My soil is pure sand, so long carrots do fine; in fact, deep roots are probably better for drought tolerance.
Yeah, I chop and drop bindweed as mulch, as with all other weeds, but man, covering up bindweed does not kill it. I can cover an area with five layers of cardboard and two feet deep of wood chips, and the bindweed will manage to grow up through all of that within three months. (I’m speaking from experience here.) The stars of Bethlehem, too. Some weeds are really stubborn. The only way to get rid of either of them is to actively dig them out – and while that works just fine to remove star of Bethlehem bulbs, it only works about quarter of the time to get rid of bindweed, which has really deep roots that grow back really fast. That stuff is tough.
I would say if I pick bindweed from a specific space every single day for about 50 days straight – and it will grow back about two inches long, or even more, every single day, by the way – that might kill it. But it usually doesn’t. It usually just slows it down. By pulling out bindweed several times a week every time I see it for four years, I have managed to eradicate the least vigorous patches, which is great. But the most vigorous spots haven’t even slowed down. That weed. 