I put cardboard, newspapers, magazines, or old carpet under my mulch wherever I can, it helps a lot. I hauled home a number of big boxes of old legal journals and magazines from work last night, those are going down this weekend where I have a quackgrass problem. My boss is going to bring me a couple of boxes of old playboys that were his son's -- his wife wants them out of the house. I told him after they are down a few months, absorb water, and the worms start working on them, it will give a whole new meaning to "dirty magazine."

Mulchheads, here is a little experiment you can do. Put a normal bale of hay and a normal bale of straw side by side. Leave them there for a year. You will find weeds and grass growing from the top. A thick mulch of this material under trees will have less weed sprouts since it is shaded by the tree. Here in Maine some blueberry growers imported Canadian straw as a burning fuel spread over the wild blueberry fields. You might think that burning would kill all the weed seeds but such was not the case and we ended up with weeds that we had not seen before. Salt marsh hay, meadow hay and leaves make the very best mulch materials. There are some others also such as cotton seed meal, apple pomace, and other ag byproducts that will break down and be beneficial. Some of you may have read stories of the famous organic farmers using hay in vegetables gardens to eliminate weeding. It may do that if you go through the garden every few weeks with a pitch fork and fluff the top layer of hay and/or keep adding thick layers of hay to block out sun light to the seeds down under there that are just wanting to sprout. There are no majic answers to eliminate weeds. Your in a fight with mother nature and you can fool her one way but she may just call in the wind to dust your garden with weed seeds. Maybe we can be like Mr. Gibbons and eat the damn things. I hear pigweed and red sorrel are good to eat! Until then enjoy being out there and weeding is part of it.

I have the Sears 42" lawn sweeper and it does rake the short leaf needles ok but if they are thick on the ground, the wheels wont turn. Oh Kevin I do. I put it all on the beds!!! When I started with this soil it was terrible! It's VERY SANDY and will NOT hold the nutrients OR water. :( I started piling the leaves and straw on the beds and you should SEE MY SOIL NOW! It's almost black. This bed hasn't been there but like 3 years now and it's much better than it was. This spring I bought the lawn sweeper from Sears and I piled the leaves high in the bed. The bed is 300' long and in areas it's VERY wide! I have been mowing 4-5 acres now for almost 19 years and it's killing me AND the lawn mowers!! So I started making beds to fill up some of the space. I am also going to plant some of those large azales to fill up more of it. lol I don't want to have to mow but like 1/2-1 acre if that. :) I figure if I can get these beds going and get them filled up with plants and ground covers I wont have to get so much pinestraw each year for them all. I will keep piling on the leaves every year and then when I want to go fishing ;) I can go dig some worms out of my flower beds. ;) Thank you all again!

lavender_lass: Your plan for using spoiled hay should work as long as you patrol for slugs & water weekly if no rain. I've used it numerous times & despite warnings about seeds sprouting I've not had much trouble with either. Straw seems to last longer, but both work. Depending on how much hay you have you might need some layers of cardboard or thick newspaper to stop the onslaught of the weeds/grass. What sprouts in the hay isn't going to be much of a problem even if only tended once a week. Either stack more hay on the sprouts or give a quick tug or hoe action & you're done. I usually run out of hay before my project is complete, so having a huge supply is a bonus! I gather the free sweepings from the feed store, so usually a mixture of straw, alfalfa & grass hay. A big bonus of this method is that next year you'll have an an easy to plant bed with fluffy soil under that hay. I found that out by accident and now know it's called sheet composting. Sure saves me time & energy from having to weed the garden. When our kids were younger they'd ask why the other gardens they'd see had 2' high weeds & my reply would be, "Needs mulch!" I wouldn't garden without it anymore. Some basic tips that have helped us with these crops. potatoes-- leave at least 2-4" green showing to keep them growing. Some varieties will produce a larger harvest with more mulch being added, but Yukon Golds don't. Still the hay mulch keeps it moist so you water less & potatoes continuously grow. pumpkins-- put a board, brick, flat rock, or even right side up Frisbee under the pumpkins to keep them drier & away from the slugs who love to hide underneath. Anything that doesn't collect water or stay damp should work. After harvest, be sure to chop up remains with a hoe or mower, then smother with more hay so you have at least a 6" layer that will be a snap to plant in the spring. Corrine