How to avoid weeding the garden!

[WillaD]

[quote=NIGHTB1022;2011338]Yep, here you go:


Pictures by nightb1022 - Photobucket
I think I did that right.

I take a lot of pics throughout the growing season, then during the winter I go through all of my pics and decide what plants have to be moved or divided. It also helps me the next year because I have so many plants and the beds fill in so tight, I can then tell in the next growing season if I have lost anything over the winter.

you have a beautiful lawn and garden,congrats

[BARGINSHOPS]

A lady at work told me that she (last year) used the black landscaping material to cover her hills. She covered the garden completely and either put a slit from one end to the other on each row or "X"ed an opening where she was going to plant . This material lets water through but I am wondering if it would really work or just cause more problems (ie mold or something).

Has anyone tried this in place of paper? How well do you think it would work? I plan on trying it unless anyone can convince me not to

[uummm]

We have used the landscaping material and it is a pain. We had a problem keeping the mulch on it my neighbors had it on the hill on the side of the house and the black stuff was always showing through.

I used the newspaper and it worked PERFECTLY! Well, atleast it did where I put the mulch on it. I tried putting a thin layer of dirt on the other side of my house and the weeds grew in that thin layer of dirt. Though I don't think I had 10 layers of paper down it was more like 4-6. A month later we used it on the other side of the house with my tomato plants and a drip hose under it and it worked like a charm. The only spots a weed popped through was where the paper wasn't close enough to my house or right by the plant itself (the weed came with the tomato plant!). I have been saving our papers since last fall so I can do this again. Beats paying for the landscaping fabric.

[NIGHTB1022]

Either use newspapers or straw all around the garden very heavy. Thats what my sister in law does with her veggie garden and she does a huge one. They do the straw not only for weeds, but when it rains it keeps the mud down and they are able to walk through it still without piling mud up all over their shoes. In the spring, they just till it all in and start over again.

[WillaD]

i agree,newspaper is the way to go,it was a lifesaver for me last yr,no weeds
in the middles of the rows at all,had a few near the base of the plants but
when the veggie plants got big they smothered out the weeds,i had extra
garden soil i put that on top of the newspaper to keep in down,worked
great