The truth about weed paper and little kids

As I said in an earlier post, there just isn't a better way to keep out the weeds than by covering the whole garden in weed paper. After spending one whole growing season weeding every night, we'll just never go back to that. Of course, for all that lack of work, you have to pay, right? This is the payment. A garden full of silver plastic that looks like giant trash bags. Don't get me wrong, I love not picking the weeds, but it's the paper and the rough cut holes for the plants that get me down. We've talked about covering it in bark, and I admit that would improve the appearance. But we have an 18-month old who already loves to fill her pail with whatever she can find and dump it all over the driveway. Do I really need to challenge her to transfer a garden full of bark? Look closely at the picture and think about it, too...a whole garden, covered in something that isn't dirt. And there lies the real reason for the plastic. No dirt. We can grab our little colanders and baskets, go into the garden at a moment's notice and pick the veggies of the day without getting even one speck of dirt on us that will follow us into the house. Now there's some justification I can live with.