If I could impart a single piece of gardening wisdom, it would be that the words “Plant in full sun” on the label of any vegetable seedling are a bald-faced lie. In most parts of Australia in summer, planting in full sunlight means certain death for most of your vegies, or at best, a few burnt leaves. If you have an interest in vegetable gardening, summer in Australia is a good time to panic.

You’re unprepared and everything is going to die.

At least, that’s what I’ve told myself. Yes, I had plans to install the rainwater tanks and a more formal greywater system than a black ribbed hose that runs from the washing machine to a patch of suspiciously green and lint-coated lawn. I had a vague scheme in mind to grow a wind break to further protect vegetables from the worst of the summer wind. I just never quite got there and now it is too late. As usual, I’ll return from whatever I have planned over Christmas to a patch scorched earth where the plants have all become a uniform shade of crispy beige.

So in the absence of extra water, I’m turning to the classic crutch of the panicked horticulturalist: mulch. Mulching almost anything over the top of your soil decreases water loss and if it’s organic, it has the added bonus of improving the soil while keeping your plants alive.

Mulch is essentially a flat layer of compost that you add to your garden - and the same rules for good compost apply to mulch. For compost, the ideal ratio of carbon to nitrogen is between 25 to 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen. Too much carbon and decomposition will slow down to a halt, too much nitrogen and things begin to smell awry. Washington State University maintains more information than you're ever likely to need on composting.

The microbes that decompose plants into compost use carbon for energy and nitrogen for building cell structure. When the nitrogen runs out in the compost, they will start drawing nitrogen out of the existing soil. I’d like to say that I’m attentive enough to weigh out materials for mulching and constructing the ideal ratios but I’m not. I have a rough guess. I spread a little of something rich in nitrogen (chicken manure, dynamic lifter) and cover it with plenty of pea straw.

I'm a fan of pea straw, if only because it looks relatively attractive, has a sweet odor, feels excellent underfoot and hides the remnants of the futon that I'm attempting to also use as mulch in its entirety. For those of you keeping score, four months in, and the futon insides look relatively unchanged. Futon innards has also proved to be a poor weed suppressant.