Mulching a futon sounds like a euphemism for disposing of an unwanted hippie’s corpse. Sadly, I mean it quite literally.

Some of my university student habits are hard to kick  - frugality; unabated love for op shops, poor cuts of meat and home brewing -  but this winter convinced me to get off the futon on the floor and buy a real bed which left me with an aging, unsellable futon mat. Now that I have garden space to test out my crazier horticultural theories, it left me with the burning question: can you mulch a futon?

The science says yes.

This research from the University of Minnesota suggested a high degree of success in using wool mulch to suppress garden weeds in both strawberry and apple crops. Wool also retained more moisture than wood mulch. It was, of course, specially designed wool matting but the theory was the same. The wool layer was still permeable to water and nutrients. The down side is that the wool takes at least two years to break down and thus does not provide as much organic matter to the soil as fast as a quickly composting mulch like straw. Closer to the home, Canberran blogger The Duck Herder also reports success in using futon wool to as duck house bedding, much to the chagrin of the wary ducks. There are no further reports on whether the matting became worm food. Across the various permaculture forums, lip service is paid to the fact that you can mulch a futon with very few examples.

Running with the theory that anything organic can be composted, I sliced open the mat.Upon disembowelling, the futon mat consisted of an inorganic foam core surrounded by wool. The wool layer that coated the outside of the futon’s core was already filled with shreds of organic matter – hay, seeds, tiny pieces of dry grass – which I’ve probably now managed to introduce as plants into the garden. I can’t imagine that it they could be worse than the various weeds that are introduced with manure. If you look carefully in the background of the photo, I am already growing a fine crop of stinging nettles under the plums. The opportunity to make nettle tea is there but the will fails me.

So far, the only disadvantage is that the wool is too light to stay in place around the trees and it is pig-ugly. I return home on a windy afternoon and the yard looks like it has been decorated as an unconvincing snow scene (light zephyr) or as a hideous ovine explosion (gale). Heaping on a layer of soil assists negative aerodynamics. I'll report back in two years on the progress.