Mulching indoors

[Malkosashi88]

Hello, guys and gals here in this wonderful forum. Hope everyone enjoys a peaceful year and may the luck and good health be on your side ❤️🙏 I have a question regarfless mulching indoor crops. Im planning to try it out this new crop im starting and i was wondering what kind of mulch should i use to avoid issues. I have on hand a regular wooden chap and bark, that i am not sure from what tree exactly is. It smells like pine so i believe its from trees of that kind. I read somewhere that it has to be composted first, to avoid contamination with pathogens, is this true ? Mine look kinda dirty 😀I will draw some pictures for better perspective abit later. Thanks in advance everyone ❤️🙏

[Malkosashi88]

pics of the mulch

[SoOrbudgal]

I personally would not use wood chips. I just don't use them in my weed pots, only in my outdoor flower gardens. I've seen rice hulls used indoors but i would only use something that was sterilized sorry i hate seeing plants sufficate from contaminated soil mixes. I have used plain straw animal bedding for outdoor top mulch in pots for moisture control.

[3Berries]

I get green wood chips from the power company and they have about every form of fungi you can imagine in them as they cook for a while. And it is not nute friendly until after the fungi.

I think straw is best for outside, you can get washed pre chopped bales at ag stores.

Indoors how about ping pong balls?

[Blowdout2269]

They're probably shredded from pressure treated board. If so, they contain nasty chemicals.

[Malkosashi88]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, guys. I guess ill skip mulching this time around, since i dont want to risk contamination and im abit frugal atm, so no further unnecessary investments are foreseeable. Ive seen people using small clay balls as mulch, is this a viable option for future crops ? Has anyone used ping-pong balls, really ? 😀

[3Berries]

I was out raking today and the green moss was coming up in big patches with all the freeze thawing going on.

[Franklin]

Many things including ping pong balls could work as mulch if all you're trying to do is protect the soil from your lights and keep it from drying out as quickly. But I would go with something that can break down into the soil, I use rice hulls. Pro tip on the rice hulls, buy them at a homebrew store where they are 75% cheaper than at a grow store or Amazon, they're the exact same thing but at the homebrew store only like a dollar a pound or something.