Mulch. What more can I say? I love it. Especially when I can get it for free. It's right up there with compost. Long story short, the ground where my garden is was a lawn just a few months ago. The mowed grass was growing in rocky clay, and that was the "soil". Obviously, options were limited. I could have tilled, but that can disturb micro-bacteria and fungi that are beneficial, so I chose mulch. There is a place nearby that gives it away by the trailer load, and I had some trailers at my disposal. I fenced in the area that I wanted to garden in with T-posts and cattle panels (that way I can move them later and reuse them elsewhere. Then I basically covered the ground with newspaper and then mulch. Unfortunately a lot of the grass is Bermuda Grass, a recent nemesis of mine, but overall my plan of attack is working. To plant in my level mulch-pile I simply removed the mulch to expose the newspaper and then filled the hole with either topsoil, super-dirt, or compost. This allowed a barrier to still deter the old lawn and gave the freshly planted seedlings or seeds a good medium to grow in. Eventually their roots will pierce the newspaper and continue down, getting minerals and nutrients from the clay filled "soil" beneath, but the young plants would have far less labor to invest initially. Now, wherever the weeds pop up, I can just rake back the mulch and get to more of the root, rather than just breaking off the top.
New weeds, even Bermuda Grass are very easy to spot against the brown color of the mulch.
The more quickly these new weed sprouts are eliminated the more quickly whatever root system will run out of energy and die. The mulch will also continue decomposing and eventually turn into topsoil, and serves as a great water retainer for the plants as well.
If you don't know of a good local free source for mulch, try contacting a tree-cutting service company. They often will chip a lot of branches, leaves, shrubs and trees and many don't mind dropping loads off if you are somewhere convenient for them.
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