You still have to spend some time on your hands and knees pulling but putting a little blood, sweat and tears into your garden helps seal the bond.
Black plastic works great. If you are trying to keep it organic and pet safe you could try distilled vinegar. Boil it then let to cool for about 5 minutes or so (temp still should be pretty warm). The put it in a spray bottle. Squirt those damn weeds. What it does it dry out the weeds all the way to the roots. Give them a few squirts and watch they die! BTW don't spay on your pepper plants. The spray doesn't know difference between weeds and pepper plants . Good Luck!
Would you like to come weed my garden? You can keep any flowers that you find and I won't even charge you for the exercise.I love weeding my gardens. The more time I can spend doing something in my gardens the better I feel. There's too many things now in my life that are running on auto. Weeding might be time consuming but ya never know whats gona come up - maybe some beautiful wildflower that you can transplant and create a wildflower garden. Good for your health too.