I hope I'm not hijacking this thread, but I have some related questions.
We have terrible clay soil in our backyard here in southern wisconsin.
Last fall, I prepped the new garden beds with shredded leaves and marsh hay in a lasagna style. There was a lot of intact leaves in the spring, but I used compost and worked it into the leaves/soil and ended up with a fairly decent harvest for our first garden ever. However, our cool wet spring led to a mass of slugs that nearly destroyed my seedlings.
The whole garden was mulched in marsh hay, which kept the weeds at bay, and kept the soil moist, but I think contributed to my slug problem.
My question is, this fall, should I lasagna mulch again with leaves and hay and risk overwintering more slug eggs and pests?
Or should I leave the soil barren to freeze solid, and then use the leaves and/or hay to mulch in the early spring before planting?
I'm so torn! The mulching definitely keep my soil more alive with worms and good things, but I'm worried about allowing pests to overwinter.
