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.

That's one of the reasons I make my own mulch. It's a combo of ingredients which eventually breakdown beneficially. I've dealt with other mulches in homes we've bot which I had to remove as they were not beneficial (large cedar bark chips come to mind).

La la la Lloyd, of course husbands are good for something! They're good for all kinds of cold weather things, like jumping the car or walking for gas. They're great for dirty things---like fixing the septic pump. Disgusting things are often right up their alley. Dangerous things. They're good for that. If I heard a murderer downstairs, I would send my husband down to check it out. They're great at that kind of thing. They're great for heavy lifting. Every fall when I have to get my boat out of the water, I wish I had me one. They're great with dead things---like mice. Or live things like mice. I wouldn't want you husbands to feel unappreciated.

Temps in the 70s-low 80s. Looks like a possibilty for low 40s in a night coming up. I'm prepared to cover several items if necessary. If there's nothing detrimental to leaving the trunks I'll satnd by for a while. The 3 that show new growth appear to have 'sprouted' from just adjacent to the old 'stem/trunk'. thanx carl