Could be that we have different types of articles, like you were saying about newpapers. Authoritative ones, Best Guesses, and FAQ-type responses to reader questions. Blog posts can be used like newsletters, landing in people's email boxes. But that puts you on a posting schedule that may not mesh with the writing schedule for sustantive articles. I don't like having newsletters and blogs separately, because it's just duplicating effort and it's good to have newsletter content online somewhere anyway. As for user participation, allowing comments on articles (blog posts) definitely ups the interactive/community feeling and taps us into what people are thinking.
So, maybe it looks like this:
All communications get funneled though the blog, but are separated into different categories: authoritative articles that get indexed on the Composting 101/201 pages; informal essays that get indexed on a separate page (like "Dispatches From the Frontlines" or "Ground Level Updates" or something); and FAQ responses that get indexed on an FAQ page. New posts of any kind are delivered to email boxes as newsletters.
Then there is always a link to the store item/s, so it's always clear why we're here.
(There may be a way to turn comments on and off per post. Let me play with it.)
