Around here we have lots of hay (with accompanying weed seeds) but straw is expensive and hard to find. TL and I have acres of pine and balsam fir, but no time for bagging and hauling the needles. I use whatever I have for free or close to it: newspaper or cardboard covered with hay, sawdust from firewood cutting, woodchips, compost, stones (under the apple trees), dried lawn clippings, and shavings from the chickenhouse or a nearby boatbuilding shop. When I can get seaweed I add it to compost and also mulch with it.

I just built a new asparagus bed by piling a big mess of sun-cooked weeds (pulled up back in the springtime) in a long, low mound on top of growing weeds, a thick layer of mulch hay (damp and decomposting fast enough the hay was hot), topped with 5 layers of newspaper, compost, and appropriate amendments. I'm keeping it watered in the heat, but in another week or two I'll top it off with another layer of compost, water it with diluted fish emulsion, and mulched with shavings and chicken manure from the old chicken house.

I just wish we could water with hoses instead of my back and buckets.