Interesting comments. I'm still looking for that "perfect" mulch. My 2 strawberry beds are doing well for the moment. Last year - as mentioned above, the straw mulch I put down during summer, became a haven for bugs - mostly pill/sow bugs. I managed to get a fairly good sized handful of berries every morning from my 2 small patches, but shared with bugs too. This year, I tried a different approach. As I've been shredding newspapers and making worm compost - when the compost was ready to harvest, with bits of paper in it, I spread it on the berries. So far, few bugs, but of course, the berries are just beginning. Of note, I have a lot of lizard hatchlings this year, and many scamper in and out of my planter boxes. I'm not sure whether they are keeping the bug populations down - but haven't seen too many. As with so many other introductions to the organic way of gardening, I can only hope that they will continue to be listed as "friendly" rather than "also rans" as so many other introductions have been. In the meantime, I too, am looking for that "perfect" mulch. One other consideration for me here - might be the use of landscaper cloth. Moisture and air can get through, keeping soil spash, bugs (hopefully) underneath. I doubt the black plastic would be of use - as the heat beneath it during summer, would most certainly cause the berries demise. I use it mainly to heat up the compost pile - it does a great job in that capacity. I am growing 3 different varieties. Tri-Star - (impression - poor yields - not a good berry for Ca.). Camarosa (impression - purchased from local berry growers last year - very hardy, nice, large berry - forming now - but a bit hard - tasty though). Sequoia (impression - plant usually sold here in nurseries as best for our climate. Fairly good blossom set - not as hardy as Camarosas). All are still in the forming stage, with hopefully better yields than last year. Camarosa out-performing now. Just my 2 c's. Bejay

I use a leaf blower or three pronged cultivator. The leaves are pulled or blown on the grass, allowed to dry for a day, and then run over with the garden tractor using mulching blades. A few passes turns them into very small particles that soon disappear into the lawn. Leaves that hang on to large nasty thorny shrubs are pulled out with my goatskin glove protected hand or picked from the thorns using a pair of 12 inch tweezers. Here is a link that might be useful: 12 inch garden tweezers

For what it's worth, here's what I do to my vegetable garden. I don't bring anything from elsewhere, I use what I have in my own yard. I don't use deep mulch anywhere, as I also agree it would get in the way. Every time I mow my lawn during the growing season, I spread the clippings between my vegetables and some of my flower beds. If I'm in the mood , I sometimes add a thin layer of my chopped leaves saved from the previous year and then water a bit to keep them from blowing away. The grass clippings have kept the weeds down and appear to hold moisture even during the hottest times. As soon as one crop is finished and pulled, I start composting my kitchen scraps directly in the vegetable garden. As each crop is finished, I start my trench composting in that area also. Each time I add something, I use a garden fork to stir it around a bit, and then make sure it's buried. To heck with putting all my stuff in the compost bin, waiting, and then having to shovel it onto the garden anyway. This saves me a step. Just to make sure it was working, I dug up some of it in September, about a month after burying it, and there were no visible pieces. Once fall comes along, and there's dry leaves all over the place, I mow my lawn, dump the bag into a row, mow over it to chop the leaves more, dump, and mow again until the leaves are finely chopped. I throw a thin layer all over the lawn and then I dump most of the remainder on my garden and basically semi double dig the garden to incorporate my mixture into my clay soil. The next time I mow, it's primarily dry leaves, so I chop them up in the same manner, and dump a thin layer all over the garden and flower beds. I keep 2-3 big garbage bags full of dry chopped leaves to use in the spring and summer of the following year. My clay soil is easier to dig than last year and I have no reason not to believe it'll be better year after year :) I'm confident that as I age I'll be digging less and less. Keep in mind that I have the time to do all this and it may seem like a lot of work. Good luck with whatever method/methods you choose to experiment with.

I'm still learning how best to deal with the natural leaf "mulch" we get in late fall as a result of being surrounded on all sides by trees. Here is what the yard usually looks like in late November, and the last couple of years I've let it go for the season and then gone out in late winter/early spring to uncover the crowns of any plants that are suffocating. Some of the leaves are about the size of my hand (not sure what kind of tree it is that they fall from) and I know some of the perennials don't appreciate it. I think I lost the geranium (Rozanne) I planted in the fall as a result of its being matted under leaves. Also found quite a few slugs in the leaves this year...ick. In another few weeks they'll all go into the compost. schoolhouse, hopefully your bulbs are on their way. Most of my tulip nubs are still tiny, about an inch or so.