No not the Nitrogen

Mulch Week

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Mulch can get expensive, I'm talking thousands of dollars expensive if you're working on a large project. The cheapest price I've found in my area is $14 a cubic yard plus delivery. Depending upon where and how you're going to use the mulch you could need 10,20, or in my case 120 cubic yards. Some quick math tells us that we're looking at a minimum order of $100 plus $60 for delivery.

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Quickly you can see that the cost of mulch can run up the price of the largest or smallest garden project. There is an answer. Tree services all across the country cut trees and chip the wood and then have to pay money to dump the chipped wood at a landfill. This material is usually a mix of wood chips, small twigs, and leaf litter which all sounds like material you might find on a forest floor, a good thing.
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For many years there has been a theory that fresh wood chips would tie up nitrogen in the soil that the plants use to grow, but thanks to researchers like Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott we now know those theories are not accurate. What is accurate is that fresh wood chips are readily available act as one of the best mulches there is and may be completely free.

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What I suggest doing is either email or phone local tree services in your area to see if they would dump a truck load of wood chips on your property. If you do it now in the winter the chips will even have some time to start decomposing. Another suggestion is allow them to dump the chips off of a gravel, asphalt or cement driveway. You don't need a large truck carrying your wood chips to get stuck in the lawn. I've had great success with this and have had over 40 cubic yards delivered and it's cost me nothing but some phone calls and time.
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This is an article that explains in detail the nitrogen myth.