what do you have in there for ground cover?
A couple of different "things".
I have a coarse mulch that's made of pine bark, that's a mix of bark from downed pines (easy to collect after the tree's down a while- damn pine beetles) and then supplemented with bagged "pine bark nuggets" from the hardware store. This stuff is general soil covering, away from the plants. It's tough and lasts several seasons. I used it for winter cover, and this year just raked it back out of the way before tilling
Between the rows, and where we'll be walking I laid down some VERY old deck boards. They're about 30 years old so I don't worry about chemicals leaching and they hold up well. With the smaller bed I have, it helps in setting my feet getting into the inner plants and I think it helps to keep from compacting the soil (we have a lot of red clay in the soil in Georgia).
Notice that I like making hills, and work in a saucer area right around the plant or seed. The saucer gets a layer of mushroom compost.
On top of that, and and on the hill itself I put down some light mulch that I'm trying this year, "brown mulch" that I got from the hardware store.
Then to fill in around the walk boards, away from the plant hills, the pine bark is used.
Here you can sort of see the different mulches:
>>> Noticed this morning we have a lot of tiny tomatoes on the plants- YAY! And we have a couple of banana peppers almost big enough to pick.
I had to become a mulchologist from necessity; we're on a well, so I can't water as much as I like. The soil definitely stays moister under the mulch. And it's a hell of a lot easier to stay ahead of the weeds with a nice thick mulch.
Here in the squash bed and you can see the differing mulch textures:
I know this fall... I'm gonna til it up... blow it full with a thick layer of leaves... just dig and plant next spring.
I haven't done that, but have wanted to. This fall I think I'll rake the mulch back into piles for next year, and then pile up fallen leaves in the bulk of the garden bed to overwinter, and then just till them in next spring.
Our "dirt" ain't great, and I have to work on improving the soil from year to year.
How's your garden doing?