You have a friend of great wisdom, in my opinion. I agree with him wholeheartedly.

Personally, based on some years experience, I prefer shredded oak leaves and my close second choice is coastal bermuda hay. Neither one normally contains any seeds, although I do not panic if there are a few seeds that sprout and come up, they are very easy to deal with.
Bill p.

thanks Bill. I will keep it for this season, but next year I will go "au natural"

To add to Bills suggestions I also use loose alfalfa hay and grass clippings with good luck along with straw. We don't have coastal bermuda available here. I have little or no weed trouble with any of them. I use what is free and available at the time. Had two big alfalfal bales(1 ton each) break a few weeks ago handling them and then got a big rain so most of them wasn't fit to feed. So just finished putting that on the garden. Will do the ground lots of good when worked in this fall. Will add some clippings on the top now. JMO. Jay

Grass clippings user here too. And I dig it in at the end
of the year. Get double usage that way. Adds some good
organic matter to the soil. Most of it has broken down pretty
good by the end of the year.

Very useful stuff, grass clippings. Mulch in summer and amendment in winter.

I love the red plastic! It sure works for me.

wineman_gardener Quote:
"It is a pain making holes for the rain water to penetrate"

With a plastic mulch I would think a soaker hose might be more adventageous maybe an extra expense you hadn't planned on but worth it to save you the aggravation, good luck and good harvest.