Mulch can be almost anything that retards loss of moisture, but organic mulches which add nutrients to the soil are considered the most helpful. These include chopped bark, buckwheat hulls, cocoa shells, coffee grounds, corncobs, cottonseed hulls, cranberry vines, evergreen boughs, grass clippings, hay, hops, leaves (particularly oak leaves which repel slugs, cutworms, and grubs of June bugs) manure, peanut hulls, peat moss, pine needles (great to increase stem strength and flavour of strawberries) poultry litter, salt hay, sawdust, seaweed, stinging nettle, straw, sugar cane residue, tobacco stems and wood chips and shavings.