Anyone used wet newspaper for a successful weed barrier?

[r4eboxer]

I've almost tried it all, the black landscaping weed cloth, mulch, plastic, hand weeding and tilling. I cannot get my weeds under control. This year I want to try wet newspaper. I work full time, have lots of poultry and dogs and well too many other animals and all my time is taken up. I always put in more than I can handle despite my best efforts to control myself. So what do y'all think about using the newspaper?

 

[Ridgerunner]

That's pretty much what I do in some places, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, beans, such as that. I lay down two to four layers of newspaper, then cover that with mulch, either year old wood chips that I take from my landscaping beds or wheat straw. Newspaper by itself will not work. It'll dry out and blow away.

The weeds are not that hard to pull with just regular mulch, but I find this stops them from germinating nearly as bad. The newspaper will rot and you can just turn it under here. Not sure how wet or long your summers are. Some people might get different results.

I don't use the thick slick newspaper or stuff that has a lot of color. I don't want some of the chemicals in those colors in my garden around my food.

 

[canesisters]

I use feed bags. Mine have a layer of thin plastic in the middle, with printed paper on the outside and plain brown paper on the inside (2 for the price of one ).
I stuff them in a bucket of water while I'm getting the area ready and then lay down a douple layer of the paper - followed by mulch. I have yet to need to weed an area that has been set up like this. Of course, this only lasts one year. Each year, I pull back the mulch and lay down more paper. This has worked great for shrubs and flowers. I'm hoping it will work well for the veggies too.

 

[r4eboxer]

That's pretty much what I do in some places, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, beans, such as that. I lay down two to four layers of newspaper, then cover that with mulch, either year old wood chips that I take from my landscaping beds or wheat straw. Newspaper by itself will not work. It'll dry out and blow away.

The weeds are not that hard to pull with just regular mulch, but I find this stops them from germinating nearly as bad. The newspaper will rot and you can just turn it under here. Not sure how wet or long your summers are. Some people might get different results.

I don't use the thick slick newspaper or stuff that has a lot of color. I don't want some of the chemicals in those colors in my garden around my food.

I'm glad you told me about the mulch! I'd have had newspaper all over the yard ha ha. I've got probably three dump trucks full of mulch from the power company last year cutting back the trees in our area. DH had them dump the stuff in our driveway. I wish they could have gotten closer to my gardens though.

 

[r4eboxer]

I use feed bags. Mine have a layer of thin plastic in the middle, with printed paper on the outside and plain brown paper on the inside (2 for the price of one ).
I stuff them in a bucket of water while I'm getting the area ready and then lay down a douple layer of the paper - followed by mulch. I have yet to need to weed an area that has been set up like this. Of course, this only lasts one year. Each year, I pull back the mulch and lay down more paper. This has worked great for shrubs and flowers. I'm hoping it will work well for the veggies too.

That's actually a great idea, I have been saving my chicken feed bags to make recycled shopping bags but my sewing machine needs serviced. My bags don't have paper on the inside but I bet they will work ok too.

I think with the newspaper and the feed bags I should have enough to cover most of my garden. It's going to be a long process but not nearly as long as weeding every few days.

 

[catjac1975]

When starting a new raised bed I use thick layers of newspaper to kill any grass or weeds before filling the bed with soil. I have used newspaper under mulch to help prevent weeds. I have also used cardboard and grain bags with out a plastic liner under leaf mulch. The grain bags have lasted the longest. My favorite mulch for veggies is grass clippings. It seems to last most of a season if applied thick enough. I like them best around carrots and sweet potatoes which I find to be the most difficult to keep up with in regard to weeding.

 

[Mickey328]

I've used newspaper and cardboard and even old carpet. The carpet will stay put usually, but the paper stuff definitely needs to have something on it to weigh it down.

Never thought about using feed bags...that's a great idea! Most of ours don't have any plastic in them, though, since we just get the bags of grain and mix the feed ourselves. Even so, they'd definitely work.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I used those feed bags with the three layers and the plastic inside at the end of the garden with mulch on top. I mulch between my fence and the vegggies too, and still have problems with Bermuda grass. Those feed bags kept the weeds and grass way down, but that plastic did not disintegrate. I was picking out pieces of plastic that fall. I decided to not use the feed bags again, at least the middle section that had the plastic. Then they switched feed bags to those thick plastic ones so I didn't have to worry about it anyway.

 

[ducks4you]

I've used it more or less succesfully. I just don't like it during a wet year bc I slip on it. Personally, I just like establishing a good carpet of grass between my raised beds, bc I can just mow it before it goes to seed.

 

[r4eboxer]

I've used it more or less succesfully. I just don't like it during a wet year bc I slip on it. Personally, I just like establishing a good carpet of grass between my raised beds, bc I can just mow it before it goes to seed.

I've read about not disturbing much of the grass in a large garden without beds too. They just turned up the soil a little and planted between the grass. They said that it helped with moisture by not disturbing much of the root system. That would be much easier to just run a mower down my rows. I have a large garden area or I'd be putting raised beds in too. Maybe I'll tackle that project when I retire in 30 years. :rose