I like weeding. To me it is like meditation. :)
Some small weeds with tiny shallow roots don't do much harm as they do not compete for food.

Having said that, MULCHING is the way. I like straw but they are hard to find, I use small pine bark nuggets around the garden tomatoes, peppers and on top of pots. One advantage of it is to prevent splashing and running water.
I am not talking about shredded pine mulch , BUT JUST BARK, natural, uncolored, untreated.

I'm mulching with compost this year.

Kevin

You like weeding? Lol. My garden is 5000 square foot so that's a bit much to weed. And I work at a lumber mill. So FREE bark :-)

There you go SC! Try to get it chipped to small pieces, so you can till it into the soil at the end of the season.

Kevin

I cheat lol. Tractor at the end of the year. (And start for that matter) Disk it up and then pto operated tiller.

Down here in the south we have tractors lol. Only reason I use a normal tiller is for Small areas or making smaller rows.

Down south I used to use Pine Straw. That is the best mulch I know of. It stays intact all season. Wont get soggy like weat straw , has no seeds in it and make a soil amendment at the end of season. BUT you cannot beat FREE pine bark. I buy them for $2.50 per cubic foot. I use the fines for potting and coarse ones as mulch. I get the small nugget version.

I've never used pine straw. Figured it was too light to be honest. Only bad thing about said free bark is loading and unloading the pickup. It's mountains of bark. Most of the time it stays wet.