I'll vote for the flame weeder. But if there is part of your garden that you're not going to use for now, but you want to control the weeds, consider buckwheat as a 'smother crop'. Buckwheat needs warm weather, it usually germinates in 4 days, it grows fast, it's dense enough to smother many pervasive plants. Mow the area, scatter a goodly amount of buckwheat seed (get it from your feed/seed/farm store in bulk), water it (or sow just before a decent rain), let it grow for 4-6 wks (until it starts to flower), then either mow it or just knock it over (very brittle stems). Let it lay, seed more buckwheat into the residue, and repeat. The more times you do it, the more it will overwhelm the grass and weeds. Buckwheat can add a lot of organic matter to your soil. If you have a riding mower, a simple way to knock it down is to drag a 2x4 or 4x4 crosswise behind the mower. Pay attention and knock it down just when it starts to flower --later is not better. It's also a good method to use in fall, and just let a thick layer of it cover the soil for winter. It will help prevent other weeds from growing, and help to prevent soil loss from wind and rain erosion. By vegetable planting time in spring, you can just rake it out of your way. Just google 'buckwheat smother crop' for lots of info. Sue

grass (fresh) can and does mat into a giant plug of garbage. the nitrogen load can be an issue (Harbin you're part right, but when do you put a half-pound of fertilizer on the ground? one can easily add that much or more dried weight grass, so the excess N2 can be an issue.... that said, if you put it on green and wet my main issue has been that it can form this giant, stinky plug nothing else gets past--as mentioned, rain sloughs off it. Nothing grows through it, and things in the middle can be over-fed or suffocated by it. Grass can mulch, but too much can be a disaster. Drying it is the best solution I've seen thus far.

I have no comment on your modification other than if it works for you, great. As far as simply mulching the leaves in, I'd say if you do not have a premium stand of whatever grass they use up there, you may as well do it. My 'yard' is probably like yours. I've basically given up on it because of moles, voles and deer. The trick to mulching-in leaves is to stay at it and catch it before they cover the grass. During heavy leaf drop you'll have to run the mulcher every day sometimes. There is also an alternate method - mulch first then go back over it with the bag on. Volume of leaf material bagged is probably about 1/10 of bagging without mulching first. Not only do the chopped-up leaves take up much less space, about half of it is dust that stays on the ground. This way you have much less material to dispose of and the lawn looks cleaner and more 'manicured'. Plus, you can take the bag and deposit the leaf material around trees, shrubs and in flower beds. The stuff decomposes into dirt ten times faster than just piling up leaves. Finally, research has shown that generally mulched leaf material and mulched grass is good for lawns and builds topsoil depth and quality.

I do. If you can, try to shred them with the lawn mower. Sometimes my clumps are so thick, I can't get the mower over them. So I clip them down first and then run them over with a mower, to shred them up. Then I rake/blow the mulched clipping back on to the bed. Often times, after I've got everything shredded and raked neatly into place, I douse the entire bed down with the hose, which helps keep it from blowing around. Once its wet down, then it doesn't move much.