There are some semantic issues here that should be clarified :-) The term "ground cover" typically refers to a live plant type, one that usually grows close to the ground and/or spreads easily to cover the ground....hence the name. Pine straw, pine bark and other "soil toppings" are all considered mulches - 'mulching' is really an activity rather than a single product. There is not a single product that is generically considered as 'mulch'. Mulch is any kind of top dressing, both organic or non-organic, applied to the soil surface to reduce soil evaporation, moderate temperatures, reduce erosion, suppress weeds or otherwise cover the soil surface in a protective manner. A non-organic mulch (gravel, lava rocks, recycled rubber products, river rock) will still accomplish a lot of what an organic mulch will do yet not provide habitat for insects like termites or scorpions. But they will need pretty constant attention with regards to weeding and keeping debris out - not as easy to work with as pine straw, bark or woodchip mulch. As organic mulches go, one that is not wood-based should work -- compost or composted manures. A combination of a non-organic mulch (like gravel) immediately adjacent to the structure and then the rest of the bed filled in with an organic type of mulch (bark, pine straw, etc.) will provide for both ease of maintenance and aesthetic considerations. Or you can go the living 'mulch' route and plant ground covers :-)

There actually are some gmo seeds on the market that consumers can buy. According to Fedco ( where I get most my seed) Burpee golden beet is a Gmo? I have been growing that for years not knowing. It's germination and growth rate was slow. I now use detroit golden and golden mangel an heirloom seed. I cannot imagine that using treated seed has a noticable impact on the soil or the plant it produces. It's a religion, like Mac vs Pc. and organic is the pasword these days. I grow my stuff organically because I get free manure and I like what it does to my otherwise marginal soil. I also don't like handling chemicals and spraying them on the food I eat or give away. I use neam oil for aphids and it works ok, nothing for root maggots, just plant a few extra plants for the bugs etc. I have less than an acre in cultivation so managment is fairly easy. I also grow under various types of mulch, a winner all the way from my way of thinking. I had the opportunity to chat with a fellow that travels the world resurecting sick forests with proprietary enzymes he has created. He also tests soil and vegitbles with frequency devices he created in his labs to determine health. A healthy vegitable will sit on your kitchen counter for a long time and dehydrate, an imballanced one will rot fairly fast. It was indicated to me that some of the worst vegitable frequencies come from all chemical fertilized and all organically fertilized gardens and the combination of the two fertilezers produced the best produce, for what is is worth. The debate is likely to go on for some time.

I was an early advocate of covering the soil with organic mulches. By the mid to late 1970s, I would never intentionally not do so. Of course, many days have since passed, and I've had the opportunity to see two general trends take place. One is, what I call the annual mulching. Landscapes that get almost no reasonable care at all will nevertheless have great quantities of wood chips or bark spread around, on a yearly basis. That is, whether they need it or not. This has come to be seen by many as some kind of necessity. Even a bed of truly crap plants will have that minty freshness of new bark applied around them, even as not one person takes pruners in hand to rid the plant(s) of dead branches, etc. I'm sure you've all seen this. The second broad trend is what I call "woodchip gardens", plantings so sparsely designed that it seems the "designer's" intent was to showcase the mulch. This, my friends, is not landscaping, but some kind of monkey see-monkey do game. Then, as these incredibly overdone mulch layers are colonized by beneficial decay fungi, the entire thing begins to form a plate of impervious mycelium-colonized material. Good for placement in a compost heap, but of no value to the poor plants struggling to grow there. Still, I continue to believe in mulch, but not for its own sake, and not absent-mindedly replenished based on a calendar date or some equally meaningless point of data. And for those situations where one wishes to gain new recruits via volunteer plants showing up in the garden/planting, no mulch is best. My dear late grandmother-bless her soul-was an extremely competent and creative gardener all her life, but could not and would not allow for the ground to be covered. She actively and purposefully wanted the many hardy perennials, etc. to spread their progeny around, and she knew that for that, seed to soil contact was required. +oM

Sorry about the use of "new". It came from the site "Medical News Today"?????? This what they state: " Signing up for a Medical News Today account is FREE, FAST and SIMPLE. Join tens of thousands of doctors, health professionals and patients who receive our newsletters. Tailored for the health areas that matter to you. Daily or weekly emails with only the content you want."