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.

Hi Kelli~A few years ago I found these folks and they helped me along the way as I planned my Ozarks gardens...still have so much to learn, but one thing you can count on ...they are always there for you and they are the most encouraging and supportive group on the Gardenweb! I had to to move away for a while and spent some time in the northeast and tried to hook up with those folks, but is just wasn't the same...now I am in the Pacific and where do I still go?? Back to the Ozarks (where I hope to return one day)...and I am still drawing on their sense of family and knowledge... You'll love it here and will learn a lot ...

Although it seems a tangent, bear with me: I recently purchased a stick blender for my mother's birthday, the one I gave her years ago having bitten the proverbial dust. I started research on Amazon, only to find similar sorts of problems with this small appliance as those outlined in the original post here, i.e. so many brands either got glowing reviews or horror stories for the very same product. Quality seemed to be a roll of the dice, no matter how much you paid. I finally chose a popular brand, knowing that the blender could suddenly tank, but also knowing that reviewers said the customer service was outstanding. So, if we're left with mediocrity from the more accessible electric wall oven brands (like Bosh or Electrolux vs the costy Wolf), which have been most responsive when people have had a problem? Kitchenaid seems to have failed roundly in this respect over the past few years, so even if they've solved their problems, they aren't the brand for me. Comments from the trenches?

Since we mostly DIY projects, we learned what we could about getting a concrete patio installed. One of the first things we learned that this huge of a project was not a DIY and that we would have to hire it out. I read a lot and started another thread to learn as much as I could to talk intelligently to contractors giving me estimates. I went through contractor after contractor not finding ones that really knew what I was even asking half the time. As the months went on, I just got frustrated and decided to put the project on hold till this year. My DB did help me narrow down how better to find someone...ask around for referrals (those are hard to get, since people don't usually have a lot of concrete work done twice). Anyway I've got a few. They seem better but I'm getting a lot of conflicting ways of doing it. One says they need to do rebar, another just screening. Another says wrap our deck post in plastic (these will be in the middle of the patio), another said expansion padding, another said they'd have to support the deck temporarily, add concrete to the existing footings so the supports sit on top of the new higher footings. One didn't know about step/riser ratios or correct slope ratios. I've heard you don't need road base, 2" of road base", no road, and yet some on the patio but none on the steps. I'M GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES. Why am I getting so many conflicting ways to do the same project. I realize that there are multiple ways of doing things but shouldn't there be some best practices. So far we only have 1 bid that has come in. Last year the bids came in all over the board with the highest being 4x the low and others coming in all ranges in between. All I can say is no wonder we DIY most projects. I am willing to pay the price it takes to get a good contractor in here, but finding a good contractor seems to be escaping me. What have others done that have gone before me, especially those DIYers. Here is a link that might be useful: Concrete 101