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I told you I was cheap

I'm not really sure why mulching is beneficial now. Yes the ground is warm but it is also very dry - well it is here.

Wouldn't a thick mulch now prevent the rain from getting to the soil? And then the frosts when they come.

I suppose it depends on when and where you want to mulch. Is it to go around established plants to keep them going longer? If yes is it beneficial to keep the soil warm when the plant isn't?

So there's your discussion

A mulch would keep the ground drier (dry soil is warm soil), but it is easier IMO to make soil wet than to make it dry

Keeping out the frost to kill pests is a problem, but providing a shelter for pests is an inherant problem with mulching. I supose it protects the predators as well

Another advantage to mulching at this time of year is the abundance of materiel

We are discusstin'

I would never mulch bone dry soil. If the soil I am planning to mulch is dry, then I make sure I wet it really well, usually the day before, then give it another soaking before the mulch, once you have lost the capillary action of the soil, it is very difficult to re-establish it. The other day I was planning what to plant in the vacated spud beds, luckily it rained hard and the next day I was out with the newspaper and the piggies bedding (straw) and mulched, then put in my big brassica transplants. I won't have to weed that now, I do the same with onions and leeks, I think about May this year I pulled up one or two weeds from the leek bed, mainly dock but even they are desisting now. Under the mulches, you will find a wealth of beneficial beetles, they appreciate the moist, dark undisturbed places and happily they like the same habitat as slugs which they enjoy eating. My garlic bed will be mulched thickly and at the end of October, I can just dib straight into a nice deep weed free bed. Mulching is a bit like horizontal composting, eventually everything will rot down and benefit the soil. I can't say that mulching has been a problem with absorbing rain, it all seems to go through. A really hard frost can penetrate mulch, but I haven't noticed a proliferation of any particular soil pests and as the soil is mulched, it is always soft and friable, I don't ever dig ground so never have big clods that the frost can break down. I have gardened like this for 20 odd years and it would feel odd to me using bare soil.

I think an experiment is called for

go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, do it in the interests of science

So many variables

If you had a light shower on a thick mulch little rain would reach the soil. Or a heavy shower on a light mulch might be beneficial as the worms could come up for the moisture and take the goodness back down with them. I've put fresh grass cuttings down and seen them disappear very quickly.

I still wouldn't bother personally (in late summer/autumn). I like seeing the heavy rain, then frost/snow, on the soil and then, when it's warmed up in late spring/early summer mulch in the moisture and the warmth.

Each to their own though and autumn mulching does work in woods and forests naturally, thinking about it.

^ pretty good spambot