Cow manure is not a mulch, though it's a wonderful soil amendment. My dad grows in pure composted manure spread on top if his lawn. But if any weed seeds blow in they will love it as much as the veggies. Best cheap/free mulch I've found is newspaper weighed down with burlap. Last year I used hay on top of burlap, the hay tends to blow away and the burlap decomposes within a year, newspaper takes longer and will blow away. Ants tend to build nests under the burlap but the worms love it too, this year I pulled the decomposed burlap off and left the sides of the mounds exposed, put what little hay I had just around the plants (didn't want to hold a lot of moisture in, June was so wet), didn't replace the burlap and the weeds (crabgrass, ragweed, and bindweed) are terrible, I'm going to have a big cleanup job when harvest is done. But for strawberries the best mulch really is straw if you can find it (and I thought $7/bale was high!), in my zone I use leaves and pine boughs to cover for the winter. I got small bales of straw on sale last year after Halloween, also that's the time of year to ask on Freecycle and Craigslist too. Leaves just mold and cause mold/disease on the plants when used in strawberry bed. Pine needles might be good alternative to straw, I just don't have enough clean ones around here with the oaks and maples mixed in with white pine and hemlock.

Before you do anything, tell us where you are. You indicated zone 10. If that is the case then you are likely seeding bermuda seed. And if that is the case, STOP RIGHT NOW! Instead, you have a full month before you are going to get good germination on bermuda seed. Your soil is not hot enough yet. Even Phoenix is just now getting into the 100s during the day. Soil temps lag behind air temps so even Phoenix won't be ready to seed bermuda for another couple of weeks. Take the next few weeks to try and undo the damage you did by rototilling the soil. I'm talking about getting your fluffy soil settled back down, killing new weeds, and releveling the surface. Do that by watering deeply and letting the soil settle. Then use sand to top off the low spots and drag a piece of chain link fence on top of it to take the tops off the piles of sand. Then continue to water to settle the sand and soil. Do that at least every other day until you are happy that the soil is no longer settling. In fact your soil will continue to settle for 2-3 more years, but you did not know that before you rototilled...unless you had been reading here. Bermuda on a rototilled lawn is possibly the most unsatisfactory turf you can create. Bermuda needs to be mowed at your mower's lowest setting, but the bumpy surface will cause your mower to scalp it here and there. Those homeowners write in here ALL THE TIME. Rototilling is the cause, not the solution. The solution is to settle the soil completely, level it at the surface, and then seed your bermuda. When you seed the bermuda, you do not need anything to cover it up. You need to use a water fillable roller to roll the seed down to make good seed-to-soil contact. Rolling it takes the place of covering it with mulch. You will have the right weight on the roller when you can walk with shoes on behind the roller and not leave any foot prints. If there are foot prints after the roller, add more water to it. I walked over someone's brand new sod a few weeks ago and sunk in about an inch with every step. He's going to have a serious mess this summer. Tell us where you live and what grass you are seeding.

I've never mulched my strawberries with anything. On the other hand, they're mostly a volunteer lot, having sprung up over the last seven years due to me recognizing them as edible and not going out of my way to get rid of them. When the two years of the "Great Weed Pulling-Out" went through, the strawberries were spared. As a result, they spread. Pretty tasty. Low maintenance. All they seem to need is a bit of Sluggo starting a week before they're ripe and continuing until the berries are all gone. Otherwise the slugs get the harvest instead of me. Does mulching help?

I certainly do not have a proven success story since it is the first year strawberry that i have, but i am running into the same dilemma.. I am cutting my runners and just move a straw aside for one planting spot per runner... We shall see how it works ?? :)