When plants are healthy from the availability of natural sources of nutrition, they can resist attacks by these organisms more effectively. This will allow you an opportunity to spend less money on insecticides and fungicides, while attracting pesticide sensitive beneficial insects into the garden to clean up the small pest populations. Nature did not intend for your cabbage to be entirely ravaged by imported cabbage worms. The problem is that beneficial insects are normally very sensitive to pesticides, and their populations do not recover as quickly as pest species. So be aware that when you apply pesticides to kill a single insect pest, your not just wiping out the problem.
Chemical runoff is also a big problem for our local waters.
So be kind to the garden while your making our waters cleaner. Organic mulches can be found almost everywhere. Most reliable garden centers handle a variety of good choices. Greenwaste is the recycled yard waste that you put into that special bin every week. There are several good sources for greenwaste mulch around the county.