The best mulch to use is that which you can get cheap, easy and / or free. I use shredded leaves. In the fall, I blow, rake, pile all my leaves on my garden plot. The leaves set there over winter. They settle, shrink compact. In the spring, before I plant, I run the mulching mower over the leaves to shred them a bit. By the following fall, most of the leaves have decomposed into the soil, just in time for then next seasons leaf drop.

I preface this with the disclaimer that this is all my personal opinion...
(1) Won't acidify the soil. While the material itself may be acidic and maybe during the breakdown process, but everything will revert to your soil's natural ph.
(2) As long as you don't do (3).
(3) If the chips are fine and don't get buried, which is IMO the only instance that the 'chips tie up nitrogen' thing is relevant.
(4) If it's that windy, the plants would blow away before the mulch at my place!
Just water really thoroughly before laying mulch.

We use straw on our veggie gardens. We can get it cheaper than pine bark fines. We lay it on really thick for weed suppression. In the fall, till it in along with your compost if you use it. Breaks down really well and helps the soil.

Val

Cardboard and newspaper are materiasl that can be used to help make the other mulch material you may have go farther. When you lay some cardboard or newspaper down you can get by with less other material on top, 2 inches or so instead of the 4 plus inches otherwise needed. Since a mulch is layed on the soils surface there is not as much activity by the Soil Food Web to digest that material as there would be when the same material is worked into the soil as a soil amendment so soil Nitrogen is not tied up by the Soil Food Web like it would be when they go to work on this mostly carbon material in the soil.
Any mulch material can be floated away in a rain that is heavy enough and the slope of the ground is enough to allow that to happen. If any mulch material is not anchored, plants will do that, a wind can blow any mulch material off the garden. A planting bed that is located between the house and garage, which will create a wind tunnel, does not loose the shredded leaves from a very strong southwest wind because the plantsd in that bed help hold it there. If a wind is strong enough to move your mulch it is also strong enough to move your soil.
In our area of the world, where there are enough leaves that fall from trees every year, there is not much good reason to spend your money on mulches of any kind. Use the resources readily available, and often free.
Every year I see people diligently rake up, bag up, and pay someone to haul the leaves that fall from the trees and the following spring buy some material to put down as mulch to replace what they threw away the previous fall.

Thanks for the replies so far. As for the pine bark, I have been reading about high lignin content, which means it breaks down VERY slowly, thus tying up very little, if any, nitrogen. This is why I am thinking that I want to use it. I have even read that is improves structure if it is actually worked into the soil. Now, I don't plan to do that, so that's not really an important issue. My thoughts on the shredded leaves is that firstly, I plan to use them to make compost, to hand till into my soil each year, and secondly, I have read that because dead leaves are carbon, that they will indeed tie up nitrogen because they decompose rapidly. On that note, I also understand that because they would be laying on top, that it wouldn't be an issue. Also, I would be affraid of compaction to a thick, slimy mat, similar to what happened when I decided one fall to leave the leaves in my hosta garden until spring. I basically had a wet, slimy rug of leaves, which I actually rolled up to remove. I don't really want that in my garden. Also, as dopey as it may seem for a vegetable garden, looks are pretty important to me, and the pine bark fines are pretty neat in appearance. My occupation is an industrial controls electrician, where I do everything in a very neat and orderly fashion. I guess that kind of carries over to my personal life as well, so everything is always perfectly level and neat. People actually laugh at me because my garden plants are so evenly spaced and symetrical, and that I putz around in my garden literally every day, so there are never any weeds
either.

Ok, I think I've babbled enough, so anyway, thanks a lot for the replies, I really appreciate it.

Joe

Hi Joe,
I am also very tidy (anal ;-)
Check out my video(link below) of my new leaf shredder, it shows a comparison between shredded leaves and homemade compost, I think the shredded leaves look very nice as a mulch ( and boy oh boy, do they bring in the worms ;-)

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Here is a link that might be useful: Leaf Shredder

How quickly a pine bark mulch would be digested depends on which type is used and how active your Soil Food Web is. Very small particles will get digested quickly while larger particles will take much longer. I have used pine bark mulch with the largest pieces smaller than 1/4 inch and have seen that get digested in about a year. I have also put down pine bark nuggets, the smallest not smaller than 1 inch, and have seen that last a couple of years or more.
Depth will also influence how quickly the mulch is digested. An inch or two will be digested quicker than would 4 to 6 inches, most likely simply because of volume.

Because carbonaceous materials tilled INTO the soil will tie up nitrogen in the soil, for a long time I had the misconception that mulch does the same thing. However I learned on this forum and by experience that mulch, carbonaceous materials laying ON TOP of the soil, does not tie up nitrogen in the soil, except for maybe the very top layer of soil molecules in contact with the mulch. The plants are getting nutrients from the soil where the roots are, not the soil where the mulch is.

Air is 78% Nitrogen, Mulch consumes most of its nitrogen for decomposition from the air, where nitrogen is readily available.

People have varying preferences for how quickly a mulch degrades. Some people want quick decomposition of the mulch, they continually add new mulch, content that the old mulch is now organic matter in the soil. Some people want slow decomposition, so they don't have the work involved with replacing the mulch as often. IMO, The benefits of mulch are pretty much the same, whether you prefer a quick decomp or a slow one.

And a very funny SCM poster once posted: "Some people even put plants in their mulch because they think it looks nice."