I'm on your side....vegetables grow better when they are not competing with
weeds. However, from my early days of gardening, I know what it's like to
be confronted with a garden full of weeds, and not feel the motivation to
pull all of them. Far better to get a handle on them early in the season.

I now keep a permanent mulch on my veggie beds. I use mainly straw, with
some grass clippings, compost, and leaves as well. I pull it back to plant,
then push it back around the plants as they grow. I get only the occasional
weed, which is easy to pull. And the soil benefits from the continual
breakdown of organic matter. The only downside to a permanent mulch is a
larger slug population, but now that I've discovered Sluggo (non-toxic slug
bait) it's not much of a problem. And because I don't till or dig it over
each year, I'm not turning up new weed seeds.

Newspaper works well, especially in a new or particularly weedy garden. You
need to put something on top of it--straw, grass clippings--to keep it from
blowing away.

Cheers,
Sue

Zone 6, Southcentral PA

"Guppy21014" wrote in message
...
My roommate says weeding is not a requirement of a good garden. I on the
other
hand can't find the plants due to the very healthy weeds surrounding
everything
else. I am not much of a gardener (but I am the designated harvester) and
I
thought I would check out my possible incorrect thoughts about weeds. 1)
Weeds take needed rain away from the vegetble plants. 2) Weeds will
steal the
nutriants in the soil away from the vegetable plants. 3) Just mowing
between
the rows does not benefit the vegetble plants as much as pulling the
weeds. 4)
Mulching with newspaper or something like that would be beneficial.
Anyway
any opinions regarding the Zen of weeding your vegetable garden would be
appreciated. TIA