The beauty of drip lines in an arid climate means no weeds except the few that grow right around the plants, so they are easily managed. I wanted to experiment with pine needle mulch, but my husband thought they would just blow around the yard when our strong winds pick up. In years past we have used plastic mulch, but last year had a broken drip line which flooded our plants while we had no idea. They suffered much before we realized it, and were only able to get a fall harvest after removing all the plastic so that the plants could dry out. I didn't want to deal with that this year, but you are right, some sort of mulching would be helpful. We tried woodchips on our strawberry rows, and that looks very nice, but it is hard to keep them where they belong with 4 young children!
