or How much straw is too much straw?

I just read that some people do 3-4" worth of straw or more... I think our boys did about that today.

Straw is cheap so we got a bale today because our tomatoes needed more straw and I thought, might as well do the paths now with straw. Straw is cheap... and messy and heavy too. Since I was on mission for a toddler bed this weekend at the garage sales (which I found, yeah!) I did not get a wagon yet. Hence, our old stand-by transportation method still works...

The kids had a lot of fun with it, but it did make quite the mess.

And as I said, I think we may have gone overboard because once they started, the kids didn't stop. This is only half a bales worth. Wow! And I hear that it is still not the best weed deterrent, and I heard that there is a difference between clean straw and dirty straw... so hopefully before we laid the straw we got up a good portion of the culprits and hopefully the store sold us clean straw. Oh my!

However, it is definitely helping our tomatoes grow! That is exciting. Though as well, I am now told by another gardener (who confirmed Leslie's earlier idea) to use Epson salt in my water to help them ripen. He said his tomatoes never got red until he used Epson Salt. Where do people get these ideas from? I don't know... but if they work...

And Miriam's broccoli plant is the only one we have yet to harvest. It is growing, slowly but surely...

In other news... weeds are-a-growin! And growing and growing and growing! They are strong too and very deep. They seem to come out of nowhere. We used Preen to keep down our weed population but it is not doing a 100% job. I'd say 75%. The weeds that get through in that 25% are tough as nails.

This is our new foe for sure. The added straw will not keep them all out but hopefully do what the remainder 25% can't. The biggest bummer is weeding through mulch of any sort. That is tricky and not fun. Makes a person not want to do mulch but I think I am more concerned about our plants getting sick than weeds right now.  Once they are healthy and growing we will work on their sins, I mean, weeds.  Baby steps to a healthy garden.