Have a great invention to help with gardening? Are you the self-reliant type that prefers Building It Yourself vs. buying it? Share and discuss your ideas and projects with other members.
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
May 30, 2013 | #1 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Georgia
Posts: 8
|
Do it yourself weed barrier
I was wondering if anyone has any good ideas of a inexpensive weed barrier. My thoughts were to take old sheets and cutting them to size and laying them along the rows. Any thoughts or pros or cons to this.
|
May 30, 2013 | #2 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Oklahoma
Posts: 4,488
|
Never tried sheets. I have tried burlap for the first time this year. Was great for a while. Not so much now. Grasses poked through.
Paper and/or cardboard always works.
__________________
Scott AKA The Redbaron "Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted & thoughtless labour; & of looking at plants & animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system." Bill Mollison co-founder of permaculture |
May 30, 2013 | #3 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Jersey
Posts: 1,183
|
i surrounded my garden bed with cardboard and some spots with newspaper when i ran out of cardboard. then i soaked it with water and covered with pine bark mulch. this season my goal is to eliminate grass and weeds. next year i might utilize this space for tomatoes and try a no till method. i covered up about 5 feet on each side of the garden.
__________________
|
May 30, 2013 | #4 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Natalia, TX
Posts: 143
|
Old Jute backed carpeting
Old Jute backed carpeting, lay the jute side up, and it will last for 6-8 years.
Water will go thru it. Easy to cut, just start a cut with a box cutter about a foot long and reach down and it will tear along the invisible line that you just cut. Good place to get it. Motels and hotels recarpet rooms every few years, they let you haul all you want. |
June 6, 2013 | #5 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Snellville, GA
Posts: 346
|
Old rugs? I think the bed sheets will blow up and down and pull out of the ground in high winds. I know cuz I did it with that weed fabric and it happened to me.
__________________
Ken |
June 6, 2013 | #6 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Posts: 1,413
|
Cardboard with lots of pine straw on top of it works great!
The carpet idea is intriguing though. Do the carpet fibers eventually break down? |
June 6, 2013 | #7 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: SeTx
Posts: 881
|
Depends on your climate, I would guess, and if you get the right kind of carpet? I don't think I'd want to have to pull chunks of carpet out of my garden in a few years.
Same reason I stay away from plastic and fabric. I use newspaper under soil conditioner (partly decomposed forest products) and compost (really decomposed forest products). This year I only had to deal with weeds where I was lazy and didn't tuck the paper under the border. |
June 6, 2013 | #8 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Natalia, TX
Posts: 143
|
What you need is a Scuffle Hoe, 6' long handle, triangle shaped blade sharpened all 3 sides, slide it under the mulch, Push and Pull cuts the weeds off, just let them die.
In FL were I, grew up new orange grove growers always used a Scuffle Hoe around the young trees, that way you didn't damage the very shallow root systems citrus tree have. Terry |
June 6, 2013 | #9 | |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Natalia, TX
Posts: 143
|
Quote:
Easy to clean, and the nap can be shorter than other fibers. Terry |
|
June 7, 2013 | #10 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: PNW
Posts: 4,743
|
You could try roll roofing. Weeds won't come up through it, but water
does not pass down through it, either. The edges would have to dump the water in your rows. Out here, we have weeds that will easily run 3' underneath a weed block and then come up around the edges. (Wild Morning Glory, Creeping Buttercup, some kind of wild bent grass that is everywhere and spreads by underground roots.) Vinegar and salt will burn the foliage on the buttercup and morning glory, but it does not kill the roots, and the grass shrugs it off like it was nothing.
__________________
-- alias |
June 8, 2013 | #11 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Georgia
Posts: 8
|
Thanks for everyones help and ideas. I skipped the sheet idea and bought 3 yards of mulch. I figured I could kill 2 birds with 1 stone that way.
|
April 4, 2014 | #12 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Zone 8b
Posts: 39
|
Cardboard boxes laid flat work great.
|
April 5, 2014 | #13 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: California Central Valley
Posts: 2,540
|
Another vote for cardboard or newspaper, covered with mulch. Good for the soil, worms like it, keeps weed seeds from germinating.
I've gotten community garden plots that had landscape fabric in the paths, and it was a nightmare to untangle all the weeds from it. Ineffective and a nuisance: It holds enough water to keep the weeds alive in an otherwise dry summer. Worms can't come up through it. |
April 5, 2014 | #14 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: South Dakota
Posts: 278
|
my vote is news paper and cardboard
|
April 5, 2014 | #15 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Missouri
Posts: 407
|
Last year I laid down a layer of newspaper and put mulch on it and had no weeds at all except for a few that got through where I didn't overlap it them so well. the worst part is all the bending over
__________________
I grow a garden not just for the food I harvest, but for the creation of life itself. Johnny Cash |
|
|