So the site for my first garden finally dried out enough to till (or close enough) and with a massive amount of backbreaking labor - I may never rise from this couch agan - I now have a be-yoo-tiful set of wide raised rows/beds. (6 3' x 14' and 2 1.5' x 30' in a 20x30 area)
{{gwi:47135}}From Garden Pictures

But the heavens, not content to stop plaguing me, are planning to dump another 2+ inches over the next day or two. Are my painstakingly constructed beds going to wash away? As you can see, they're not edged, and I have no plans to do so this year. I wouldn't be as worried if they'd had a chance to settle in, so to speak, but that's not the case.

So the plan is to finish screening the 5-yard load of free town compost I got (about half of it is already incoporated into the soil, but screening is hard work!) and spread that on top of the beds, cover with newspaper, plant and mulch with leaves or straw.

Should I hustle out there tomorrow and get the newspaper down to prevent erosion of the beds? And if so, is there a downside to putting the rest of the compost on top of the newspaper? Would I have to pull it back up to put the compost down? (I assume any weeds sprouting from the compost would be fairly easy to pull,but I don't know if the worms would get to the compost and the nutrients would get to the plants as well.)

Any advice would be appreciated, preferably before the monsoon! :)

~Emily