lovegmc Your hubby's right, but the level of toxicity is relatively mild, but that should be enough to preclude the use of its needles for mulch. The Coastal Redwood is listed as a toxic plant on the page linked at the bottom. Its toxicity is noted to be 2 & 4 but not the others. Toxicity Class (third column in table below) 1. Major Toxicity: These plants may cause serious illness or death. If ingested, immediately call the Poison Control Center or your doctor. 2. Minor Toxicity: Ingestion of these plants may cause minor illnesses such as vomiting or diarrhea. If ingested, call the Poison Control Center or your doctor. 3. Oxalates: The juice or sap of these plants contains oxalate crystals. These needle-shaped crystals can irritate the skin, mouth, tongue, and throat, resulting in throat swelling, breathing difficulties, burning pain, and stomach upset. Call the Poison Control Center or your doctor if any of these symptoms appear following ingestion of plants. 4. Dermatitis: The juice, sap, or thorns of these plants may cause a skin rash or irritation. Wash the affected area of skin with soap and water as soon as possible after contact. The rashes may be very serious and painful. Call the Poison Control Center or your doctor if symptoms appear following contact with the plants. 5. Animal toxicity: Pets, especially cats and dogs, frequently ingest plants. If a plant is known to be hazardous to humans, it will probably be toxic for animals as well. For a list of plants which are toxic to animals, call your local University of California Cooperative Extension office and ask for Publication 21564. Here is a link that might be useful: Toxic plants -- Search for Sequoia sempervirens

I use wood mulch around my strawberries. Haven't had any problems so far. Wood mulch improves soil texture and fertility when it's broken down. When used as a top dressing (not mixed with the soil before it breaks down) it will not tie up nitrogen at root level. Someone in another forum asked about the benefits of mulch and I wrote a list of those. Most would apply here, so I will post them: Mulch would be very beneficial. It -improves soil fertility and texture when it's broken down, -prevents germination of many weed seeds, -reduces competition for food and water from grass and weeds, -reduces erosion, -helps to maintain soil moisture during dry periods, -often aids drainage by preventing surface crusting and sealing, -can keep roots cooler during hot summer weather, -can help to moderate soil temperature fluctuations, -reduces frost-heaving, -reduces certain soil-borne diseases by preventing soil and fungi from splashing onto foliage, -prevents damage from mowers and trimmers, -and improves the look of the landscape.

Shelley, You can use any organic (i.e. once living) material including leaves (preferably chopped or shredded so they won't pack down into a flat mat of hardened leaves), grass clippings, straw, haym, etc. If you put the paper bags under any of those materials, the paper bags will keep the weed seeds in the soil from sprouting and growing up through the mulch. There are various ways to chop or shred your leaves. If you have a lawn mower, just pour the bags of leaves onto the ground, run over them a few times with the mower and they're all cut up into pieces. This is easier to do if you have a grass catcher attachment on the mower because then it captures the chopped up leaves for you, but even without a grass catcher, you can do it. You just have to rake up as much of the chopped leaves as you can and carry them to the garden. Another way is to put the leaves in a big rubber or plastic trash can. Fill it about half way full. Then start up your string trimmer and stick it down inside the can of leaves and it will chop them up just fine. Of, if you have or can borrow one of the leaf blowers that has a vaccum attachment, you can suck up the leaves into it. Our leaf blower sucks up the leaves and shreds them, collecting them in the attached bag. Unshredded leaves might work. It just depends on your situation. Often, though, they blow around. Or, if you have frequent rain that moistens them, they can pack down into a surprisingly hard layer that can become almost too hard for moisture to easily penetrate. When I use leaves, I rarely use strictly leaves. I normally have some grass clippings mixed with them. If you use lawn grass clippings, be sure to apply them in thin layers every week instead of in very thick layers. Very thick layers can heat up and create their own heat (kind of like compost heats up) and cook your plant roots. And, if your lawn was treated with a chemical herbicide of any sort, don't put the grass clippings on the garden. Put them on the compost pile instead. Finally if you purchase hay to use, be sure it was not treated with herbicides. There's a particular class of herbicides that we now know can persist and kill gardens even after the material they are on/in, including cow manure, has been composted. There's nothing worse than having mulch or compost kill your garden because of a persistent herbicide. Even worse, sometimes these herbicides persist in the soil for several years to such a degree that you cannot raise much, except grain and grass crops, in those spots. When friends give me old, spoiled hay, I ask repeatedly if it has been treated with herbicide. When I buy hay, I only buy alfalfa. Because it is a legume, it cannot be sprayed with those problem herbicides or it would kill the alfalfa. Since hot weather is approaching, mulching is very important both to keep the ground cooler and to help it retain moisture. Keep in mind that you don't have to put heavy mulch down all at once. I put down about an inch of mulch right after planting, then I add to it almost weekly as the temps warm up. We always catch our grass clippings, so I have a source of grass clippings year-round since we generally overseed the acre around our house with winter rye grass for additional fire protection in winter. (It isn't that green grass won't burn, because it will, but rather that it is slower to ignite and burn and that's especially true of rye grass in the cool months because it sucks up and holds a whole lot of water in its blade.) Sometimes I use a bagged product called soil conditioner as a mulch layer. It is a combination of very fine pine bark pieces and humus and I like to use it on beds that need some soil enrichment. When you use a soil amendment on top of the bed that way, it is called a feeding mulch. I still usually pile up more leaves or grass clippings on top of it. You also can use partially decomposed compost as a mulch layer, but generally you need to put leaves or grass on top of it too because weed seeds will sprout and grow in it. If you routinely shred your mail, you can use that shredded paper. Just wet it down when you put it on the bed and then put leaves or grass clippings or something else on top of it so it doesn't blow around. When I pull weeds in my garden, I just drop them right on top of the hay/leaf mulch and let them decompose right there in the garden instead of carrying them out to the compost pile. If the weeds have gone to seed already, it is better to carry them to the compost pile. Hope this helps, and am sure other folks will tell you what they do and how they do it too. Dawn

"Another question, if you plant in rows, how do you manage grasses and weeds between rows? In our limited experience, tilling regularly between the rows caused more problems than solutions. Would the weed barrier between the rows, taken up annually, be such a bad thing?" I grow many things in rows, both narrow and wide, and the aisles between the rows is where the majority of my hay mulch goes down. My goal to to eliminate the need for weeding/tilling between the rows so that is where the mulch is the thickest. I mean the base of the plants are mulched too but not nearly as thickly as the space between the rows. Decomposing poly-carbonate issues aside, weed barrier/landscape fabric is deceptive IMO. First because the build up of heat under it can kill off the beneficial soil bacteria I need unless i lay down thick mulch on top of it - which doubles the work and defeats the purpose. But also because many weeds grow right through it and rhizomes just crawl along underneath it. Plus it can be difficult to keep in place with the wind unless covered and killer-slick to walk on when it is wet. I don't need my feet flying out from under me. ;-) So a suggestion since you have the garden space to do some comparative studies - try the weed barrier down a couple of your aisles and really thick cushiony layers of organic mulch like your straw and shredded leaves down a couple of other aisles and see which works best over-all for you. Dave