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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

This discussion on mulch and weeds is a reminder that there is no one  
true model for a successful garden. The area, the climate, the soil,  
the local weather, the distance between the subject garden and other  
gardens, the wind patterns, critter population and more all  
contribute to challenges and opportunities. What works for James or  
Lisa or Bev or me may or may not work for Van Dell.

The challenge of weeds is unlimited and ongoing. I have read articles  
about compulsive gardeners who maintain gardens bereft of weeds. Or  
at least it was so the moment the photos were taken. Most who have  
gardened for a long time have developed a tolerance for a certain  
weed level. As the years pass we become more clever but also more  
accepting of imperfection. This is revealed to you by a recovering  
perfectionist.

To do successful combat with weeds one must become intimate with  
one's enemy. The first thing to internalize is that seeds do not like  
to die. They will fight it with great resources. They will lie in  
wait for years until conditions are right, then when you go away for  
a couple days will spring to a mighty height. So the first price of  
weed freedom is eternal vigilance.

Rather than smothering weed seeds to keep them from sprouting I find  
it useful to let them sprout and then pull them as soon as they are  
of a size that fits the pulling hand. Thence to the compost pile or  
chicken run or, if that is too far a walk or I am feeling lazy, I  
just toss them onto my wide grass paths, there to wilt to death in  
the sun and later violate them with the riding mower.

Thinking of those wide, grassy paths leads back to design. One of the  
great joys of gardening is playing with design. Just as children must  
make their own mistakes and find their own way, so, too, each  
gardener must find the way that works. To turn or not to turn, to  
multiple transplant or do it once, to keep an acre in rows cultivated  
by horse and cultivator or to use the intensive planting method on a  
hundred square feet, to fence or keep dogs, to flat plant or use  
raised beds, and to have those raised beds just mounds or thirty  
inches high, to attempt to feed oneself ninety percent or far less  
from the garden, there are unlimited choices.

And who would have it different? We are sovereign, independent  
homesteaders, by golly, and will jolly well do it our way.