The gum leaves on the path idea seems to be working so far; my plants are still growing and the weeds on the path are mostly suppressed. I have been slowly raking up leaves from around the humpy and spreading them on the path over old newspapers and cardboard boxes. The weeds at the unfinished end of the path have grown to be the same height as the plants in the bed, but I am making progress slowly. I start by slashing the tallest weeds down with a shovel then lay newspaper over them as thickly as possible. Finally the raked up gum leaves are dumped onto the top and spread out with the shovel.

Despite the messy looking garden, I am still picking food from the space. The gum leaves seem to be slowing down the weeds enough for me to stay ahead of them on the path I have already covered. It isn’t really clear whether the leaves are allelopathic or not because the weeds are suppressed by being covered (no light) and having restricted water (the leaves make a water resistant mat) as well as any possible allelopathic effect.

My seedling raising area is powering along too. Initially I didn’t cover the seedling with a sheet, but I  soon found out that wet sand, hot sun and no shade led to cooked seeds and no seedlings. Now I have an old sheet draped over the whole thing the seedlings are just jumping up.