Contemplating weeding

I would like some help thinking about weeding.
I don't have a background growing vegetables, so weeding is not part of my routine. I have a yard full of bermuda grass and other winter-emergent weeds, and usually I sort of carve the weeds back temporarily in order to plant perennials, and then the weeds return.
I have been interplanting perennials among them for years and I think I have reached the point where I need to learn to weed.
Unlike woody perennials which mostly do fine once they're taller than the bermuda grass and oxalis (or at least I don't lose them while finding out whether they like the conditions here), herbacious perennials seem to need me to keep track of them and clear around them so they don't get crowded out. After years of losing specimens I am just beginning to realize this.
But I worry when I clear the ground. Won't it dry out faster? Do the emergent plants need sun or moisture? Do they need other plants to grow upon? I guess I have to start thinking about the needs of individual plants. That's a lot to keep track of. Most of them I have no idea what they need, I'm just trying them out. And I find that the available information is contradictory and largely based in some other climate.
Do I need to mulch everywhere I weed? Obtaining and carrying buckets of mulch is not a pleasant task; I'm getting fragile and slow. I don't do my own composting, the city takes care of it. And chop&drop is a challenge to do without leaving trip hazards.
And what about the areas that don't have specimen plants, just the yard itself? Do I want to try to remove some of the less desireable plants? Sometimes I just want to feel useful while sitting on the ground, without having to think too much, or be careful not to hurt the plants I want.
Right now I'm weeding out the arums. They seem like a reasonable target. There are hundreds rather than thousands, so it's possible to make a dent in them, unlike sour grass or three cornered leek. And I have no use for them. I suspect that even if I sheet mulched for years they'd be right back. But I sit there wondering why I bother. I think the actual answer is to keep my hands busy while sitting in the sun. But it would be nice to think I'm improving my garden also.
In previous years I have put wood chips on most of the yard, which makes digging out the weeds a little complicated. The bermuda grass grows thickly over the wood chips. The bulby things like oxalis and arums grow below the chips. I have to dig through several layers of different textures to get to the actual dirt and roots. I don't regret the wood chips, they are nice and moist and growing so much mycelium. But digging isn't simple.
I leave little dents in the ground that make it uneven to walk on, which is a problem. Between mulching and weeding and planting, my yard is getting more and more bumpy textured. On the one hand that's great, I suspect it's good for water soaking in before it flows to the sidewalk. On the other hand, my friends and I are in our late 70's and are getting a little unsteady on our feet, so my garden is becoming a bit inaccessible.
Have you been at this longer than me? Have you any advice? Or thoughts? Or commiseration?

Ellen,

Nature is telling you soil is not meant to be bare. There are a couple of examples of a natural monoculture, but I can't recall where. Jerry Brunetti, in his book, The Farm As Ecosystem, discusses this. What I am learning is in a farming context, but it applies to anything growing. Read recently about non-mycorrhizal weeds (lambsquarters, pigweed, etc.) and why they flourish. These type weeds get the signal to grow in a soil short of mycorrhizae fungi and likely quite rich in phosphorus. This is what we saw here in 2025, we had what I will call a "weed expression". In 2024 we planted oats and we were quite weed free through the harvest. This farm had been farmed chemically for many years until we started our organic conversion (August 2023). I made the assumption that most of the weed seed bank had been exhausted due to all of the chemical used, this was not the case. In 2025 we planted soybeans in late May and the weeds took off during the growing season. What happened between 2024 (oats) and 2025 (soybeans)? In 2024 the oats were planted around April 20 and we started feeding the mycorrhizae, this took up some of the free phosphorus and provided a quick ground cover in competition with any weeds. In 2025 we planted soybeans in late May and there was not anything growing early to feed the soil life, so the weeds came in. The quality of the crop harvested both years was excellent, so I knew we were getting close on the basic soil fertility needs. A plant tissue test in 2024 confirmed this, realized then I needed a new soil lab as the one I was using said we were short of nearly everything.

I can't recommend enough the book Eco-farm by Charles Walters (Acres USA bookstore). The chapter, The Life Of Plants, describes how it all works. Think about some companion plants for your growing area that may provide some soil life, weed control and needed fertility, be creative.

I always chop and drop unless I'm intentionally trying to remove something permanently.

I'll also cover crop areas that I want nitrogen fixers to dominate.

I think you need a nice neighbor who enjoys hauling mulch :-)

I know that's not helpful,  but I have been thinking alot about gardening into an age when my body just can't do the tasks I do routinely now. I think the goal is a food forest: by the time I can't weed, my trees with be shading out the grasses,  and I'll be harvesting fruit. Perhaps your garden beds need to evolve to ground covering perennials?

Thanks everyone.
I don't really have beds. I don't have areas that have been cleared, and can be cover cropped. I mostly don't have annual weeds, most annuals can't compete here except some grasses, which I'm trying to eradicate by helping the bermuda grass crowd them out, and nasturtiums.
(I do have a neighbor who likes distributing mulch, but he works so fast I don't have the chance to tell him where to put it.) The bermuda grass runs over the mulch and the bulbous weeds grow up through it.
(And now that I have an electric car I have to park in the driveway to charge it, so I have no room to get a chip drop.)
My plants are sort of scattered all over, working from the fence towards the center, which is open for a feeling of space. Maybe it's all one bed. More like scattered guilds. I've kind of worked down from the canopy layer through the shrub layer, and now I'm working on the ground. The area I'm trying to work with is largely the spaces around the woody perennials. I'm attempting to establish herbaceous perennials in the in-between spaces. California and oriental poppy, herbaceous and itoh peonies, angelica, skullcap, artichoke, asparagus, yampah, solomon's seal, sochan, leopard lily, elk clover, strawberry, biscuit root, yerba mansa, valerian, larkspur, western coltsfoot, waterleaf, and so on.
I'd even like some annuals but they just can't compete; the bulbous weeds come up too early and shade them out before they can sprout.
Some of the herbaceous perennials compete just fine, such as dandelion, pipevine, leather root, lemon balm, chilacayote, cow parsnip, comfrey. It's the rest I'm trying to learn how to nurture.
And I guess the question about the arums kind of boils down to whether I want to try to generally eradicate some plants I dislike in the larger area, not only where I'm establishing other plants. I'm trying to increase diversity and naturalize more native plants and edibles. Perhaps I'm decreasing the competitive advantage of the established invasives and diminshing the pool of starts available to come up where I don't want them? I guess that's my hope.

One permaculture adage is: the problem is the solution. You seem to have too much rabbit food (or cavy food, or ...). Having to feed them motivates to weed, and the droppings serve as valuable soil amendment for your crops.

Maybe it is feasible for you?