Mulch Update

It's been two weeks since my grand undertaking, and I think a progress report is in order.

First, the good: my garden is relatively weed free.  It is much more attractive.  Walking and working in the garden are a breeze.  Some of the plants, notably the 4/5 yo lavender bush, have perceptibly benefited from the attention.  I'm particularly glad about that, seeing as it was a garden warming gift from PapaBear.

Now, the bad: my garden is only relatively weed free.  Now, I think I want to practice a mildly tolerant form of gardening, especially since I want to avoid non-organic weed-prevention/plant care products, and don't have the pocket book to buy organic products or the knowledge of what to buy even if I did.  So, relatively works for me.  As long as that's the way it stays.  Some repeat offenders are bramble shoots, crabgrass, and mint.  (Of all the plants I had to ignore planting instructions for why did it have to be mint?  I shall have "She should have put down a root-barrier" engraved upon my headstone.  Or tattooed across my forehead.)

Lastly, a caveat: I goofed.  I weeded that sucker on Monday the 13th, laid down what cardboard I had on Tuesday the 14th, laid down several years' worth of figure study newsprint on Wednesday the 15th, forgot that newsprint is very very light, came back that afternoon to nekked peppal all over the yard, replaced the newsprint and weighed it down with the four 1-cubic foot bags of garden soil I could afford that day, and came back on Friday the 17th with three 2-cubic foot bags and one 1-cubic foot bags of garden soil that I was able to buy that day.  Goof #1, I could already see where the weeds were beginning to grow around the cardboard/newsprint.  Goof #2, eleven cubic feet of garden soil wasn't enough.  It covered everything, but just barely. 

Ok, one more thing - it's really part of the last lastly so it doesn't even really count; it's a caveat to the caveat: I really, really hate that I bought garden soil from a chain home improvement store.  Is that a redundancy?  Chain + home improvement store?  Anyway, my point is that I would have much preferred to use my own compost, as Anna Hess did with her asparagus bed (her own compost, my ever-present on board editor says in the back of my head), but I just don't produce that much compost, and I figured buying soil this once would be better than letting PapaBear spray and rototill.  I hope to keep things nailed down enough that the total garden kill mulch won't have to be repeated and I can manage with the minimal amounts of compost that our deciduous tree-less household can produce.

So there you have it.