I have no idea what is appropriate in your area but I use a mix of pine bark mulch and concrete sand - about 2 or 3 parts mulch to sand. It packs down nicely and looks natural in my mostly woodland garden - but then I have a damper climate and it might not work so well in your drier one. We have one little dog only now but regularly dog-sit (there are two large visiting dogs here at the moment). When they race around the paths, they do sometimes leave launch gouges and skid marks that need raking flat again afterwards but that is easy to do. I would agree with bahia that mixing the mulch and stones would not be a good idea - I think the dogs - in a flat out run - could lose traction and hurt themselves when the surface changed so abruptly.

The issue Nancy describes of making the beds accessible is not unimportant, and that is why it is handy to have a garden cart that is sized to run over the beds. Some carts have a set of legs in front that don't permit this, but there are others that do, and it's not hard to fabricate something that will work. If you go to the Carts Vermont website and look at the different leg configurations between the medium and large sized carts you will see what I mean. Two wheeled garden carts aren't always a better choice than wheelbarrows, but in many cases, including capacity and balance, they are a vast improvement. In intensively gardened hoop-house operations they are an excellent tool. Both Eliot and I use drip and spray irrigation. The hose you see in the picture is a thin tube that runs from a larger feeder line, and the head is designed to create a fine circular spray pattern, for some crops, these are a good choice, but it is important that you are able to ventilate properly so the foliage doesn't remain wet for too long. With a little experimentation you will discover what height and pressure will allow you to irrigate the beds but keep the paths relatively dry... this all started with the paths, remember? Sprays also offer more cooling effect, which can be a real advantage when the greenhouse is hot but the outside air temps are colder than one would wish, so ventilation for cooling purposes is less than ideal. Drip irrigation is better for less dense plantings, where you have water emitted for individual plants. You can set up your sprayers with a quick-connect system that alternates with the drip tape, or you can install a Y-fixture with shut-off valves, or you can get much more elaborate. Timers are definitely handy. If you use drip irrigation, you will frequently have to remove it when you are doing certain chores. I generally just lift the far end and pull it over one of the support bars that form the roof trusses over the beds. When I'm ready to put it back I just stretch it back out over the soil and pin the end with a wire anchor to keep it in place. In winter, your will need to do very little irrigation - air and soil moisture levels are typically much higher, and transpiration rates lower. This is good, because it means your less likely to be experiencing the joys of frozen pipes. When you won't be using the drip, it is best to drain it and store it away from sunlight and extreme temperatures, and it will last for years. I prefer the perforated tape to the "weeping" hose, but your mileage may vary. If snow is an issue, and especially wet heavy snow, you may want to explore the possibility of having two layers of plastic with air blown in between the layers. This reduces light transmission slightly, but it provides a lot more insulation and adds a surprising amount of strength. Because the greenhouse stays warmer, the snow slides off more readily, and you will spend less time removing it. The best method I've found is to use a nylon-bristle broom to brush off the snow from the inside. Outside the greenhouse, it is good to leave a layer of snow up against the foundation, it actually provides good insulation, but you don't want it too high, because it puts a lot of pressure on the plastic. You must be VERY CAREFUL when shoveling anywhere near the plastic not to tear it, and should keep a roll of repair tape handy (but don't let it freeze). Somewhere towards the back of the Winter Harvest Handbook there's a picture of a bunch of people in one of Eliots' greenhouses amongst a swath of fabric row covers - I think it's on page 198, but my copy is loaned to someone right now, so I can't be sure. Among that crowd there's a guy standing off to the side with bushy hair and blue jeans and a white sweater vest, looking down at the ground - that would be me. The link below is to some quick-connect fittings that are durable and don't leak. They aren't the most affordable ones, and there is likely a cheaper source - I use this company for woodworking tools - not cheap, but excellent quality products. Here is a link that might be useful: quick-connect hose adapters

I'm a believer in 'Do what works' and garden around all the inconveniences of country life. My garden evolved years before I came along here. Some of the changes were so small, like making the driveway circle around in front of the tractor shed instead of going up a little slope that always washed out in a hard rain. It took months of constructive staring to figure out that simple change, and about half a day to change the drive, fill in the wash and plant centipede grass to stop the erosion. The nice tree line at the north side used to be a pasture fence. When DH was having some bulldozer work done some 20 years, I suggested leaving the young established trees that had come up in the fence row. Now we have three mature pecans, two deciduous oaks, and a live oak. I curved on around toward the back with two shrub islands with crape myrtles and loropetalum with a space in between wide enough for a tractor to glide through. There's a field road on the outside with fruit trees beyond. Everything is planted with an eye toward mowing. Another garden point is the space under nut trees. You can't pick up pecans in a shrub bed, but spring daffodils are gone underground when pecans fall. Thank you for all the nice things you've said about my garden. It's a place for an old lady to play and the dog and cat to roam with the birds and butterflies. Did I tell you all that Buffy treed a raccoon the other day? She also caught a squirrel, whose remains I gave a decent burial with the cat in attendance. Nell

I'm talking about rocks. My soil is very rocky, and over the years as I've worked on it, I've dug up tons of them. many are very large and quite flat, so I can definitely see them as being appropriate stepping stones. I guess my thought was that, since the paths in question are already mulched with cardboard and on top of that, wood chips,the chips would help do the "bedding in" job. Maybe it would work???