Weeds, weeds, and more weeds!

I have a long, narrow flower bed for annuals between the front porch and a sidewalk that leads to the driveway. I planted it with purple petunias back in May and now I just can't keep the weeds out. It is completely crazy. The weeds pop up like someone sprinkled the whole area with weed seeds. I scrape them off and the next day they are back again. After a few weeks of that I decided I needed to take stronger action. I didn't really want to put landscape fabric down, since that area is for annuals, but I knew if I just put cypress mulch, the weeds would just grow through. I ended up doing the same thing I did in part of the garden last week--cover the short weeds with newspaper or paperbags and then put the mulch over top of that. I sure hope it works!

After lunch I did a bunch of hoeing in the garden. The weeds were taking over again. I didn't get a chance to more straw down, but I got a lot of the weeds out and re-planted some places where the seeds hadn't come up (or possible got chopped off by the hoe). It was cool today, but really humid, so I was really sweaty. I ended the task with a washdown and soak in the cool tub. Now I need to get the lower level ready for our guest from Chile who is coming on Wednesday for a week.