Do it yourself weed barrier

[Nd2020]

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.

[Redbaron]

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.

[TightenUp]

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.

[SIP Gro-Tubs]

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.

[riceke]

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.

[Stvrob]

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?

[tlintx]

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.

[SIP Gro-Tubs]

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

[SIP Gro-Tubs]

Originally Posted by Stvrob

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?

No, they are Nylon. Motels and Hotels use that type the most, especially in high traffic areas, and the rooms.

Easy to clean, and the nap can be shorter than other fibers.

Terry

[dice]

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.

[Nd2020]

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.

[TexasAngel]

Cardboard boxes laid flat work great.

[habitat_gardener]

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.

[rags57078]

my vote is news paper and cardboard

[madddawg]

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