
What gives? Is this normal? Is it harmful to my plants to have these little dudes converging on the beds? If so, is there something I’m supposed to be doing to protect them?
I’ve used cocoa bean shells a couple years and I never noticed this. I prefer them to shredded bark but last year I had a problem with mold so I haven’t put them down this year. I don’t remember any problems like that when I used them in my landscaping days either.
Anyone know what to do to prevent the mold or did I just get a bad batch?
Hmm, we use CBM and we never get this. What we do get, however, is rats who come to gnaw at the full plastic bags of mulch, trying to get at that yummy chocolate that they smell.
When I used cocoa mulch to keep the neighborhood cats away (only works for about three days in my experience) I was told it would get moldy (mouldy??) if it was in the shade and stayed wet. I found this to be true. Maybe it had already started to go moldy when you put it down and that’s what attracted the bugs?
